Free


“On Repeat ”


Katie eyed the silverware and wondered if this would be one of those days when she picked up a fork and jammed it into her own eye. At one point that had been interesting, at least in the short term. She’d done it a dozen times before the pain outweighed any lingering novelty.

“Sweetie,” her mother said before planting a kiss on Katie’s head. “Eat your waffles. You’ll be late for school.”

“Right. God forbid I miss the lecture on concavity and limits at infinity.” Katie raised her fork and twirled it in the air in the world’s most pathetic cheer. This was hell. She was in hell, and there was no escape. No alien device to repair, no redemption story arc, just the same damn day over and over and over until jabbing a fork in her eye hard enough to kill herself became a reasonable reaction to an insane world.

“You’re in one of your moods,” her mother said with a sigh. 

Katie stabbed her waffle. “Time loops and psychotic breaks do that to me.”

“It gets better when you get older.” Her mom leaned on the counter and sipped her coffee. “Everything feels so dramatic at your age. I do remember what it’s like.”

“I’ve relived this same day so often that I have to be approaching my mid-twenties by now.” Katie’s stomach rebelled at the thought of more waffles. She stood.

“What are you doing?”

“Scraping my waffles into the garbage. I considered throwing the plate at the window, but I’m tired of making you angry. It doesn’t make me feel any better about myself,” Katie said. She turned around, and her mother was there, a hand reaching for Katie’s forehead. Katie neatly sidestepped it. “I don’t have a fever, I’m not going to stay home today, although I’m not sure I’ll go to school either, and I haven’t done any drugs. I might stop by and get some later, but probably not. The bad trips are not worth it. If I’m that in need of a little masochism, I’ll throw myself off the water tower again.” She danced to the side to escape her mother. They’d done this routine so often, that Katie had her timing perfect. She slid under her mother’s arm, grabbed her bag and did a neat reverse spin around the table before heading for the back door.

“Katie Brunard, you get back here right now!” her mother yelled. In two minutes, she would be upstairs. It would take Katie’s dad forty-five seconds to get down the stairs, so she headed for the treeline. In not one of the several thousand versions of this day had her father ever found her in the woods. The undergrowth hadn’t yet recovered from the hard winter, but the trees were verdant and smelled of earth and green. Katie ran the familiar terrain, slowing only once she’d reached the safety of the creek.

She stepped over a mossy rock and sat down on it. Instantly her pants were wet. She was definitely not going to school. She wasn’t sure she had the energy for a suicide either. Besides, she didn’t want to restart again so soon.

“Hey,” a voice called, “you’re going to get your pants wet.”

Katie whirled around to find a familiar sandy-haired boy staring at her. He was older—a senior maybe—but he didn’t give her that condescending look most of the upperclassmen reserved for freshmen. Not all of them were like that. Some were just skeezy. This guy had a contagious grin that drooped at the corner. “What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“Sitting on a rock,” Katie said in her best no-duh voice, but she took a step closer. He’d never appeared before. The glory of a new conversation, an unexpected divergence from the sameness of every day, made her drunk with joy.

“Yeah, I can see that. I thought you were the math genius, so I’m wondering what you’re doing out here instead of at school.”

“What? I can’t ditch for the day?” Katie put her hands on her hips and gave him a mock pout. She would never have the nerve to do that in real life, but this wasn’t real. In about twenty hours, she’d fall asleep and the whole damn day would reset. She could strip off her clothes and tackle him, and she wouldn’t suffer a single consequence, although she would feel guilty about sexually assaulting him. But she saved that option in reserve for some point months in the future where she needed something new. Anything new.

He leaned against a birch and studied her. “I don’t know, can you? I always thought you were focused on your studies.”

She shrugged. “I was, but I figured, what’s the point?”

“Um. Your future. Your love of math? Your world-famous reputation as a glorious nerd. You don’t want Jimmy Santos taking your crown and stealing valedictorian out from under you, do you?” he teased.

Katie frowned. “How do you know so much about me?”

“How…” He laughed and tried to take a step forward. His sweatshirt caught on the birch bark, and he stumbled. His arms windmilled, and Katie tried to back up, but it was too late. He fell toward her. She tried to curl up and protect her head. Concussions were miserable. Sometimes she suspected the headache followed her from day into the next. But the guy pulled some ninja move. He grabbed her waist and jerked her around to the side, taking most of the impact on his shoulder a half second before Katie’s weight came down on him.

They lay there, limbs tangled, breath coming in quick gasps. Finally the guy groaned and gave a soft, “Ow.”

Katie scrambled to her feet. “Are you okay?”

“Um, no?” With a wince, he sat up. “Ow,” he repeated as he poked his shoulder.

“Did you break it?”

“Pretty sure I didn’t, but it’s bruised.”

“You idiot.” Katie punched his good arm, but she kept her touch gentle. “You got hurt worse trying to protect me.”

“After I’m the one that nearly bashed your brains on the rocks by falling on you.” He slowly got to his feet. “I’m Manny.”

“You’re an idiot.”

He shrugged. “Probably true. I’m still not going to let you get hurt because I’m an idiot.”

Katie considered him. Manny’s left side was covered in muck from the creek and he had scrapes all down his cheek. “We need to get you cleaned up.”

Manny looked down at himself and laughed. “Yeah, that would probably be good. I really suck at impressing pretty girls, huh?”

The smile faded from Katie’s face. Getting called a pretty girl was usually step one in a plan to humiliate her. She had icy blue eyes that anyone would envy, but beyond that, she was the epitome of the Shakespearean line “too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise.” Before she could walk away or maybe push Manny in the creek, two options high on her list of appropriate responses, he spoke again.

“Of course I wasn’t trying to impress you because you’re pretty. You are, but it’s not like you’re drop dead gorgeous or anything. But you are drop dead smart. I mean, I’ve been at the next table in the library when you’ve been explaining calculus, and you’re better than Mr. Sacks. Way better. I might pass the class with a half-respectable grade because I spend so much time eavesdropping on you and that girl you tutor.” He gave a self-deprecating shrug. 

Katie’s suspicions faded when she realized what he wanted. “You’re an idiot. I would have tutored you without the theatrics, but I do appreciate that you helped me avoid head trauma.”

“If I hadn’t been trying to impress you, you never would have known about my cat-like reflexes.” He leaped onto a fallen log and then leaped off with a grand gesture. His arm swept the air like a circus performer.

“The ones where you crash into me and send us both to the ground?”

His grin grew wider. “Yeah, those.”

She shook her head. “Come on.” The advantage of having lived in the same day thousands of times was that Katie knew every house, every medicine cabinet, every kitchen, and every library of every house in the neighborhood. Well, mostly. She’d spent months perfecting her breaking and entering skills and she knew exactly who had the best first aid kit. Mr. Thompson. Most of his food was green and borderline inedible, but he stocked the good gauze and pain-relieving spray.

She guided him through a series of back yards, detouring around the Wilson’s dog and the street where a cop was having his breakfast and watching for speeders. A couple of times he’d picked Katie up for truancy. They ended up behind Thompson’s shed, and she put a finger on her lips to shush Manny. He crouched down, watching her with such intensity that Katie squirmed under his gaze. Maybe going into a house with him was a mistake, but at this point she was having too good a time to care. Even if he killed her, it would be novel, and she could kill him back next go ‘round.

“Wait here,” she ordered as she slipped behind the hedges. She inched her way down the narrow space and watched as Thompson came out his back door. He twice went back in before he finally gave his door a little shove and headed for his detached garage. He looked to the east, and Katie froze, but then he turned his attention to the garage, and she dashed forward, getting her hand in the door before it latched. In a heartbeat, she slipped in and closed the door, flattening herself against the wall. Thompson would turn and scan his yard again before going in the garage, so she hoped Manny stayed behind the shed.

She listened as his weather-beaten old car pulled away, and then she opened the back door. “Come on,” she called.

Manny poked his head out. “That was seriously impressive. What are you, a witch?” He trotted across the weedy lawn and up into Thompson’s house.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Katie said as she headed for the stairs. Thompson’s cat stood on the top step and watched as she led Manny into the bathroom.

“I don’t know. That’s some pretty crazy stuff. It’s like you made him look away right when you ran for the door.”

Katie got under the sink and pulled out the plastic tackle box where Mr. Thompson kept his first aid gear. Luckily she’d found it before Mr. Jerger’s terrifying collection of porn had scared her out of searching any more houses. “Let’s go in here.” She headed for the guest bedroom. The dust smelled better than the funk in Thompson’s room.

“If you know this guy well enough to know where he keeps that stuff, couldn’t you have just asked to borrow it?” Manny asked.

“There are more things in heaven and earth,” Katie recited in her most epic theater voice.

“Than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” Manny finished. “I suck at math, not English.”

“Maybe you can tutor me in English because I can’t get higher than a B out of Mrs. Carver.”

Manny had taken a towel from the bathroom and he spread it over the bed before he sat down. “She’s easy. Put three or four semicolons in every essay, and that will get you up and over. She’s a pushover for a good semicolon.”

Katie tilted her head and studied Manny. He had a charming smile and a slightly crooked nose. He was tall, but too lanky for his height. He was good looking without being too, too perfect. More, he admired her smarts and had helpful advise. “Are you sure you’re real?” She asked.

Manny’s eyes grew large. “What else would I be? Irrational?” 

The corny math joke made Katie laugh until the tears rolled down her cheeks. She wasn’t sure if Manny was actually funny or if being startled created such strong feelings because it had been so long since she had felt anything. She aimed a punch at his arm.

“Elder abuse!” He cried as he held his arm and pretended to flinch away from her.

“Loon.” She took out the numbing spray and used it on his face. “Hold still or I’ll spray this up your nose.”

“Hey, all’s fair in love and war, but keep my lungs out of it,” he said quickly. “I have asthma.”

Katie stopped spraying. “Oh. I’m sorry.” Threatening to take away someone’s ability to breathe seemed unkind, and that was ironic because she had shot Mr. Jerger. Four times. Once he’d even died. But Mr. Jerger’s kiddie porn collection undermined any sympathy she might have for him. Manny didn’t deserve to lose the ability to breathe, even if he would wake up just fine tomorrow with no memory of any of this. The realization that Manny wouldn’t remember this brought all the despair crashing back down onto her head.

Katie put the spray down and walked away without bandaging his scrapes. This today was wonderful, but what happened on tomorrow’s today when she relived this same conversation? When she’d relived this conversation a hundred times and every breath, every laugh or pause or smile was familiar?

“Hey, what’d I say?” Manny called as he chased her down the stairs.

“I’m not in the mood. Just go away.” She left Mr. Thompson’s front door open as she headed back toward town. Maybe she could break into Mrs. Hanson’s place and put on her old records. Old jazz matched her mood, and when Mrs. Hanson occasionally caught her, the woman was nice. 

“Hey! Wait.” Manny ran in front and stopped, forcing Katie to look at him. “We were having a nice time, and now you’re running off. Why?”

“What does it matter?”

“It matters because something is really bothering you. I’m hoping it wasn’t something I said because I really do admire you, and if I said something that hurt you, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t even know what you’re apologizing for.” On the verge of tears now, Katie pushed him aside and ran for the main road. 

Instead of taking the hint, Manny ran after her. “Tell me why you’re upset, and then I’ll know what I did wrong!”

Katie whirled on him, poking him in the chest as hard as she could. “I’ve been locked in a repeating day for years now and you come along and offer to make it all bearable for one day, but I know this is one more variation that’s going to get old and stale. I’ll know every possible outcome, and then I’ll hate you for being part of this hell I’m trapped in.” With each sentence, she poked Manny harder and harder, forcing him back until he caught her hands in his.

“Is that how you knew what Thompson would do when he left his house?”

Katie froze. She’d expected Manny to slowly back away from the crazy or maybe explain psychosis. Katie had looked that up several times. She never expected him to believe her.

“That’s terrible,” he said slowly. His face twisted with sympathy and horror.

“You believe me?”

He gave her a lopsided grin and shrugged. “I’ve got a secret too. My family knows a little bit about magic, but this sort of spell... This is big. This would take a whole lot of power or someone willing to use their own soul to anchor the spell.”

“Then is there a way to break it?” Katie knew she was stupid for taking his story at face value, but desperation made for poor critical thinking skills. However, the second she saw his face, her stomach dropped. “What?” she demanded.

Manny backed up to sit on the metal guard rail. “A spell this big... it’s going to have side effects or maybe it is a side effect. Maybe someone was trying to stop the end of the world or they’ve put the world on hold to prevent an alien invasion while they research and you’re just caught up in the wake.”

“Caught up in the wake?” Katie’s voice got embarrassingly high, so she took a deep breath. “I’ve spent years stuck in the same day. Years.”

“Exactly,” Manny said. “If I was trying to stop the world from ending and I need more time to find something or learn a demonic language or whatever, this would be the perfect spell. Of course you would run into the selfishness clause.” He frowned and seemed to lose himself in thought.

“The selfishness clause? What? Does magic come with a contract?”

“Pretty much.” Manny shrugged. “You can go for the big dark magics which let you be as selfish as you want, but as soon as someone with more magic defeats you, you’re screwed. Royally. Eternally. Or you can go for the smaller magic, but those require people to act selflessly. If you do magic to help yourself, the magic will undo itself or even backfire. Good magic isn’t supposed to make the magic user happy.”

“Well trust me, I’m not happy.”

“Could you have cast the spell?” Manny asked. Before Katie could cut him off by questioning the intelligence of him and three generations of his family, he held up a hand to stop her. “Not now you, but future you. Do you think magic is something you might get involved in some time in the future?”

“You think I cast a stupid spell and this is the backlash?” Katie thought about it. If that was true, she deserved to have her ass kicked. Actually, the universe was kicking her ass.

“I think it’s more likely someone out there needed research time, and you got sucked up into it somehow,” Manny said. “But think about the possibilities. You could learn a new language or an instrument. You can experiment with cooking.” Manny gave her such a genuine smile that Katie was caught between patting him on the head for being so naive or kicking him in the shin. She’d tried that. She’d worked every math question in every math book in the school. She’d read endless books and watched every movie she could find in anyone’s house. 

But each day she woke up, the person she was becoming was farther from the person everyone saw her as. Her mind wasn’t fourteen, but her body always would be. And then Manny came along with such a sweet smile and ridiculously optimistic worldview, and she loved him for it. He was a genuinely good man, and she appreciated that he’d given her one good day. One incredible, unique, surprising day, but she couldn’t handle his optimism. Not now.

“So I’m collateral damage, and I should be productive collateral damage,” she summarized. He started to speak, but she backed away. “No, really. I need time to process this. It’s a lot of world view to change at once. Maybe I’ll see you later today.” This time when she fled, he didn’t follow.

Manny watched her, his expression frozen. A man in his forties with sandy brown hair and blue eyes walked over and rested a hand on Manny’s shoulder. “Grandpa, this is killing you. You keep doing this version over and over.”

“It makes her happy,” Manny said as he watched her walk away. And she would be happy today. She’d have lunch in Mrs. Hanson’s house and confess everything. The woman was more than halfway to senile, but she would make tea and they’d discuss the idea of sacrifice and service. 

Then his Katie would find him again and ask how she could help if there were some great danger. She would smile shyly as she asked him about magic. When he promised to believe her if she came to him the following day, she would throw her arms around him, and her embrace would be warm and familiar and heartbreaking. And when the day ended, she would be all smiles with a plan to learn magic from him one day at a time.

But magic didn’t allow you to benefit from your own spells. Either Manny would forget this day or Katie would. They would never have a second day together. Only a first—over and over and over. Since he now understood the price of repetition, he would not allow her to relive another day. So she would forget and he would carry this burden for them.

“Granddad, let her go,” Adam pleaded. “Grandma wouldn’t want this. You know she wouldn’t.”

Manny didn’t answer. Adam had never met his grandmother at her prime, before the cancer. Before the pain.

Adam clasped his hands around Manny’s right arm. “Grandpa, you can’t keep doing this. When are you going to let this end?”

Manny rested his hand against Adam’s cheek and gave the same answer he did every time Adam risked the dangerous journey into the transition world.

“The day after tomorrow.”



 

 

 

 

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