Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 52 - AND I LET HER GO...

“I’ll reach my hands out in the dark
And wait for yours to interlock…”

She choked on a too-big bite during lunch, gasping. I set a glass of water in front of her. She drank it. Didn’t thank me. But she drank it.

“I’ll wait for you
I’ll wait for you…”

She picked up the chocolates I left by her locker. Drank the latte I placed on her desk.

“'Cause I’m not givin’ up
I’m not givin’ up, givin’ up
No, not yet…”

I kept singing from the table, even as people turned away.

“Even when I’m down to my last breath
Even when they say there’s nothin’ left…”

And then... she stood.

Betty walked toward me, slowly, like a storm building shape. People parted. She didn’t blink. And when she reached me,
she grabbed my guitar by the neck,
and slammed it into the floor. The sound of splintering wood echoed across the cafeteria like a gunshot. I stood there for what felt like a century, just staring at the broken pieces of my guitar on the floor. Everyone else had gone quiet, awkward laughter buzzing like static in the distance. Betty had already walked away. I knelt down and picked up the largest piece, strings tangled like nerves.

I don’t even remember leaving school. Just remember the ache in my chest, the kind that doesn't cry or scream, just sits in your bones like rot. Somehow, I ended up outside Inez’s house.

She opened the door like she’d been expecting me.

“You look like you got hit by a bus,” she said.

“Close,” I mumbled. “A girl with great aim and no mercy.”

She moved aside. “Come in, broken boy.”

We sat in her living room, the late afternoon light leaking through the windows like lazy gold. The walls were lined with hand-drawn posters, quotes like: “Do not be daunted by the darkness. Light your match anyway.”

I held the cracked neck of the guitar in my lap. It was dumb I brought it, but I needed someone else to see the wreckage. To witness it.

“She really smashed it?” Inez asked gently.

“Pieces of it... everywhere.”

“She always had a strong arm.”

I smiled bitterly.

Then I whispered, “I don’t know what to do anymore, Nez. I mean, I’ve tried everything. Mojo Jojo shirts. Singing in front of the whole cafeteria. Taking soccer balls to the face. Literal blood offerings.”

Inez leaned back, watching me. “And what are you trying to earn exactly?”

“Her forgiveness. Her... something. Anything.” I looked at my hands. “I don’t care if she never loves me again. I just want to know that she doesn’t hate me. That I’m not... damned.”

There it was. The word that’s been echoing in my head. Damned.

Inez stayed quiet for a long time. Then said, “James... you’re not a demon. You’re just a boy who burned the bridge while he was still standing on it.”

That hit deeper than I expected. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know. But you still did.”

I swallowed.

“I broke her,” I said. “And now I can’t fix it. And I keep wondering if God even listens to people like me anymore.”

She tilted her head. “People like you?”