Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 20

I kept going. Talking about everything and nothing. The glow of the park lights. The way the trees looked like shadows in the mist. The lone swing squeaking in the distance. The row of half-dead flowers by the fence that somehow still bloomed.

He let me talk. Let me perform. Let me pretend.

We reached the old acacia tree. The one by the bench that curved slightly at the back, like a tired old man slouching into the night. We sat down, side by side.

Without a word, James pulled out his earbuds and stuck one into my left ear. He wore the right. His playlist was already open. No warnings. Just music.

“Line Without a Hook” by Ricky Montgomery filled the silence.

That first pluck of guitar. That soft, aching tone in the voice. It settled over us like a blanket that didn’t really keep the cold ou, but made you feel a little less alone.

James didn’t say anything. Just kept holding my hand.

I let my head fall to his shoulder. The cotton of his shirt felt warm, familiar.

“Hey,” I whispered. “This song’s kind of… sad.”

“I know,” he said.

A pause.

“It’s beautiful, though.”

He nodded.

For a while, we just sat there. Letting the music carry us. Letting the night feel like a slow, delicate memory in the making.

A man passed by, pushing a cart with pink clouds spinning in a plastic dome.

“Cotton candy?” he asked, cheerful. “One for your girlfriend, sir?”

We both laughed.

James shook his head. “We’re not---”

But the man was already walking off, humming to himself.

I looked at James. “Did you hear that?”

“We must look like a couple,” he said.

“Do we?” I teased.

He didn’t answer right away. Just looked at me. The kind of look you can’t hold for long without unraveling.

Maybe I should’ve said something. About how heavy my limbs felt. About how my smiles tonight had blisters under them. About how this brightness I was forcing had started to ache, like a muscle pulled too tight.

But I didn’t.

So I just leaned into him a little more.

And we kept listening. Holding hands beneath the acacia tree like two people learning how to love with quiet hands and borrowed songs.

We walked back slowly.

Not the slow of lovers trying to prolong a perfect night---this was something else. Something heavier.

James still held my hand.

He didn’t swing it like he usually did. Didn’t joke, didn’t tug me toward the streetlights like a child chasing fireflies.

No, this time he just held it.

Firm. Careful. Intentional.

Like I was something fragile. Like letting go even for a second would mean I’d disappear.

Maybe he was right.

Because with every step I took, I could feel it---this quiet breaking inside me. A slow detachment, like the soul peeling away from its own body. I was still smiling, still breathing, still walking in rhythm with him, but… I wasn’t really here.

I was slipping.

And I think… deep down, he knew.

That’s why his grip was so tight. Not possessive. Not demanding.

Just scared.

Like someone holding a kite string in a storm, feeling it strain in the wind, knowing that if he lets go, it’ll be gone.

But he didn’t know that the kite was already drifting. Already flying too high, too far, too quiet.

And I didn’t know how to say it. That I wasn’t sure how much longer I could pretend the sky felt like home.

He opened the car door for me.

I smiled again. My performance was still flawless. My act intact.

“Thank you,” I said like a girl on a normal date.

He smiled back. “You’re welcome, B.”

And then we drove off into the dark.

He didn’t know I was fading.

And I didn’t know how to tell him that some part of me had already gone.
That night, I cried again.

No screaming. No sobs loud enough to wake anyone. Just that quiet, exhausting kind of crying---the kind that drips out like the faucet you forgot to tighten.

I sat there on the edge of my bed, in the same gray blouse I wore to dinner, the same denim jeans now wrinkled from the night. I stared at the drawer.

The same drawer.

I reached for it---halfway---and froze.

My fingers trembled above the handle. Hovering. Suspended.

I couldn’t open it. I shouldn’t.
But I wanted to.
God, I wanted to.

I backed away like it burned me, curling under the sheets, my pillow catching the tears I couldn’t hold anymore. My throat sore from the silence I kept.

Because even in the happiest moments---with James laughing beside me, our hands intertwined under the acacia tree, cotton candy sweetening the air---there was a hollowness that echoed.

Like I had sealed myself inside the same jar I used to lock my sorrow away.
And now I couldn’t feel anything at all.

---

Morning came.

Blue light filtered through my curtains---cool, colorless. The sun shone, but it didn’t feel golden. It felt pale. Like the warmth forgot how to touch me.

I got up without thinking.

Showered.
Brushed my teeth.
Put on clean clothes.

Then I went downstairs, barefoot, and made coffee. Set the table. Wiped the counters. Picked up things that didn’t need picking up. Rearranged things that didn’t need rearranging.

I moved like clockwork.

Like a wind-up doll trying to outrun the quiet.

I was humming when I heard my dad's footsteps on the stairs.

He paused.

And when I looked up, there he was---standing at the bottom, his face stiff with worry, the way it was right after Mom died. Back when I scrubbed the tiles with a toothbrush just to feel something. When I smiled too brightly. Talked too fast. Cleaned too much.

He stared at the table. The mugs. The eggs in the pan. The smell of fried garlic in the air.

“I cooked, Dad,” I said, smiling too wide.

He didn’t respond right away. Just walked over slowly.

“You’re up early.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” I replied, flipping the eggs. “I thought I’d be productive.”

He didn’t say it. But I knew he knew.

That I was slipping back into that rhythm of pretending.

That the brightness was a little too forced.
The stillness, a little too sharp.

But he let it be. Sat down, picked up his mug, and drank the coffee.

And I stood there, spatula in hand, performing normalcy like it was a sacred ritual.

Because I didn’t know how to stop.