Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 15

I blink twice at the screen, then a third time just to be sure.

James Gray: 87%.

Eighty-seven. That’s twelve points higher than the last time,  the one that made his dad slam the newspaper down on the table and mutter things he didn’t mean, or maybe did.

I should feel proud, and I do. But there's also this quiet guilt tugging at the hem of my joy. Like I’d used his desperation to feel like I mattered. Like I took shelter under his effort, made a home out of his need to be better, just so I could feel better, too.

But for now, I let myself be selfish.

Just for today.

I let the joy wrap around me like a borrowed sweater. Warm, a little too big, but comforting in a way I can’t explain.

Then I hear it ---
that voice I’ve come to recognize before I even register the words.
Low, teasing, a little smug, but only because it’s earned the right to be.

“Pack your sunscreen, Betty. You and me---we’re going to the beach!”

Before I can reply, James lifts me clean off the ground. His arms circle around my waist and I’m spinning--- the hallways blurring into smudges of color, my laughter echoing down the tiled floor. He puts me down gently, his grin the size of summer.

I’m still catching my breath when a dry voice cuts through the air like chalk on slate.

“No sex inside the school premises, please.”

Mr. Oxford, of course.

Deadpan. Holding his coffee cup like it’s the only thing keeping him sane.

James and I freeze. Then we burst out laughing, completely guilty of nothing and everything all at once.

But just like that, something inside me slows. Because as we return to our homeroom, his words,  the beach, sunscreen, us, pull something from the back of my mind like a ripple in still water.

I remember.

That night.

The first time we went to the beach.

The stars were bruised into the sky like fingerprints. The water mirrored the moon in quiet glimmers. There was sand between my toes, salt in my hair, and James beside me,  his voice lower, slower, as if the sea itself had asked him to whisper.

James laid a checkered blanket and we sat down, shoulder to shoulder, talking about nothing in particular, the kind of talk that’s just an excuse to stay near someone.

Then the silence came.
The kind that isn't empty.
The kind that hums.
His eyes found mine in the dark, and I could feel it,  the nearness, the possibility. The almost.

He leaned in, not all the way, just enough to feel the weight of a choice being made.

And then,

“No sex on the beach please”

A flashlight cut through the moment like lightning across calm skies. The tanod’s voice came sharp from the dunes, and we scrambled up, laughing, hearts racing, adrenaline tangled in our limbs. James grabbed my wrist and we ran back to his car, both of us breathless, not just from the run.

He never tried to kiss me again that night.
But the almost stayed.
Like sea air clinging to skin.

And now, here he was again.
Saying the word “beach” with that same kind of hope.
Like he remembers, too.

The day drifts gently into lunch, like a feather settling onto a table, unannounced, but expected.

By now, it feels almost natural.
Inez and I heading toward James’s table like it’s some kind of new choreography we’ve quietly memorized.
Slide in. Sit down. Smile like we’re not overthinking it.