Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 18

A Thousand Years plays like a secret. The notes drift across the salt-touched air—familiar, tender, impossibly delicate. The kind of song that makes everything feel like it’s on the edge of something important.

The night wraps itself around us in shades of navy and gold. Stars blink awake overhead, while the last stretch of sunset still blushes faintly along the horizon. I stand at the edge of it all—barefoot, breath held, wrapped in a dress as white as seafoam. The hem flutters around my ankles. The sand is still warm beneath my feet.

James stands beside me in his white beach shirt and linen pants, hair tousled by the breeze. He looks like he belongs in a commercial for cologne or coconut water—effortless, glowing, and golden. When he smiles at me, something tightens in my chest.

“Wow,” I whisper, looking at the flickering candlelit table before us. It’s tucked beneath a sheer canopy strung between four wooden poles, mesh cloth dancing like whispers in the wind. Tiny seashells and rose petals dot the sand around the table like stars scattered in reverse.

James slips his hand into mine. “You think they’ll like it?”

“They’ll love it,” I murmur, fingers tightening around his.

He looks at me for a moment longer, and I see something flicker behind his eyes. Something that says maybe, something that says almost. But this moment—it’s not ours.

We sit on the bench behind the dunes, half-hidden, like stagehands watching a show we built with our own two hands.

This isn’t for us.

It’s for them.

Tim steps into view first, slow and uncertain. He’s wearing the shirt Matt helped him iron three times, just in case. His hands tremble slightly—he’s holding a single pink rose. His eyes scan the table, and then land on her.

Inez.

She walks beside him, her curly hair tied up loosely, pieces falling around her face. She’s in a sundress the color of tangerines and dawn, and even in the dim candlelight, she glows.

“What... what is this?” she asks, stopping in front of the setup.

Tim’s voice is tight when he says, “A dinner.”

“For who?”

“For us.”

Inez blinks. “Tim... what is this really?”

He hesitates, then pulls out the chair for her. “Can we sit? Please?”

She looks at him for a moment, wary, but she sits. He takes the seat across from her. There’s a silence between them at first, stretched and unsure. James leans forward slightly beside me, watching.

I don’t breathe.

Tim speaks first.

“I know I’ve been... hard to read,” he says slowly, as if every word is being weighed. “I’ve been pulling you close, then pushing you away. And it’s not fair. I know that.”

Inez crosses her arms loosely, her gaze steady. “Then why do it?”

Tim swallows. “Because I was scared. Of messing this up. Of not being enough.”

Her eyebrows knit, but she stays quiet.

“Inez... you’re like this fire I didn’t expect. You walk into a room and suddenly the room matters. And me—I’ve always felt like background noise. I’ve never been someone who says the right thing at the right time. But with you... I want to learn how to be.”