Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 48 - WHO WANTS DINNER?

“Hey,” I said, voice flat.

She looked up like she didn’t recognize the sound. Like no one had spoken to her in years. Maybe no one had… since.

I sat down across from her. The table between us felt like a border wall, two warring countries, too exhausted to fight.

“So,” I began, “Are you happy now?”

Her fingers paused over the sandwich. “What?”

“You got what you wanted, didn’t you?” I said, sharper now. “You got the guy, yeyyy.” I added with sarcasm.

She blinked. Her eyes, always the color of overconfident gold, dimmed. “I didn’t get what I wanted.”

I leaned back. “Then tell me, Olive. For a girl who has everything, beauty, talent, that terrifying ability to walk into a room and bend the world around you, what exactly do you want?”

She scoffed. “Classic. Inez and her brutal truth.” Her voice cracked a little. “People think I’m the golden girl, but inside I’m just… gray. I’ve been gray for so long.”

She took a breath. “I don’t care about the world. I don’t even care that I’m a bastard daughter shoved in the shadows so my dad can keep playing perfect family man with someone else. I just…” Her hands clenched on her tray. “I wanted James to want me. Just once. Just… choose me.”

I shook my head. “So you thought sleeping with him would magically make him fall in love?”

“Yes,” she said. “And if that’s wrong, then… then maybe I don’t know what right looks like anymore.”

A tear slipped down her cheek, and she wiped it quickly like she was ashamed of feeling anything.

“Did you even stop to consider Betty?” I asked.

“Why would I?” she snapped. “Did anyone ever consider me? Did they think about how I felt, watching them, always being the backup, the second choice, the joke?”

My fist clenched. “Damn it, Olive! Betty is in a hospital bed because of all this... because you let her become a pawn in your obsession with a boy who was never yours.”

“I didn’t know it would go that far!” Olive shot back. “I never wanted that to happen...”

“Of course you didn’t,” I hissed, standing now. “Because people like you never think past the moment. You’re so busy trying to be loved that you forget the damage you cause just existing in other people’s stories.”

I leaned closer. Not to intimidate her,.but to let her see it. The fury. The disappointment. The truth.

“You’re selfish.” Then I walked away.

And as I passed rows of whispering tables and students pretending not to stare, I didn’t feel like a hero.

I just felt… tired. Even superheroes break sometimes.

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The hospital room buzzed with quiet machines, their blinking lights like tiny stars trying to keep her tethered to this world. I sat in the corner, curled on the blue recliner by the window, staring at Betty. Her skin looked pale against the white sheets, lips cracked and dry. If I squinted hard enough, I could pretend she was sleeping off a long day at the beach, not... whatever this was. Her wrists were bandaged. Her hair still smelled like sea salt. Everyone else was gone... James and Matt had stepped out for a smoke, probably to breathe through their own guilt. Mr. Finn and Claire were downstairs settling hospital bills. Drake, Tim, and Corey had gone to buy dinner. It was just me and her now.