When their voices faded out and I was sure the coast was clear, I headed off in the other direction. I had to find Greta and Nora, apologize to them, and keep this whole thing moving. I didn’t have to wait long before I saw them approaching the Ferris wheel—the swinging cars, I could see now. I hurried over to them, stepping into their path before they got on line for the ride and I missed my window.
“Greta! Nora! Hello!” They both gaped at me, eyes wide with surprise. “So funny seeing you here. Such a coincidence! Anyway, I just wanted to say sorry I didn’t tell you I was leaving Arizona—I should have let you know so you could have planned the next year’s quiz bowl team better. I didn’t know it would mess things up. My bad.”
Greta let out a short laugh, while Nora just shook her head. “Mybad?” she echoed.
I looked between the two of them. “Well, it was. But now I’ve apologized, so…”
“So you think everything is fixed?” Greta sounded incredulous. “Also—hi, by the way. We haven’t seen you in years and you just start launching into this?”
“Also, how did you even know how your leaving affected the quiz bowl team?” Nora asked, frowning. “It wasn’t like it was national news.” Then her eyes widened in horror. “Oh my god,wasit?”
“I just…” I willed my brain to think faster as I realized I’d revealed more than I should have. “I figured I might have left you in the lurch and wanted to say sorry. And now I’ve done that. So…we’re good?” Just as I said this, a big group rushed toward the entrance, and it was like you could see the line starting to get longer in real time.
“Let’s go,” Greta said, keeping her eyes on the line. “We don’t want to have to wait forever.”
They started heading toward the line, not even saying goodbye, and I felt a little flutter of nervousness in my stomach. “So we’re good, right?” I repeated as they got in line.
“Whatever you need to tell yourself, Cass,” Nora said, glancing over her shoulder at me. Before I could reply, they were walking ahead in line, not looking back. I watched them go, wondering why absolutely none of this was making me feel any better. But maybe it wasn’t about me—maybe it was just about making these apologies and saying what I needed to so that I could finally stop this. I could deal with one more slightly uncomfortable conversation?, if it meant that the time loop would be over and life could go back to normal.
Luckily, I knew exactly where Bruce was going to be, and I concentrated on that as I headed toward the Hollywood Lounge. I just had to talk to him, and then I was done—home free. I slowed down, however, as I passed the trash can where Ms. Mulaney’s book had been tossed out. I realized I didn’t know what her timeline was—what happened between getting the call that sounded like didn’t go well and seeing that she’d thrown her manuscript into the trash. But right now, there was no manuscript, just empty soda bottles and crumpled popcorn bags. I knew that throwing out her book was mainly a symbolic gesture—since it hadn’t been handwritten, I assumed it was backed up on her computer somewhere. But I still remembered how sad it had looked lying there, someone’s ?dreams literally trashed.
Just likeFreddie’s. The thought flashed through my head before I could stop it.
But I really didn’t want to think about Freddie. I just wanted to do this last apology, ?walk through the doors?, and then finally head home. And if that meant that Eton Mess was barreling toward another disastrous performance tonight—well, that was no longer my problem.
I picked up my pace as I walked toward the Hollywood Lounge, keeping my head down, feeling like I was in a totally different reality than all my peers who were surrounding me, laughing and yelling and heading to their next ride, or off to get some snacks. I made a beeline for the table I’d been at with Freddie when Bruce walked up to us.
I’d only been ?there for a ?moment when I felt, right on cue, my stomach grumble. In other loops, this was when I’d be having dinner with Freddie, talking and laughing with him and filling in my Freddie list with even more facts. But in this one, I was sitting alone, waiting for my former prom date to come by so I could have an uncomfortable conversation.
Luckily, I didn’t have to wait that long. After only a few minutes, I looked up and saw Bruce heading in my direction, his feet slowing as he got closer. I stood up. He stopped in his tracks, blinking like he was trying to figure out what was happening.
I waved, figuring that I might as well get the ball rolling. “Hi, Bruce. How’s it going?” I asked, even though he looked like someone who had just been hit with something heavy.
“Cass,” he said, but not like a question—more like he was trying to verify that this was actually happening and he wasn’t having a dissociative episode.
“Yeah, hi, it’s me. I just wanted to say,” I said, deciding for once to dispose with my line about being so surprised to see him there, “that I shouldn’t have texted right before the prom and bailed on you. That wasn’t fair to you. So—sorry.” I nodded, waiting for a wave of relief to wash over me, to alleviate the guilty feeling in my stomach that I still got whenever I thought about Bruce and how everything had gone down. But that didn’t happen.
“Okay, this is beyond weird.” Bruce was still looking at me like I was something out of a bad dream. “I guess we’ll just skip over the fact that we’re both here at Grad Nite? And you don’t even seem surprised to see me?” He stopped and shook his head, then took a deep breath before continuing. “But putting all that aside…if you didn’t want to go to the prom with me, why did you agree to?”
I swallowed hard. The last thing I wanted was to have aconversationabout this. I wanted to apologize and get out. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go.”
“I mean, why make all those plans if you never had any intention of following through on them?”
“I did,” I insisted. “It was just…” All at once, I flashed back to the night of the prom. What had actually happened. Not what I’d told Bruce—and frankly, myself—had happened.
I’d been getting ready for the prom in my room. I’d been fixing my hair, and excited butterflies were dancing in my stomach despite the fact Bruce and I had been clear that we were only going as friends.
But then I’d looked through my window—the one that faced his—and I’d seen Bruce standing in front of his mirror. He was adjusting his bow tie, his expression happy and nervous and hopeful. In that moment, I’d seen that he liked me as more than a friend. And this made it clear to me that we’d both been pretending—because I liked him as more than a friend. I had from the first night we’d met, arguing about pizza delivery, when I teased him about the fact that nobody was named Bruce anymore.
This realization—that our just-friends decision was basically a sham—was enough to shake me. I pulled my curtains shut and sat down on my bed. I knew on some level that this should be agoodthing. We liked each other! And this could be a great night!
But then I came back to reality. We were leaving in two days for San Luis Obispo—and of course, I hadn’t told Bruce. But what would be the point of starting something that was only, in a matter of days, going to have to end? It had been impossible enough to try and sustainfriendshipsonce I moved. Even though I’d never tried, I knew that it would be even harder to carry over a romantic relationship. Not to mention more devastating when it would invariably all fall apart.
And so, sitting on my bed in my prom dress, I’d known what I had to do. I was doing the thing that was actually kinder in the long run—saving us both a lot of trouble and heartache.
I’d texted Bruce I was sick, and turned off my phone so he couldn’t write me back. Then I’d put on sweatpants, hung up the dress I knew now I’d never wear, and headed downstairs to tell my dads I wasn’t feeling well.
And now, thinking about it, I wondered why they’d just accepted this story. They hadn’t asked any follow-up questions, or talked to me about it…and shouldn’t they have?
