Chapter TwoThe Air Feels Different
It took Amie Teller all of twenty-three minutes to realize that she was no longer in a time loop.
In her defense, the morning of September 17 (which she had become supernaturally accustomed to waking up in) was fairly nondescript as far as Monday mornings go. It didn’t begin with a radio alarm or a noisy neighbor or a partner bringing her coffee. She had a calendar on her wall, but never got into the habit of crossing off the days with a bright red marker. And she hadn’t checked the date on her phone in a long time.
Because of that, for the first twenty-three minutes of Day 1 A.L. (After Loop), there was absolutely nothing to alert Amie to the fact that this wasn’t the same day she’d relived for the past seven hundred and sixty-ish days of her life.
Day 1 After Loop (A.L.)
The morning began as it always did: with the gentle tones of her alarm going off at 8AM. Most days Amie would simply tap thescreen to stop the ringing. A few dozen times the device was silenced by being hurled at the wall, the floor, the ceiling, or, once, out the window. There had been one particularly dark day when Amie just let it ring and ring and ring and ring and ring, until the phone finally got the hint and died a couple of hours later.
A surprisingly healthy effect of being stuck in a time loop was that social media had swiftly lost its appeal. Before the loop, Amie would start her day by scrolling through multiple feeds. By Day 4 I.L., being greeted every morning by the same posts and photos had broken the habit.
So that was why, for the first twenty-three minutes of Day 1 A.L., Amie lay quietly in bed, doing her morning sudoku, oblivious that the needle had been moved on the skipping record of her life.
When the text came in, she instinctively swiped the notification away. The puzzle was almost complete; she’d look at the text when she finished. Just a few more—
Wait.
Sitting up in bed, she stared at the spot at the top of her screen where she’d seen the notification.
Did I imagine that?she thought, adrenaline shooting through her body.
Amie finally began taking in her surroundings, her heartbeat quickening at every new observation. The clothes she’d worn the day before were still sitting where they’d been tossed on top of the hamper, grass stains streaking her favorite pair of jeans.
She hadn’t given it a second thought the day before when she’d dropped to her knees in the grass to “look” for the ring lost by Hallie From The Park. She’d known exactly where the ring was, having found it many times before. Some days, when Amie was feeling especially starved for company, she’d spend a few minutes on the lawn with Hallie From The Park, passively patting down the grass as she listened to the other woman talk about her sunrise yoga class and its stuck-up instructor. Amie would never let the charade go on for longer than five minutes—Hallie From The Park haddinner plans with her boyfriend, and was anxious that she’d lost the ring forever.
Amie hadn’t been anxious about losing things for a long time. Similarly, she’d stopped caring about transient things like grass stains on jeans. The time loop was more effective than the strongest stain remover on the market.
The air feels different, Amie thought, tearing her gaze away from the dirty laundry as she looked to the window. There wasn’t much of a perceivable difference, but for someone who had lived the same day seven hundred and sixty-ish times, the difference was there. Amie wouldn’t have known how to put it into words. It was justdifferent.
She didn’t even remember jumping out of bed when she heard the truck beeping outside. Finding herself at the window, she threw back the curtains and looked down at the street. A tow truck was backing up toward a car parked along the yellow curb, which was maybe the most exciting thing Amie had seen in ages.
As she pushed open the window and stuck out her head, something cold and wet hit the top of it. Heart pounding, she twisted to look up.
It was raining.
It wasraining.
She stared at the dark clouds until a large raindrop landed directly in her eye, startling her out of the almost hypnotic effect the overcast sky was having on her. She hadn’t seen rain clouds in over two years.
Feeling overwhelmed, Amie retreated into her bedroom. She sat down on the floor before her legs could give out and send her there a lot faster than she would have preferred.
She was still clutching her phone, but it was a struggle to tear her eyes away from the open window, as if the new day might disappear if it was no longer being perceived.
Finally, she mustered up the courage to look back down at her phone, hand shaking as she read the new message.
Ziya: Hiya, feeling better this morning?
Amie stared at the text for a long, long time. To be exact, it was two minutes and eleven seconds, but it was definitely an excessive amount of time to spend staring at a six-word text message. Then again, Amie hadn’t been familiar with the concept of “wasting time” in quite a bit of it.
Bubbles popped up on the screen as Ziya began typing again, and Amie almost dropped the phone in surprise. (“Being surprised” was also a concept she hadn’t been familiar with in some time.)
Ziya: Lmk when you’re free to reschedule our dinner
Ziya: Unless you’re not ready. Totally fine!!
Amie winced. Ziya thought she’d canceled because she didn’t want to go. In Amie’s reality, she had gone on their “friend date” dozens of times. InZiya’sreality, Amie had texted her about a massive migraine, requesting they postpone their dinner.
