Ouroboros

At the end, I am always running. Running through the blackness. Tripping and falling over rocks and underbrush until my hands are scratched and bleeding. My throat is hoarse but no sound comes out. I think I remember screaming.

Out. I need to get out.

Even as I think the words, my body slams into something. Like a glass wall, it shatters, and I fall through. Every time.

And then I am back in the dark alley behind Linguini’s. The time on my smartwatch readout is 5am. Again.

Inside, I can hear the buzz of people talking and laughing, the chink of cutlery on plates and the music filtering down from overheard speakers. The aroma of Italian makes my stomach growl. When was the last time I ate? I think it was several cycles ago, but the last few are just a blur.

The manager sticks her head out of the back door. “Samantha, what are you still doing out here? Get in here and start serving those tables.”

She’s yelled at me every single time, and I still can’t remember her name. But I do what I always do and follow her inside obediently.

My shift passes in a blur of faces, voices, and dirty plates. I don’t know how I manage to smile at each faceless customer and still answer intelligibly. I’m running on autopilot. I’ve been through this day so many times that I don’t have to even think.

After my shift, it is time to run home and get ready to meet Byron for dinner. My new dress is already spread out on the bed. I barely even remember that hopeful, excited girl who laid out the dress and smoothed down each glittery red flounce before she left for her first shift at her new job. She has been lost in the blur of this endless day. And I have come to hate that dress.

But even though I know what is coming, I find myself still going through the motions. I put on the dress, struggling briefly with the zip, and give a little twirl in front of the mirror. I do my makeup, adding lipstick and gloss and eyeliner. I try on several different pairs of shoes, even though I know which one I eventually decide on. The relentless current of time just drags me along in its wake, and I can’t seem to stop myself.

Just like every other time, Byron picks me up on the street outside my apartment. He can’t seem to contain his smile, and I know that he is going to ask me to marry him later after dinner. His sister accidentally let it slip that they went shopping for rings. I remember that innocent girl I used to be feeling fluttery and excited tonight, but I am just numb.

It gets dark as we drive out of the city, onto the canyon road. I don’t know where he is taking me. He insisted when he asked me out that it was a surprise. Haven’t I told him a dozen times how much I hate surprises?

Even after all these cycles, I still don’t know exactly how it happens. I never actually see the truck that comes out of the darkness, sliding around a hairpin turn in the road and slamming into us.

I just feel the impact. I hear the crunch of metal as the car spins out of control, flipping end over end. And then I black out.

When I wake up, the car is cold and dark, the only light coming from the clock on the dashboard, somehow still functional. Somehow, we had landed the right way up.

I can hear dripping somewhere close by. The sharp metallic smell in the air – blood – mingles with the faint grassy scent of the bouquet Byron gave me, crushed on my lap. My shoulder throbs where it hit the car door as we tumbled, and my seatbelt is so tight it feels like I can’t breathe.

I can feel the panic bubbling up inside me at being trapped in this tight space in the dark, alone. Where is Byron?

“Byron?” My voice is shaky, frantic.

Dazed, I look over at Byron, even though I know what I will see. There is blood. A lot of it. His hand twitches on the steering wheel; he is still alive. But I also know that no one could survive that much blood loss. I don’t know how long we’ve been sitting here in the dark while Byron silently slips away.

Panic flares. I have to get out of here.

I grab the door handle on my side, and to my surprise, the door opens easily, falling off and landing with a clang. In my panic, I half climb, half fall out of the car, landing on my hands and knees on the side of the road. My dress catches on one of the broken hinges and rips, but I barely notice it.

Panic.

I need to do something different. I need to figure out why I keep coming back here, why I keep reliving the worst moment of my life.

Panic. Run.

But before I can stop myself, my feet are moving, and I am running away from the car, out into the night. It feels like I am watching myself from somewhere far away, watching myself run screaming through the darkness, watching myself run and fall and get back up, watching myself crash. And fall.

5am. This time, I refuse to even look at the readout. I know what it says. I just close my eyes and turn my face up to the paling predawn sky, unable to face my reality. Wishing that it were all just a bad dream.

“Are you ok, dear?” The kind voice makes me start. I have always been alone in this alley.

I realise that my face is wet and that there are silent tears rolling down my cheeks, and I hurriedly brush them away. “I just want this to be over,” I mumble, half to myself, half to the older lady eyeing me quizzically.

She smiles. “Don’t be so sure.” She pats my hand. “I am certain that whatever you are going through seems terrible.”

“You have no idea, lady.”

“Maybe not.” My rudeness doesn’t seem to faze her. “But you can’t keep running away. The only way through is through, if you pardon the cliché. Running away only postpones the inevitable.” Before I can argue or explain, she gives my hand another pat and then heads into the restaurant.

For the rest of the day, as I go through the motions of getting through this day one more time, I can’t stop thinking about her words. I couldn’t face this night, so I blocked it out. I couldn’t face what happened in the car, so I ran. But instead of escaping, all I did was live it over and over and over.

I can’t keep going like this. I can’t.

When Byron picks me up that evening, something feels different. As he does every time, he hops out of the car to open the door for me. With his cheeky grin – the one that made me fall in love with him – he presents me with a bouquet of freshly picked dahlias. I can smell the warmth of sunshine and dirt on him, and I know he picked them himself.

For the first time in I’ve forgotten how many cycles, I actually step closer to him, instead of putting distance between us. I link my fingers behind his neck and pull him down for a kiss, a deep, passionate one that ends with me pressed back against the car door.

Byron sounds breathless as he pulls back. “What was that for?” He caresses my cheek with his thumb and frowns as his hand comes away wet. “You’re crying.”

I blink away the tears and shake my head, unable to speak around the lump in my throat. It hurts so much to look at him, but at the same time, I can’t let him go. Why couldn’t I be stuck in this moment forever instead?

“Just hold me.”

He doesn’t argue, just wraps me in a fierce hug. I bury my face in his leather jacket, inhaling the scent of his familiar aftershave. He doesn’t let go until I do, until I think I have enough control over my emotions to get through the rest.

He looks at me with worry pinching his eyebrows. “Samantha?”

“Let’s just go to dinner.”

He doesn’t push me. I love him for that. He holds the car door open for me, passes me my bouquet and waits for me to get comfortable before he closes the door and walks around to his side. The happy bounce to his step as he walks almost makes me choke again, but I swallow it down.

He slides into his seat and starts the car up. There’s a song playing on the car radio as we pull away from the curb, but I barely hear it. I don’t take my eyes off him. I want to remember this moment. I don’t want to waste a second looking out the window, the way I did the first time.

Byron keeps glancing at me as he drives. “Are you sure you’re alright?” he asks finally.

I don’t know how, but I manage to smile at him. “I’m just thinking how much I love you.”

I never got the chance to say that to him before. I was waiting for him to say it first. I was too blind then to realise that he’d been saying it to me all along. Just not with words. With handpicked bouquets and fierce, comforting hugs and never once asking for more than I was ready to give.

The worry in his eyes clears at my words, and he smiles that slow, warm smile of his. He still doesn’t say he loves me, but he doesn’t need to. I know.

As we leave the city, my heart starts to pound faster, and it feels like a vice has closed around my chest. Thankfully, I don’t need to talk. Byron is telling me a funny story about something that had happened to him that afternoon, and even though I have heard it many, many times before, it still makes me smile.

This time, I see the moment when the truck appears around the curve. And because I’m watching Byron, I see him yank the wheel so that his side of the car takes the brunt of the blow. His face – intense, determined – is the last thing I see before I black out.

I wake up again in the cold dark. Everything is the same as before – the broken, twisted car around me, the dripping sound, the blood.

But this time, I don’t reach for the car door and scramble out into the night. I don’t run. Instead, I reach over and put my hand on Byron’s. Feel the warmth leach from his fingers. Hear the huff of his last breath.

“I am right here.” I whisper into the dark and this time I believe it. “I am not going anywhere.”

THE END