Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 30

I thought of James again.

Of how fragile he looked behind the filters and nicknames. Of how love sometimes looks like jokes and kisses in public, but it's really about recognizing pain in a photo and not turning away.

I closed my eyes and let the water run down my back, down my arms, as if it could wash away the heaviness, if only for a moment.

Because today, I would see him again.

And while I didn’t have all the answers, while the jar inside me was still cracked and rattling, I knew this:

We are two people trying to hold onto each other while carrying the weight of the sky.

And somehow, for now, that’s enough.

The cafeteria was louder than usual, plastic trays clattering, chairs scraping, conversations colliding in the air like chaotic music. But somehow, in the corner table by the window, it was just us.

James sat across from me, his tray untouched, a paper straw half-chewed between his fingers. The sunlight fell on his face in fragments, filtered through dusty glass, outlining the curve of his jaw, the faint purple hue still resting beneath his right eye.

He didn’t say anything at first. Just sat there, occasionally glancing up at me and then looking away, like he didn’t know if he deserved to hold my gaze.

So I broke the silence.

“You didn’t eat breakfast, did you?”

He blinked, then shook his head, the corner of his mouth tugging slightly. “Didn’t feel like it.”

“You need to eat, you know,” I said gently, pushing my fruit cup toward him. “Can’t win imaginary rematches against Matt on an empty stomach.”

He laughed, barely. Just a breath of sound. But it was there. I felt it. A small ripple in the still water between us.

He picked up a slice of apple, twirled it in his fingers. “Betty?”

“Mm?”

“Last night… when you said you’d stay… did you mean it?”

The question wasn’t casual. It didn’t float. It sank between us, heavy with everything he didn’t know how to say aloud.

I looked at him then. Really looked. At the way his knuckles rested tight on the edge of the table. At the way his eyes, though swollen and tired, held something like… hope. A trembling, wounded kind of hope, the kind only people who’ve been left too many times carry.

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” I said. “Especially not about that.”

He nodded, but the way he swallowed told me that part of him still didn’t believe it.

And that broke something in me.

“James,” I said, voice low, “you don’t have to earn my presence. You don’t have to pretend you're okay for me. You just have to let me see you. Even the messy parts. Especially the messy parts.”

His eyes met mine, sharp and soft all at once. “But what if the messy parts are all there is?”

I reached out and held his hand across the table. “Then I’ll build a life with the mess. One day at a time.”

He stared at our intertwined fingers, like he was trying to memorize the feeling. Maybe he was.

“Betty,” he said again, quieter this time, “when you look at me like that… like I’m not broken… I feel like maybe I’m not.”