“I like cats,” Jack said. “I have two cats.” After a pause, he added, “I used to feed the strays at my old place.”
“You’re gonna get fleas.”
“Maybe.”
A long stretch of silence. Then, “You miss your cats?”
“Yeah.” Jack nodded. “I was only supposed to be gone two nights.” He slumped back against the pillow. “I haven’t seen them in weeks now.”
“They don’t know that,” said Carla softly.
“I hope not. I still miss them.”
“Yeah?” Carla tapped ash into the tray on the bedside table. “I’ve never had a cat.”
“They’re easier than dogs.”
“Yeah, but they shit in a box.” Her nose wrinkled.
“It doesn’t smell if you clean it.”
“How many people actually do that?”
“I do,” said Jack, halfway to offended. He was messy, but he wasn’t going to force Rainy to live in her own filth. “It’s not that hard.”
“Guess I’ve known a lot of irresponsible cat owners, then.”
Outside, an engine revved. Carla disregarded it. “Just the gardener,” she said. “He always drives a motorbike home. Loud as hell.” A pause. “Listen, I’m sorry for getting mad at you. It’s hard to talk about this sometimes. I fucked up a lot. I know I fucked up. And now I can’t get out of it because I’m caught in a goddamn time loop!” She stubbed the cigarette out, groaned, turned to Jack with teary eyes. “I finally figure out that nobody’s gonna save me but me, and look what happens!”
Jack rubbed the back of his neck. Carla’s words rang in the back of his mind.“Nobody gonna’s save me but me and look what happens!”Through the aching need to reach out and soothe her burned something else—a thought half-formed, pushing its way to the forefront of his mind.
Was Carla’s revelation somehow connected to the time loop? Jack had experienced no such epiphany—just a dogged determination to get through the days with minimal despair. But if Carla’s life was actively destroyed by the time loop, if she was prevented from taking any major steps… Could it be?
“Hey,” said Jack, scrubbing his hand over his forehead, anticipating that she might laugh at his next words, but determined to say them, anyway. “How do you feel about magic?”
“I’m telling you,”said Carla over the table the next afternoon. “There’s no way it’s me. I don’t control the universe, Jack! I can’t stop time! You gotta stop talking to that lady at the bookstore.”
“I didn’t say you were responsible,” Jack snapped, massaging his temples. “Just that I think the timing is weird.”
“I don’t think this has anything to do with me,” Carla fumed, sipping ginger ale and scowling. “Look, this stuff isn’t real.”
“How can you say that?” Jack demanded. “You just freaked out not even a week ago because you saw a car going too fast! How can you say that magic doesn’t exist when we keep living the same day over and over?”
“Well, it might not be magic,” Carla scoffed. “What if it’s, like, a rift in the space-time continuum or whatever?”
“Aren’t they the same thing?”
Her scowl sharpened. “One is science and one is fantasy.”
Jack groaned, buried his head in his hands. Right. Semantics. “Do we have enough information to rule anything out?”
“No,” Carla admitted after a moment’s contemplation. “But it’s not me. I didn’t do this.”
“I didn’t say that,” Jack said. “I just thought it could be related.”
“What, you think the universe hates me so much it would lock me and everyone else into this hell? Is that what you think?”
“No,” Jack sighed, staring down at the tabletop, mentally cataloguing the scratches there and wondering what caused them. Why would a man with unfathomable amounts of money keep a table in such shabby condition? “And it’s not hell, exactly. I met you, didn’t I?”
