The City is a place where everything resets after the lights have gone out: relationships, conversations, memories. Everything is inside an irreversible loop and no one knows it. All except for one girl.
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Jule, a resident of the City...
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Nobody knew how long I searched for him or how many days I spent walking around in that damned hallway waiting for the bump to happen again.
It didn't.
And today, I decided that if the bump doesn't happen, I'm calling it quits, assuming that I somehow made a misstep during that day, and forget about this. I mean, I could just search for him during class but I needed to be sure that the bump was really a valid event and not just wishful thinking. I needed to know that I was not putting my hope on something that would vanish just as quickly.
I walked the way to school, evading the usual obstacles and found a new purpose in walking in the gravelly path. It's not just a matter of avoiding Travis anymore. It's to find the mystery guy and prove that I was not going crazy.
The crunch made by my shoes slapping on gravel was enough to remind me of the reason I am doing this. I needed to be prepared when it actually happened. I needed to be quick with my reaction. I don't know the exact second it happened but I do know it would happen as soon as I was past the girls talking about phone models.
I pushed the emergency exit doors and walked briskly inside. I gasped and slowed my pace. It needed to be exactly like that day. I even wore my hoodie and track pants again.
I walked the same path I long ago memorized and peeled my eyes for a blue and red flannel. I ducked as the jockeys did the brotherhood clasp. Anytime now.
The girls. They were a few feet away. Don't slow down. Walk the same way as before. Here goes nothing.
A blur of blue and red.
I lashed forward with my hand and grabbed an arm. It was an arm clad in a blue and red flannel sleeve. I did it.
My heart pounded in my ears as I slowly lifted my eyes past the flannel, the maroon undershirt, and the smooth neck. My breath caught when our eyes locked. He was here. I found him.
And I couldn't believe how ordinary he was. He had brown hair that fell past his eyes in straight, flat locks, colliding with glasses almost as large as mine. His ears stuck out of the sides of his head like errant antennae and hints of stubble were visible from his upper lip and on his chin.
He stared at me with confusion, his lips partially open. His eyes, a dark shade of brown that was almost black without any light hitting it, searched mine for answers I'm not sure I could give. My heart skipped a beat not because he's hot or anything, but because he's right here.
He was here. I found him. The ticket out of the loop was in my hands.
I kept my hand clasped around his arm. There's no way I was going to let him go. Not when I was so close to my dream. I blew a breath and realized that he's still looking at me.
"Hey, can you let go?" he said, his voice not that deep and not that shrill either. "I'm gonna be late for the first period."
I stopped myself from smiling slyly and replying, I am too, genius. He kept looking back to people that were probably his classmates now entering the rooms.
