Better Late Than Never

If you ever see a man sitting on a bench wearing a worn shirt, talking to the air, that’s just me. If you have a moment, say ‘hi’. If you have more, take a seat. Watch some ghosts with me.

Sorry. Graveyard humor.

The shirt used to have a strange button. It let me go back in time. A surreal symbol was on it. Like an ‘h’ with a crossed top, curved hump, and extended leg. I looked it up once. Close to the symbol for Chronos. But not exact. There are swirls. Squiggles. They change every time uh…

Every time it happens.

My college girlfriend Syls bought it at a thrift store. Got it for herself but we both thought it looked better on me. Part of it was the button. She thought it was unique at the store but hated how it looked when she wore it. Part of that was the buttons.

Shirts normally have between five and eight buttons. That can vary. This one had eleven. It was too many but that gave it charm. Ten of them were the four point flat style. The unique one was a quartershank with the symbol engraved on it.

When I first wore it, the special button was at the bottom, hanging by a thread. It popped off before I could button it up. Tried to sew it back on but couldn’t get it to stick on the bottom position. Decided it should got at the top, like a decorative clasp. It threaded in quick and secure, no issues.

Then Syls and I moved in together. First night we got drunk and handsy. She grabbed my shirt and yanked me to the bed. The button popped right off. Best sex we’d had. I put the button aside to fix later. Later ended up being six weeks.

Living together had soured things. Turns out Syls and I enjoyed staying at each others place but living together was a different beast. Neither of us wanted to adjust our behaviors. We were together for a year before that, but it only took six weeks to collapse under the weight of our ego’s.

I chose the shirt for our last night out, a send off of our relationship with some friends. Bitter and sad and a whole lot of resentment. Sniping at each other all night even as we prepped. But the button was detached. She offered to sew it back on for me. I refused out of spite more than motivation.

Little bastard wouldn’t attach to the topmost spot. But it connected one spot down. I put the shirt on as we shouted at each other. Did the top button then the special one.

My shout cut off as I was yanked into bed.

Emotionally I was still pissed but she was grinning drunk and kissing with sloppy enthusiasm. My own drunkenness rose like waves in high tide. I was already flushed and aroused. Decided one last round wouldn’t hurt. Didn’t notice her clothes were different.

We fell asleep right after. Skipped the night out. Woke up to her giddy, humming and all kinds of happy. I talked with her that this didn’t mean we were getting back together. She was caught off guard. Didn’t know what I was talking about. Devastated. Biggest fight we ever had. I felt like I was on the back foot the whole time but she had it worse. No one likes waking up after a great night to a different partner, all bitter and checked out. For her, it felt intentional. She accused me of cheating.

I was out of the house before I realized the date was six weeks prior. Every decision I’d made over those weeks rang in my head. Most of it didn’t play out the same. Everything was different because of our fight.

It was easy to dismiss that first instance as an ultra vivid dream that hung around. After all, things had diverged fast. Some animal part of me must have suspected because I hung the shirt up and didn’t wear it again for a year.

When I next wore it, I winced through the entire process of buttoning up. Pried my eyes open. Sighed in relief. Nothing had happened. I was just being paranoid. It was brought back into rotation. Got a few dates with it, always careful to remove the shirt before things got too heavy.

Then I wore it to an interview. For a good company, middle management so a few rungs above starting from the bottom, good pay and full benefits. They put me in an empty conference room to wait for my interviewers. I sat down and stretched my shoulders.

The button popped off. I heard it hit the carpet but didn’t see, so nervous I didn’t even check which one.

Two people entered: A friendly confident young man and a comely quiet woman. He dominated the conversation so I focused on him. When she did ask questions, they were good ones, but caught me off guard. I’d frown at her and fumble out some answers. Left feeling good, like I’d nailed it.

Noticed the button was missing when I got back in my car. Went cold. It’s nothing I told myself. To prove it, I drove home. Ended up calling them to say I’d lost it and gave a description. Receptionist said he found it and would put it aside for me to pick up.

An email arrived two days later telling me I didn’t get the job. I was crushed. Couldn’t reconcile how I felt I’d done to this outcome. Flopped on my bed, my eyes searching aimlessly. They landed on the shirt hanging in the closet. On the missing button.

I called the receptionist desk and said I was coming in the next day to pick it up. A good enough excuse.

After I grabbed it from reception, I hung around in the lobby till I saw one of the interviewers. The receptionist frowned at me every couple minutes but didn’t say anything. The first person I saw was the woman. The suit she wore was sharp. Practical. Serious.

I flagged her down and asked if I could talk to her for a moment. She humored me.

“I just want to check what I did wrong so I don’t make the same mistake in future interviews.”

She liked that line. “You didn’t take my questions seriously. Didn’t spend any time thinking about them. Hardly engaged with me at all.”

I frowned. “You didn’t give me a lot to work with.” I knew as soon as it came out it was the wrong thing to say.

After a sigh she said “Mark introduced himself. You introduced yourself. Didn’t even ask my name.”

“Isn’t it his job to do that?”

“Introductions are a polite formality. You won’t earn anything by letting others toss their names at you. It’s your job to connect with people. Thats how you manage a team.”

She started to leave without a parting.

“Hey,” I called. “What IS your name?”

“Cassie.”

When I got home I tried to sew the button back on. It wouldn’t go in the second spot down. Even tried hot glue. When I swapped it with the next one down it felt like it threaded itself.

I started at the bottom and buttoned up the shirt. Got to the special one-

-and was back in the conference room, top two buttons undone. The door opened. Mark introduced himself. We shook hands. I extended it to Cassie. She smiled.

“Niced to meet you,” I said.

“Niced to meet you too. Im Cassie.”

That interview went much better.

I experimented with the shirt. Ripped the button off two days before lottery numbers were drawn and sewed it back (one spot down) after. But the numbers were different.

There’s not a lot of practical material out there about time travel. Lots of novels. Speculative theories, quantum mechanics, time dilation. For a while I thought the button was some sort of contained black hole. Then that it was an enchanted object, like Chronos the god of time had put some whammy on it or something (my grams used to called bad luck and curses whammys). Stories about the old gods and spirits usually invovled double sided deals, some good with some bad. Real Wishmaster shit. As good an explanation as any. The most reliable use I found was to redo an interaction.

Between the experimentation and some hairy client interactions, the button was three from the bottom before I decided to to be smart. After all, I had no idea what would happen when I ran out of spots. Would it reset completely? Just fall off? Better late then never, so they say.

Full disclosure: I’d used it twice to on Cassie. Once to redo our first date, and once for our two year anniversary. Wound back six months for that second one. Hard to plan it out when you have to rip the damn thing off to set the anchor you’d go back to. Got a better deal on our apartment that second go around though. Higher floor. Nicer view.

Feels like a setup now.

Then I got greedy. Overpromised on a project. In the scramble to fix it I agreed to some plans with Cassie. Ripped the button off when I took a gamble. Slid back to that point and fixed the project issue but completely let her down. Didn’t risk ripping the button off again off for that.

As things tend to do, the fuck up cascaded. I’d set a precedent that I could either meet the outrageous deadlines or risk incoming clients feeling like they didn’t warrant my best. Work-life balance suffered. Cassie started to feel like she wasn’t a priority. At the next crisis I wore the shirt for a week straight, under a suit jacket. Hot as shit, but needs must. Avoided using the button but ended up in a shitty situation for both work and our relationship. Used it that time to fix a problem with Cassie. Cost me the client. Saved our relationship, but only just.

I tried to course correct. Pushed for more reasonable deadlines. Lost more and more clients. Company couldn’t say I’d done anything wrong when I’d been acting outside of policy before. So they made veiled insinuations and threats. Offloaded my work to other groups. It cost my team their jobs before it got to me. I got demoted. Slap on the wrist.

Cassie was happier in some ways. She worried about my collapse at work. I explained it away as being overstressed. Close enough that she bought it but she also knew it wasn’t everything. The way her brow furrowed when she was annoyed was like a thundercloud. She would want to know everything, deserved to know everything. But I didn’t have the words.

There was one more use of the button before it reached the bottom. I’d been wondering what it meant when it reached the end. Could I sew it back at the top? I remembered it was at the bottom when I’d gotten it. Doubted I was the first one to discover what it could do yet it had ended up in a thrift store. Hadn’t attempted to track it down early on and trying a few years later was near impossible.

I had always struggled keeping my emotions inside. When I felt something it came out before long. Never made it a full day. Cassie was made of sterner stuff. It took a week before she finally sat me down and demanded I tell her everything. She thought it was drugs. Alcohol. Never brought up infidelity. She knew I wouldn’t. Gave me every opportunity to come clean, promised she’d help me through anything and never leave my side as long as I was honest.

She was so open and vulnerable it hurt to look at. Made me feel like without the ability to redo I’d never have had a chance with her. Wasn’t worthy of her.

I fiddled with the button the whole conversation. Tried every deflection I could think of, every excuse. Did the dance of the cornered animal and lashed out, rebuffed with anger, played the victim. Tried to gaslight her but I didn’t have the charisma or the practice. Dug myself into that hole so deep I couldn’t see the light from above. It escalated, as they do, to shouts and anger, hurt and confusion.

In a flurry of tears and growls she stormed out. I chased. Grabbed at her arms. Tried to bar her from getting on the elevator. She was strong, pried me away. Overcome with frustration and panic I shoved her. Eyes wide in surprise and dismay, she grabbed at me. Caught my shirt. We fell together; Cassie stumbled into the reflective elevator wall. I fell chest down on the threshold. Seeing her hurt and being responsible chilled me. Guilt knocked my mind blank.I scurried to to my feet, scraping along the grooved track of the elevator doors.

The button popped off.

I heard it tumble down the shaft.

I froze. Stared into that thin gap with an ashen face. Cassie swore at me. Shoved me back into the wall hard enough to make my vision blur. I blinked as the elevator doors closed.

Getting up took effort. I hesitated looking between the elevator and the stairs. Chose the elevator. Hesitated again between going to the lobby or the basement. Stop her or get the button.

I chose the lobby.

Stumbled out as she hurried out the building doors. Reached the doors, shouting to her as she got in her car. Peeled out of the parking lot, skidding around me as I flung myself in her way.

Panted int the the center of the road as she reached the intersection.

She didn’t blow the light. Got lucky. It turned green as she reached it so she kept going. The semi blew his light. Didn’t slow. T-boned. Killed her instantly.

In a daze, I found the button eventually. Sewed it onto the last spot. Buttoned down.

Came to on the floor of the elevator. The button tore free again. I threw myself into the elevator, but not at her. At the corner. Stayed on the ground, hands up as she kept her fist raised, keys justting from her knuckles and wild, defiant eyes. I hit the button that stopped the elevator between floors. Shouted over the bell and told her the truth. About the shirt. When I’d used it. Why. Everything.

Cassie hand lowered, her eyes going from defiance, to mistrust, disbelief, then fear and pity. Pity hurt the worst.

“You’re insane.”

Those are the last calm words she said to me.

I shouldn’t have chased her again. I did.

I shouldn’t have thrown myself into the road to stop her again.

I did.

It was several minutes later than last time. I stood in the road, frozen, as she reached the intersection. The light was red. She stopped. Waited. I let out a sigh of relief as she started to roll through.

A pickup blew through from the other direction. Caught the front more than the back. Broke her neck. She didn’t die on impact. It took a week for her body to fail. They said her brain was gone before that.

I never found the button. Searched every thrift store in the city. Then the county. Pretty sure I hit every one in the state after a few years but those places also pop up and disappear like ants. Damn shirt only had spots for ten buttons now anyway.

I didn’t quit my job, just stopped going. Moved an hour outside of the city to a more rural setting. Got some work at a scrapyard where the owner didn’t care who I was and paid cash. Hard work. I get to my trailer after shift exhausted but fulfilled in a way that approached, but never reached, how I felt with Cassie.

Couple times a month I drive into the city and sit here. Scraped enough money together to buy this memorial bench in her name. Had it set across from her headstone. I watch ghosts. Sometimes people join me.

I talk to her still. Complete honesty, like I should have from the start. Doesn’t do much good now but hey

Better late than never.