Wishing I could put a pause on time is pushing my luck I figured but my anxiety seemed to have eased a bit, in the days that went by since I met Gabe. I still take acid relief and Aleve daily.
Gabriel lingers in my mind like an unanswered question. Seeing him that night at dinner made everything I thought I'd almost left behind come rushing back. The heartbreak, the hollow feeling of being cast aside, and that lipstick stain on his shirt, the silent evidence of another woman in his life. Cassandra. I still can't wrap my mind around it all. Had he already met her now, or would she come into his life later, slipping into place like a piece of a puzzle he'd been missing all along?
The phone call he took- the way he smiled as we were leaving comes back to mind. I can't shake the thought, can't stop turning it over in my head like some toxic charm.
God. Had I been a stand-in for her and not his mother's request to see him married before she passed?
Each time the question arises in my mind, I bury it down with memories of his calm, confident smile at the dinner, and the way he shook my hand like we were mere acquaintances. How could he have already been drawn to someone else? And yet, I wonder.
No, he could not be in love with Cassandra yet and be that flirty with me.
He was not flirting with you, I correct myself, but it bothered me like never before. Why is this taking up so much space in my mind?
The questions occupy me for days, filling my mind so completely that I barely notice Dan trying to start conversations with me in our classes. Every time he leans over, his face eager, my stomach twists. There he is, acting as though nothing's wrong, as though I don't know who he'll become a year from now. The guy who will betray me with my roommate. I was blindsided back then, but now, in this strange twist of time, I know exactly who he is and what he'll do.
It sickened me. He sickens me.
Finally, one afternoon, I snapped because he once again took the seat next to mine. We're halfway through a dull lecture, and Dan is trying to joke about something on the board, nudging me like he always does. I turn to him, feeling the irritation bubbling up.
"Why are you wasting your time with these fake feelings?" I hiss sharply but low enough for his hearing only. "Zulu's available. Her boyfriend and she just broke up."
He blinks at me, his mouth open in utter shock, and a look of pure confusion crosses his face. "What… What are you talking about, Meg?"
The sheer horror in his eyes, as if I'm the one who's crazy, takes me aback for a second. It dawns on me, slowly, that none of what I know has happened yet. To him, we're still just college students with a simple relationship. He has no idea about the year ahead, the mistakes, the betrayal.
"You heard me," I say, though my voice is softer now. "You and Zulu. I know about the two of you." This is how to get to the bottom of it. The nasty thoughts I have been having about them both. It has occurred to me that he accused me of experimenting with Zulu just to throw me off the fact that both of them were together.
He frowns, his eyebrows knitting together in genuine bewilderment. "Zulu? Meg, I'm not- what? I would never-" He stumbles over his words, shaking his head. "Where is this even coming from?"
For a moment, I feel a flicker of doubt. His face is open, innocent even, and I realize with a strange, detached feeling that, no, he isn't involved with her. Not yet. But now doesn't matter. He will be. They both will be.
He keeps staring at me, but I turn away, refusing to engage any further. There's no point explaining things he wouldn't understand, not things that haven't happened yet. And frankly, I don't care. Whatever he does or doesn't do with Zulu now is his business. I've had enough of worrying about him.
Dan sits back, clearly at a loss, and I hear him muttering something under his breath. But it's as though he fades from my consciousness. Right now, my mind is elsewhere- on Gabriel, on the swirling mess of emotions tied to my future husband and the woman who would one day take my place in his heart.
Gabriel. There it is again, that gnawing sense of dread and inevitability. What if I've somehow, in returning to this time, been given the chance to stop things before they unravel? But it's impossible to change what's already happened- or what's going to happen, I remind myself. I can't undo the fact that he'll eventually fall in love with Cassandra, that I'll eventually be left wondering why I was never enough.
"Meg?" Dan's voice snaps me out of my thoughts.
"What?" I ask, harsher than I intend and the woman in from also stops speaking, raising an eyebrow at me and I duck my head apologizing.
"Take notes," is all she said, and I shake my head yes.
Minutes later, the lecturer leaves the room and Daniel looks at me carefully, studying my face as though searching for some clue as to why I'm acting this way. "Are you… okay?"
"I'm fine," I answer curtly, stuffing my things into my bag. "And if you're smart, you'll go find Zulu."
Dan gapes at me, but I don't give him a chance to respond. I rise from my seat, ignoring his protests as I walk past Zulu in the last row of seats and out of the lecture hall, and into the bright, bustling hallway. She smiles at me ignorant of what I just accused Dan of. Oblivious to why I ignored her at bedtime, choosing to wear my headset instead of conversing with her like we normally did.
Searching my bag, I swallowed two painkillers again, squinting my eyes against the pain, feeling the rush of confusion and tension building in my chest, and the only way I know to diffuse it is to keep moving, to focus on the sensation of my feet hitting the ground, step by step.
But Gabriel's face keeps flashing in my mind, and with it, the image of a faceless Cassandra, the woman who would one day become his everything.
I shake my head, my mind churning with worry and resentment. I have to focus on myself, on surviving these days that feel like a strange, second chance. But it's impossible to shake the questions that linger.
After I save my mom and Avrielle, I am looking for Gabe.