Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 29

Cookies and cream for him, his childhood favorite, he said it's the flavor he used to go to when everything tasted confusing. Strawberry for me. Not because I wanted it. Just because it was easier than thinking. Once, I introduced him to new things. Flavors he never tried before. Tonight, I just needed us to be simple. I think that’s the first time I realized, sometimes love isn’t about lighting someone up. Sometimes, it’s just about not burning out.

It’s a warm night. The kind that sticks to your skin. Crickets hum in the distance, and the streetlamp above us flickers every now and then like it can’t decide if it still believes in its own light.

James licks his cone slowly, deliberately. I know he’s embarrassed. He hasn’t looked at me much since we sat down, just stares at the pavement like it might forgive him. I rest my chin on my knees and look up.

The stars are out tonight, bright, scattered, messy. Kind of like us. Some clustered, some lonely. Some pulsing just a little brighter than others.

“I used to wish on stars,” I say suddenly.

James glances at me. “What’d you wish for?”

I shrug. “I don’t remember. Or maybe I do and I just don’t want to admit it.”

He doesn’t press. He knows me well enough to know when not to dig. Silence stretches between us again. It’s not heavy, just… present. Like fog. Or smoke that never really clears. And somewhere in the quiet, I feel it creeping back in.

The sadness.

Not loud. Not screaming. Just… folding itself around me again like a coat I didn’t realize I’d put back on. My body remembers the weight before my mind does.

James leans into my shoulder slightly. His warmth seeps into me, but it doesn’t reach all the way in. I wish it did. I wish the stars could fix people.

I wish I could.

I take a bite of my cone and it tastes like nothing. Too sweet, too cold, too pink. I force a smile anyway because he’s looking at me now, and I know he needs this moment to feel okay.

So I pretend I’m okay.

That’s the thing no one tells you about sadness. Sometimes it’s quiet. Sometimes it lets you laugh, lets you love, lets you hold someone's hand and mean it, and still whispers in your ear that none of it is permanent.

He nudges me. “You’re awfully quiet.”

“Just thinking,” I say.

“About?”

I pause. Then lie gently. “The stars.”

And it’s not entirely a lie. I am thinking about the stars, how they’re really just fires in the distance, already dying by the time we see them. Beautiful, burning things that look like hope, but really just prove how far away everything is.

But I don’t tell him that.

I lean my head against his shoulder instead.

And we sit there, watching the sky, two people pretending the world isn’t as complicated as it really is.

Just as I finish the last bite of my cone, soggy wafer and cold sweetness, I hear footsteps approaching.

Tim’s voice cuts through the quiet, soft but sure. “There you guys are.”

I look up to see him and Inez, walking side by side like a unit. Inez’s hair is tied up, her face still flushed from the tension of the night, but she offers me a smile—a real one. Tim looks at James, then crouches down to his level.