Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 10

The street is quiet, the kind of quiet that makes you feel like the whole town’s holding its breath. Our new neighborhood still smells like fresh paint and unspoken stories, a strange blend of cigarette smoke, car oil, and bougainvillea from the neighbor’s yard. I stand under the dim porch light, hoodie zipped up to my chin, arms wrapped around myself like armor.

James’s car pulls up slowly, headlights sweeping across our front yard like a lighthouse beam scanning for something lost. I hear the familiar creak of his brake pedal as the car stills. He doesn’t honk. Doesn’t text. He just waits.

I linger a second longer, wondering if Dad’s watching from his bedroom window. If he’ll ask where I went later. If he’ll even remember I left.

The window rolls down with a hum, and James leans his arm on the edge of the door, smirking. “What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation?”

I let out a breath that turns white in the air. “Patience is a virtue, Gray.”

“Good thing I’ve never had any,” he says, tapping the steering wheel.

I cross the small patch of lawn quickly, hugging my arms tighter. The car door groans as I open it. Inside, it’s warm, the vents humming, faint traces of fast food grease and cologne lingering in the air. His cologne, cedarwood and something sharp underneath, like citrus and rebellion.

He doesn't say anything as I buckle in. I don't either. The silence isn’t awkward. It’s just there. Like we’re both waiting for something to crack.

The car slides back onto the road, and I watch the houses drift by through the window, old ones with crooked porches, new ones trying too hard to be charming, all washed in the same pale gold of sleepy streetlamps.

James glances at me once, then taps his phone. “Alright. You’ve been walking around like someone killed your cat and your childhood dreams in the same day,” he says. “Time to exorcise the sad girl.”

The speakers thump. Then it hits me.

Taylor Swift.

Shake It Off.

I blink, turning to him. “You didn’t.”

He grins wider. “Oh, I did.”

The beat bounces out of the speakers,  sugary, ridiculous, bright. The kind of song you’re not supposed to like but somehow always know the words to. I sit stiff for a moment, lips pressed into a flat line, but my foot’s already tapping against the floor mat. I glance at him. He’s not looking at me, but he’s waiting, I can feel it.

So I give in.

Quietly at first. Barely a whisper:

“I stay out too late... Got nothing in my brain...”

James doesn’t say anything, but I catch his smile growing at the corners.

“That’s what people say... mmm-mmm... That’s what people say...”

The words bubble out of me like soda fizz. It’s stupid. It’s perfect.

By the chorus, I’m half-shouting:

“Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play---”

And when the rap part comes?

I straighten up. Clear my throat like I’m on stage. James chuckles but doesn’t stop me.

“Hey, hey, hey! just think while you’ve been gettin' down and out about the liars and the dirty, dirty cheats of the world,
You could’ve been gettin' down to this. Sick. Beat.”