Not Like This

June 2, 2029.

Nyack, New York.

A kitchen full of light.

The windows are thrown open. The river shimmers. A storm passed through earlier, so the air is sweet--wet asphalt and honeysuckle.

Vee is barefoot. Like always, Elle's in one of Vee's old Columbia sweatshirts that falls halfway to her knees. There's pancake batter on the stovetop and something burning in the oven, but neither of them care.

Because Sam Cooke is playing on the little Bluetooth speaker stuck to the fridge.

"When the night has come..."

Vee holds Elle close, one hand on her waist, the other tangled in her black hair. Elle's cheek rests against Vee's collarbone, her almond eyes closed, breathing steady.

They don't speak.

They just sway.

"And the land is dark, and the moon is the only light we'll see..."

Outside, gulls cry softly. The oven timer beeps. The song plays on.

Vee hums a little, low in her throat. Elle tightens her grip just a bit.

Two women. One life.

Finally.

Cut to: somewhere else. Sometime else.

A smaller room. Dimmer. A fan buzzes in the corner, useless.

Valerie Moretti sits on the edge of a motel bed, one boot off, hair damp, cigarette smoldering in an ashtray that says July or Bust.

The same song is playing on a dusty radio near the window.

But here--it's not gentle. It's haunted.

"No, I won't be afraid..."

She stares out across the parking lot. Not at anything. Just through it.

Because someone used to dance to this song with her.

Because someone used to hold her just like that.

And now she doesn't even remember which version of her it was.

Just the feeling. That ache of having been loved by a ghost.

"Just as long as you stand... stand by me."

She crushes the cigarette.

And shuts the radio off.

Seaside Heights, New Jersey -- July 1964

Valerie Before Del

The mornings always smelled like salt and burnt sugar.

Valerie Moretti stood behind the Tilt-a-Whirl with a broom in her hand and sand in her bra. It was already hot--shore hot, thick and low, the kind that clung to you like a damp sheet. She leaned on the broom like it was a cigarette girl's cane, watching a seagull pick at a funnel cake someone dropped the night before. Its powdered sugar had turned to paste in the humidity.

The boardwalk was half-dead this early. Trash trucks growled. Someone hosed off the sides of the hot dog stand, pushing ketchup-streaked napkins down into the cracks between boards. Frankie Valli floated in from someone's transistor radio, thin and tinny, like a memory.

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, rolled her ankle out of habit. She could already feel the grit in her socks. Every day was the same. Open by nine, dead until noon, rush after sundown. She'd flirt with tourists for ride tickets, let the little kids get an extra spin if their moms were pretty or paid in cash.

When it was slow, she sat on the back steps of the prize shack and smoked.

Her hair never dried all the way in summer. There was always a little dampness at the nape of her neck, where sweat met seawater and settled into curls. Her uniform was a joke--striped blouse, cheap belt, pedal pushers rolled too high. Her mother said she looked like a beatnik trying to be a carnie. Her mother said a lot of things.

The motel was just up the road--Moretti's Seaside Motor Inn, seven rooms with stiff beds and rattling AC units. Her father was usually asleep in the back office, TV buzzing loud enough to chase the ghosts. Her mother vacuumed in heels. Her brother was in the Navy, which made him everyone's favorite, even though he only sent postcards.

She hadn't left town since graduation. Not really. Once to Philly with Denise, but that ended with a dead battery and a fight outside a movie theater. Another time to Cape May, but that was for a funeral.

People thought the Shore was romantic. They came for honeymoons, for secret trysts, for memories they wanted to take home in jars. Valerie saw the real thing--rusted pipes under the arcade, condoms in the tide, girls with bruises they didn't talk about. She saw the world sweat through its makeup.

Every boy she'd ever kissed had tasted like beer and boredom. None of them had known what to do with her mouth.

Sometimes she'd walk the beach alone at night, long after the fires died down. She liked the quiet. The pull of the moon. She'd take off her shoes and walk until the lights of the boardwalk blurred into distant gold. Her toes would go numb. Her thoughts would scatter like gulls. That was the closest she ever came to peace.

There was always a summer girl, every year. One that made things feel different for a week or two. A Boston redhead with long fingers. A Black girl with a laugh like church bells, who passed through with a jazz trio. A sunburned surfer from California who borrowed Valerie's comb and never gave it back.

But they never stayed.

Nothing stayed. Just the boardwalk, the waves, the hum of the Tilt-a-Whirl when it started to spin. Valerie watched it now, the sun glinting off the chipped paint, and sighed like a woman twice her age.

The broom handle was sticky. Her palms smelled like iron.

She wiped them on her thighs and said, to no one, "It's too damn early."

And then--just like that--the wind shifted.

The broom scraped over the boards like it had a grudge.

Valerie was almost done pretending to work when Johnny Caruso came swaggering down the boardwalk like he owned it. Shirt unbuttoned halfway, chest hair curling out like cigarette smoke, and that same ridiculous pompadour he'd been nursing since ninth grade. His belt buckle said Elvis in rhinestones, though Valerie knew damn well he couldn't carry a tune unless it came with a muffler and a roll cage.

He had a Miller High Life in his hand, which was just the kind of thing Johnny would call breakfast.

"Val," he drawled, drawing it out like he was savoring it. "Hey, babe. You're lookin' real fine this morning."

She didn't even pause her sweeping. "It's eighty-four degrees and I smell like fried dough. Real glamorous."

He leaned on the railing like he was posing for a crime scene photo. "I was thinkin'... maybe you and me catch that surf movie Friday? That new one with the chick in the bikini and all those longboards? I'll even spring for popcorn."

Valerie looked up slowly. The sun caught the sweat slicking Johnny's brow, and for a moment he shimmered like heat haze. Not in a good way.

"Thanks, but I'm working Friday."

He grinned. "I'll come by after. We'll go for a drive. Hit the dunes. Got a new blanket in the trunk, extra soft."

God. He really was trying.

She forced a smile. Not too mean. Not too encouraging.

"Look, Johnny... that's sweet, but I've got plans."

He tilted his head. "With who? You ain't still seein' that bozo from Wildwood, are you?"

Valerie kept her grip on the broom handle loose. "No. And none of your business."

Johnny shrugged, tried to play it cool, but his pride was already bruising. "Hey, just askin'. You know, people talk. Ain't nothin' wrong with a girl needin' a little... course correction."

And there it was.

She didn't roll her eyes. Didn't snap. Just leaned in slightly and said, low and even, "You ever try correcting a wave, Johnny? It'll drown you."

He blinked. Grinned like she'd told a joke he didn't get. "You're funny, Val. Always had a mouth on you."

She went back to sweeping.

Johnny stood there a beat too long, the way boys do when they can't believe they didn't win. Then he drained the rest of his beer and lobbed the can toward the trash barrel. It missed.

"See you around," he muttered, already walking.

"Yeah," Valerie said to the sand. "You probably will."

Back to stillness. The gulls screamed. Somewhere down the boardwalk, someone started up the carousel.

The broom made its slow, useless path across the planks. Valerie looked at the sun, wiped her lip with the back of her hand, and whispered to herself, "Jesus Christ. Is it not even ten?"

She didn't know it yet, but Del was two blocks away. Already watching the waves.

Later That Morning

The Boardwalk, Just Outside the Tilt-a-Whirl

Valerie had just lit her second cigarette when Betty Lou Fournier came clicking up the boardwalk like she was auditioning for a toothpaste ad. Her skirt flounced just high enough to say coquettish if you were feeling generous, and her hair was locked into a peroxide helmet that wouldn't have budged in a hurricane.

"Val!" Betty Lou chirped, dragging out the vowel like she was singing backup for the Angels. "Oh good, you're not busy."

Valerie took a long drag and glanced at the broom leaning against the booth. "You caught me between power meetings."

Betty Lou didn't get the joke, which made it better. She plopped down beside her on the low railing, crossed her legs like a lady, and let her foot dangle--just so.

"You notice anything different?"

Valerie blinked, squinted at her through the smoke. "... New perfume?"

"Guess again."

"Changed your shampoo?"

Betty Lou wrinkled her nose. "Shoes, dummy. I got 'em from that place in Neptune that always smells like mothballs and uncles."

Valerie looked. White vinyl slingbacks with a gold buckle detail. The kind of shoe that wanted desperately to be seen under candlelight but would end up squeaking down linoleum aisles instead.

"Very classy," she said, because sometimes it was easier to lie than to have a conversation.

"I know, right? I mean, I wouldn't wear 'em with just anything, obviously." Betty Lou swung her leg a little, admiring the curve of her ankle. "Thought they'd be perfect for the VFW dance this Friday. Jimmy Dee said he's going. Probably thinkin' I'll be there too."

Valerie blew smoke through her nose and let the silence hang.

Betty Lou glanced sideways. "You two still--?"

"Nope."

"Huh. Well. Can't say I'm shocked." Betty Lou smoothed her skirt and shifted, smug. "You've always been more into... solitude."

Valerie didn't bite. Just ash-flicked and watched the horizon. The gulls had quieted. The air had that weird hush to it--the kind you get just before something breaks. Somewhere down the boardwalk, a record switched tracks. The wind picked up, dragging the scent of suntan lotion and fryer oil through the slats.

A shadow moved past the ticket booth.

Valerie felt it before she saw her.

Worn jeans. A sleeveless flannel, cut at the shoulder like it had been torn not tailored. Bare feet. A guitar case hanging from one hand like a weapon. The girl walked like the sidewalk belonged to her and she was just being polite about not kicking it up.

Valerie squinted against the sun. The girl stopped a few booths down and tilted her head, surveying the Tilt-a-Whirl like it owed her money.

Betty Lou was still talking. "Anyway, I was thinking if I wore my gold hoops with the white belt, I might look like one of those stewardesses in Look magazine. What do you think?"

Valerie stood up, not answering.

The girl turned.

Eyes like steel-dipped honey. Sunburned shoulders. A grin just a little too cocky for a stranger.

Valerie dropped the cigarette, crushed it with her shoe. "I think I'm gonna be busy Friday," she murmured.

Betty Lou blinked. "With who?"

Valerie didn't answer.

Because the girl was walking toward her now. Slow. Like she had all the time in the world.

And suddenly, Valerie had none.

The girl stepped up to the booth like she'd done it before.

Not this one, maybe, not here--but somewhere. Like every place was a variation on the same stage, and she'd already rehearsed her entrance.

Valerie didn't move. Neither did Betty Lou, for once. The stranger's eyes flicked over both of them--just long enough to be rude, just short enough to be cool. Then she smiled, not at Betty Lou, but through her, and pinned Valerie with a look like an inside joke.

"You run this ride?" the girl asked. Her voice was low, but not soft. Scratchy, almost--a radio station just on the edge of reception.

Valerie nodded, because her mouth was dry and saying yes felt like surrender.

"Figures," the girl said. "You look like you like to spin people around."

Betty Lou made a sound--half scoff, half scoot. "I should go," she muttered, already regretting the shoes.

"Yeah," Del said, not even glancing at her. "You probably should."

She waited until Betty Lou's heels clacked off into the noise before she turned back to Valerie and said, "Delaney. But nobody calls me that. Just Del."

Valerie finally found her voice, tucked behind her teeth like a splinter. "You from around here?"

Del smiled wider. "No. But you are."

She said it like you meant something heavy. Like she already knew where Valerie's cigarettes were hidden, what music she played when she couldn't sleep, how she liked her eggs, who she'd kissed and regretted. Like she'd been told in some smoky backroom: Go to Seaside Heights. There's a girl there. You'll know her when you see her.

Del didn't ask Valerie's name. Didn't need to. She looked around, slow, taking in the ride, the booths, the bored kids tossing peanuts at seagulls. Then back to Valerie.

"You get bored here?"

Valerie licked her lips. "Sometimes."

"I don't."

"You don't get bored?"

"I don't stay where I get bored."

That sat between them, hot and buzzing. Valerie suddenly felt the sweat on the back of her knees, the rub of her bra strap, the sting of yesterday's sunburn on her shoulders. Her skin felt like a question. Like Del already knew the answer.

Del reached up, scratched her jaw, slow and wolfish. "You ever take breaks?"

Valerie said, "Yeah."

Del nodded toward the beach. "You wanna take one?"

It wasn't really a question. Not the kind that needed answering. Valerie looked at her, really looked--barefoot, bold, unbothered--and felt like the world just turned upside down. Or maybe it had always been like this, and she was only now seeing it right.

She stepped out from behind the booth, heart banging. "Ten minutes."

Del grinned like that was plenty.

They stepped off the boardwalk like slipping into another world. The sand was hot even through their shoes. The wind whipped the hem of Valerie's blouse around her hips and threw salt in her mouth, and still, Del didn't say a word for the first minute, maybe two.

She just walked.

Barefoot, guitar case slung over her shoulder like a half-forgotten obligation. The kind of girl who looked like she'd been born leaning against a jukebox.

Finally, Del spoke. "So. Who broke your heart?"

Valerie blinked. "What?"

Del didn't look at her. "You wear it like cologne. Bitterness and cover-up. Someone must've done a number."

Valerie didn't answer. The wind could do it for her. Or the silence. Either way, it said plenty.

Del just nodded. "Let me guess. She was older. Called you baby. Made you feel special for three weeks and then disappeared into some guy's car."

Valerie stopped walking.

Del stopped, too. Turned. The smile on her face wasn't cruel--it was interested. The way a cat watches a mouse stretch before deciding whether to chase it.

"I'm wrong?" she asked.

"No," Valerie said. "You're an asshole."

Del laughed. "God, I hope so. I'd hate to be boring."

She started walking again, and Valerie followed because what the fuck else was she going to do?

Del said, "You got this look about you, like you've been trying real hard to stay good. I bet you lie to yourself about what you want. Say you're just lonely. Say you're confused."

"I'm not confused," Valerie said, too fast.

"Uh-huh. That's what they all say." Del let the wind catch her voice, low and sweet. "Till someone comes along who doesn't let them lie."

She stopped suddenly, dug her toes into the sand, and looked out at the ocean like it was boring her. "I'd eat you alive, you know."

Valerie swallowed hard. "What?"

"You heard me." Del didn't even glance at her. "You'd like it. You'd pretend you didn't, at first. But you'd give in. I can smell it on you."

The waves crashed. A gull shrieked. Valerie's whole body prickled.

Del turned, just a little. "Tell me something. When's the last time someone made you come so hard you forgot where you were?"

Valerie opened her mouth. Closed it. Heat crept up her neck like a slow detonation.

Del nodded. "That's what I thought."

They walked again. Slower. Valerie's breath shallow.

Del kept her voice soft. "I'd use my mouth. I'd take my time. I'd make you beg, but you wouldn't say please--you'd say my name. Over and over."

"You don't even know me," Valerie whispered.

Del smiled. "Sure I do. I know you're tired of pretending. I know you ache like it's a secret you're scared someone might actually understand."

The gulls circled overhead. A little kid screamed with laughter in the distance. It was still broad fucking daylight, but somehow the world had gone private.

Del stopped walking. Turned to face her. Close now. Not touching. Just present.

"You wanna know the real truth?" she asked.

Valerie couldn't speak.

Del leaned in just enough. "I didn't come here for the beach. I came here for you."

Then she turned and started walking again, leaving Valerie there, breathless and burning, like a match with nowhere to strike.

Valerie didn't say goodbye.

She just said, "I've got to get back," like it was a lifeline, like the Tilt-a-Whirl and its greasy bolts and crying children could save her from what had just almost happened.

Del didn't stop her. Didn't call out. Just stood there on the sand with the wind in her hair and the nerve to smile like the ending had already been written.

Valerie didn't look back.

But God, she felt it.

That gaze.

It tracked her like gravity. The pull of it never quite behind her, never quite gone. Like a shadow too clever to be seen, waiting in the corners of her vision. She made it back to the boardwalk with her jaw tight and her mouth dry, lit a cigarette with hands that trembled slightly. Told herself she was fine.

She wasn't.

The day dragged. Every minute stretched thin.

Kids screamed. Coins clattered. The ride spun, and she ran it like she always did--pull the lever, flash the lights, give the little ones an extra turn if their parents looked like tippers. It should've been automatic. It usually was.

But Valerie kept looking up.

Every few minutes, her eyes swept the crowd--past the snow cone stand, over the railing, down the boardwalk. Not obviously. Just enough. Just in case.

Like Del might be there. Watching. Waiting.

And that was the worst part: Valerie was sure she was.

Not in a way she could prove. Not like she'd see a flannel shirt ducking behind the caramel corn booth. No. It was subtler than that. It was in her body. The way her shoulders stayed tense. The way her breath caught when she heard a laugh from a stranger and thought it might be hers.

She tried to shake it off. Ate half a corn dog. Drank a root beer. Rolled her eyes when Richie from the Ferris wheel made a crack about her "smoldering mood." But nothing landed. Nothing could cut through the buzzing hum in her spine.

By four o'clock, she was sweating like she'd run a mile. The sun was still bright, but everything around her felt dimmer, like the brightness had narrowed into a spotlight and she was center fucking stage.

And somewhere, Del was in the wings. Smiling. Waiting. Knowing.

Valerie pulled the lever again, and the ride spun like a warning.

She exhaled, quietly. Jesus Christ. What did that girl want from her?

But the real question--the one she couldn't say, not even in her own head--was this:

What if Valerie wanted it, too?

Friday night. Seaside Heights.

Cece had a cherry-red Mustang her uncle rebuilt for her, and Grace had a bottle of peach schnapps hidden under the seat. They weren't out for trouble, not really. Just a little burnoff. Just the usual loop--arcade, south lot, beach road, maybe the back dunes if someone lit a fire.

Valerie was in the passenger seat, cigarette forgotten in her hand, hair pulled up in a messy twist with a pencil she'd borrowed from work. Her legs were bare, long, freckled. The night clung to her skin like a secret.

"Tell me I don't look like a goddess," Cece said, adjusting her mirror.

"You look like you stole Marilyn's leftovers," Grace said, leaning over the seat to fix her eyeliner in the rearview.

"Marilyn's drunk leftovers," Valerie added, finally taking a drag.

They laughed. The wind caught it and scattered it like confetti.

They found the fire just before ten.

Just off the beach, behind the old bait shack, where somebody had dragged driftwood into a ring and lit it big enough to cook a cow. The lake pipes were roaring--low-slung Fords and Chevys backfiring with joy, chrome flashing, windows down, radios blaring. A dance of metal and music and kids with nowhere to be.

Valerie stepped out of the car and felt it right away.

The shift.

Like stepping into a memory she hadn't made yet.

The fire lit the sand red-orange. Shadows danced. People passed bottles, flopped onto blankets, flirted and shouted and tried not to mean it. And in the middle of it all, perched on an old picnic table with one boot up and one bare foot in the sand--

Del.

Guitar in her lap. Head tilted like she was listening to something no one else could hear. Fingers moving lazy over the strings.

She was playing "Secretly" by Jimmie Rodgers.

Low and slow. Like the song had been waiting for her to sing it. Like it wasn't a performance, just... a confession.

"Why must I meet you in a secret rendezvous?"

"Why must we steal away to steal a kiss or two?"

"Why must we wait to do the things we want to do?"

Valerie froze.

Cece tugged her arm. "Who is that?"

Val didn't answer.

Del hadn't looked up, but it didn't matter. Valerie knew. That voice was wrapped around her ribs. That song was for her. It had always been for her. Even when it hadn't existed yet.

"Till we have the right to meet openly"

"Till we have the right to kiss openly"

"We'll just have to be content to be in love secretly

People swayed. Whispered. Some couples clung closer. Some just stared, entranced. It wasn't just music. It was possession. Del was claiming the air, the night, the moment.

And Valerie.

Her cigarette burned down to the filter, unnoticed.

Afterward, the crowd clapped, scattered, shifted. Someone called for another song. Del didn't move.

She just looked up, finally, and met Valerie's eyes across the fire.

And smiled.

Like she'd known she'd be there all along.

The fire flickers, and everything unspoken is burning.

Del was laughing with some boy now. Or maybe at him. Valerie couldn't tell. Her voice curled like smoke around whatever she said, and the boy's grin wilted just slightly as she slipped away.

She moved through the firelight like she belonged to it. Not walked--slid, like heat over skin. Barefoot still. Sand clinging to her ankles. Guitar slung over her back like she'd just seduced the night itself and was carrying the proof.

Valerie had never wanted anything so badly.

Not Denise. Not Johnny's muscle car. Not even the idea of leaving town.

This was different.

This was hunger. This was wonder. This was dread.

Del didn't flirt. She unraveled. With words. With silences. With the way she looked at Valerie like she already knew how she kissed when she was desperate. Like she knew what Valerie whispered in the dark when no one was around to hear it.

And that was the problem, wasn't it?

Del didn't seem like someone you could hold.

She seemed like something you survived.

Valerie's fingers curled into fists against her thighs.

She wanted to kiss her. God, she wanted to kiss her. Pull her down into the sand and taste that mouth that sang like it was breaking spells. Feel those hands--those hands--on her, sliding up under her blouse like they were meant to be there. She wanted to see Del's face when she came, wanted to see if it cracked, if it revealed anything human underneath all that velvet menace.

But Del looked across the fire and tilted her head slightly, like she'd heard all of it.

Valerie flushed hard, as if she'd spoken aloud.

She looked away.

This wasn't just a crush. This was a haunting.

And she hadn't even been kissed yet.

For a moment, Del was still there.

A blur in the firelight, hips swaying, mouth curving around a private joke only the night understood.

Then--

Gone.

She moved behind the bonfire, swallowed in the shadows like smoke curling into wind. A breath and she vanished.

Valerie blinked. Sat up straighter. Scanned the dark.

"Where'd she go?" Cece asked, her voice distant, already drunk.

"I--I just saw her," Valerie murmured, standing.

The fire crackled loud. A log shifted with a pop. Sparks swarmed upward like startled fireflies. Valerie stepped to the side, craning her neck, hoping to catch just a flash of flannel, a bare ankle, that impossible grin.

She turned--

And Del was there.

Right behind her.

"Jesus Christ--" Valerie gasped, stepping back instinctively. Her foot sank into the sand wrong and she stumbled.

But Del's hand caught her, fingers curling around her elbow with quiet authority, pulling her in. Not rough. Not gentle. Just... decided.

Her palm was warm. Her touch unmistakable.

Valerie's breath hitched. She didn't move away.

Del was close now. Close enough that Valerie could feel the breath between them, the static charge in the air, the heat rising from both their skin.

Del leaned in, lips nearly brushing her ear, voice low enough that no one else could possibly hear:

"I knew you'd be here."

Valerie's eyes fluttered closed. For a second, everything else fell away--the fire, the ocean, the crowd.

Just Del. And that voice. That knowing.

She wanted to say something. Anything.

She didn't.

Because what do you say to a woman who speaks like she's picking up where your dream left off?

Del's fingers were still on her arm. Just enough pressure to remind her: I'm here. I'm holding you.

The fire roared behind them, popping and casting flickers across their faces, but Del wasn't looking at the flames. She was looking past them.

Into the dark.

Then she said it, smiling like the words had been tucked under her tongue since the day she was born:

"It's dark beyond the fire.

Where shadows lurk amid desire."

Valerie's breath caught in her throat.

Del turned her gaze back to her. "Don't worry. I won't quote the whole poem."

"Was that a poem?" Valerie asked, her voice small, thin like tracing paper over something wet and deep.

Del's grin widened, slow and sly. "No. Not yet."

She let go of Valerie's arm then--but only to offer her hand instead. A new kind of invitation. A new kind of dare.

"Come on. Let's leave the light behind."

Valerie hesitated. For half a second.

Then she took her hand.

The firelight fell away behind them like a closing curtain.

They didn't speak as they walked.

The fire faded behind them, muffled by distance and dunes. The boardwalk creaked high above, faint footsteps echoing like ghosts of their other selves--louder, simpler versions they were leaving behind.

Underneath, it was cooler. Damp. Sand soft beneath their feet, pressed down by years of tides and secrets. The smell of wood and salt and something older--something watching.

Valerie backed up instinctively when Del turned to her, retreating without thought until her shoulders met a support beam. It wasn't clean. It wasn't soft. But it was real, and solid, and it held her just as firmly as the look Del gave her next.

Del stepped close.

She brought her left hand up--not touching, just pressing her palm flat against the wood beside Valerie's head, elbow bent, arm arched like a trap about to close. Her body was a breath away. Warm. Electric. Humming with everything unsaid.

Valerie could move.

To the left, a clean dodge. An out.

But she didn't.

She couldn't.

Del leaned in, slow as the tide, eyes locked to Valerie's. Her voice, when she spoke, was a whisper pinned with a smirk:

"You're shaking."

"I'm not," Valerie lied, voice barely there.

"You are. It's beautiful."

Her mouth hovered now, right there. Close enough that Valerie could taste the sweetness of the schnapps from earlier. Or maybe that was just her.

Valerie's heart pounded so hard she could feel it in her teeth.

And then--

Del kissed her.

Not soft. Not brutal. Inevitable.

Their lips met like gravity had been rewired just to bring them together. No clumsy breath or overreach--just that perfect, aching contact. Just the give of Valerie's mouth opening beneath hers, the hum of shock sliding into surrender.

It was magic.

It was ruin.

It was prophecy.

Destiny didn't wear a crown or carry thunder. Destiny had sand on her calves and fingers that curled behind Valerie's neck with such aching precision she forgot her own name.

When they finally pulled apart, Valerie's lips tingled, swollen and wet. Her breath came in shallow bursts. Her body wanted to sink, to melt, to burn.

Del grinned, lips pink, breath steady.

"Told you I came here for you."

Bennie Bianco was on the prowl.

Greasy comb-back, white belt cutting into his gut, sweat bleeding through a rayon shirt three buttons too open. He smelled like a pharmacy aisle had a meltdown--cheap cologne and menthols, with a twist of something rotten underneath.

He didn't walk so much as waddle with purpose, every footfall a threat, every leer a claim. Nobody liked Bennie. Not really. But he knew too much and talked too much and sometimes had pills. That was enough.

Tonight, he was high on something and hungry for the rest.

The beach party was thinning out, firelight flickering low. The smart ones were pairing off, peeling away into the dark, whispering and moaning and gasping behind driftwood and dunegrass. Bennie licked his lips like a man at a buffet.

That's when he saw it.

Two shadows under the boardwalk. Close. Still. Too close.

He grinned. Showed three gold teeth and a molar turned black. Hefted his bulk like it was sexy and started down the slope with a grunt.

"Hey, hey," he called out, loud enough to make it ugly. "What we got goin' on down here?"

Del's mouth broke from Valerie's just barely. Her hand didn't move from Valerie's jaw.

Valerie flinched. Not from the voice--from the recognition.

"Shit," she muttered, "It's Bennie."

Bennie chuckled as he got closer, like he was the punchline to his own filthy joke. "Well well well. If it ain't little Miss Tilt-a-Whirl. And who's this snack with the flannel? You girls havin' a slumber party, or can anybody play?"

Del didn't move. Didn't flinch. Just turned her head slowly, eyes narrowing like shutters. Her hand slid down Valerie's neck--protective now, not possessive.

"You lost, greaseball?" she asked, voice low.

Bennie smirked, stopping five feet away. Close enough to smell the insult on him.

"Easy, sweetheart. I'm just sayin' hi. Ain't no law against enjoyin' the view. Looks like a couple girls could use a man down here."

He stepped closer.

And that was his mistake.

Because Del turned her body just slightly. Still in front of Valerie, but now squared. Grounded. Like she'd done this before.

She smiled.

But it wasn't friendly.

"You got three seconds to crawl back to whatever sewer coughed you up, Bennie. After that, I stop being polite."

Bennie blinked. Laughed. "Oho, you got jokes now. You're a tough dyke, huh? I like a little fight--"

"Three," Del said, calmly.

He stopped laughing.

Valerie could feel it--the shift in the air. Like the temperature had dropped five degrees. Like Del had teeth the world hadn't seen yet.

"Two."

Bennie's lip curled. "You don't scare me, bitch."

Del smiled wider. Her eyes glittered like bottle glass buried in sand.

"One."

Bennie lunged, snarling.

Valerie didn't think. She moved. Reflex, not bravery.

Her body slipped between them, between him and her.

The blade caught her low. Deep.

She gasped--not a scream, just that sharp, wet inhale that sounded all wrong.

Del's hand caught her before she could fall.

"No," Del whispered. "No no no no--"

Blood soaked Valerie's shirt fast. Her legs folded. Her head hit Del's chest with a thud.

Bennie stepped back, stunned. Knife still in hand, but no swagger left. He looked at the red on the blade like it didn't belong there.

Del didn't look at him.

She only held Valerie, lowered them both into the sand, cradling her like a broken instrument.

Valerie's lips moved. Del leaned in, desperate.

"I--wasn't ready," Val said, barely audible.

Del shook her head. "Not like this," she whispered. "Not like this."

Valerie's eyes fluttered. "You knew..."

Del sobbed. Not pretty. Not cinematic. A full-body, animal no.

Valerie's hand twitched. Her mouth parted--then stilled.

Gone.

Del threw her head back and screamed.

The world shifted.

The fire blew sideways, then out, smothered by a pressure that wasn't wind. The boardwalk groaned above like something ancient had been woken. Bennie stumbled back, dropping the knife, whispering Hail Marys with blood on his shoes.

Del clutched Valerie's body and vanished.

No light. No sound.

Just gone.

1983.

An alley behind a boarded-up jazz club in Atlantic City.

A payphone rings and rings and rings.

And then Del appears, collapsing into the grime.

She hits the concrete hard, still holding nothing, still soaked in Valerie's blood.

She's barefoot. Breathless. Shaking. Her body doesn't seem to know what year it is.

Her knees scrape the pavement. Her flannel is torn open. Her face streaked with tears and blood and sand. She curls forward, forehead to the concrete, and lets out a sound like the end of the world.

"Not like this," she says again, voice ruined. "Please, not like this."

And behind her, unseen, a neon sign flickers to life above a strip club door: WILD SUMMER NIGHTS.

The city swells around her.

Atlantic City, neon and grime. A thousand voices, none of them saying her name. The boardwalk's a graveyard of lights, the casinos blinking like broken teeth. Everyone's shouting. Selling. Laughing. Dying slowly.

Del weaves through it like a rumor. Soaked in blood. Hair stuck to her face. Untouchable.

No one stops her.

She doesn't meet their eyes.

She crosses streets like a ghost--between taxis and drunks and a cop too busy arguing with his own reflection to notice the woman slipping through his reality.

Down Atlantic. Left on Mississippi. Right into an alley that smells like piss and rain.

And then--

There it is.

A green door. Down five chipped concrete steps. No number, no name.

She hesitates. Just for a breath.

Then descends.

The door groans open without a key.

Inside: silence. The kind that holds its breath.

A long, narrow hallway, lit by bare bulbs that hum with effort.

The walls are covered in photographs.

Not just any photographs. Valerie. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Framed, taped, pinned, laminated, crooked. As if someone tried to remember everything, then gave up and remembered too much.

--Valerie in a diner booth, a straw in her mouth, flipping off the camera.

--Valerie crying in the rain, eyeliner running.

--Valerie round-bellied, beaming, barefoot on a hardwood floor.

--Valerie in a pilot's helmet, mid-laugh, squinting at desert sun.

--Valerie with blood on her cheek and fire behind her.

--Valerie on the deck of a Navy cruiser, one boot on a coiled rope, wind in her hair, eyes fixed on something just out of frame. The Persian Gulf behind her, boiling under the sun.

Del's breath catches.

Her hand trembles as it brushes a photo. The one of Val asleep in bed, one arm curled under her cheek, mouth just parted.

She presses her forehead against the frame.

"I lost her," she whispers. "Again."

The hallway doesn't answer.

But something flickers.

Further in, past the photographs, a light glows faint behind a half-closed door.

Del straightens. Wipes her face with the back of her hand. Leaves a smear of blood on her cheekbone.

Then she walks.

The room is humming.

Del steps inside. The air smells like copper and dust and overcooked coffee. There's tech everywhere, the kind that doesn't blink or beep--it breathes. Wall-sized machines stitched from wire and instinct. Books stacked like the city forgot them. A ceiling fan turns slowly, ineffectively, like even the air is tired of 1983.

And there, behind a screen of translucent data-skin, Crenshaw.

He's seated cross-legged on a folding chair like it's a throne. Hunched, rail-thin, hair wild and eyes wide. The hologram in front of him is unreadable--symbols flickering in dimensions no sane human should process. It pulses faint green-blue, painting his face in spectral lines, like circuitry crawling over bone.

Unofficially, he's the smartest human to ever draw breath. He could reassemble a potato from two servings of Pomme Dauphine.

For a moment, he doesn't look up.

He speaks without turning:

"There's a new dent in the timeline. Seismic. Erotic. Tragic. You smell like 1964."

Then his eyes flick to her, and all the static stops.

His voice drops.

"Del."

She doesn't speak. Just stands there, soaked in Valerie's blood, hands twitching, pupils wide as saucers.

Crenshaw blinks once. Slowly.

He rises--graceful as a question, stepping through the projection like it's smoke.

"What happened?" he asks, gently now. Not as a scientist. Not even as a friend.

As someone who knows what it means to carry someone else's death like a heartbeat.

Del's lips tremble.

"She's gone," she whispers.

Crenshaw doesn't ask who. The walls already told him.

He looks at her like a priest watching an angel fall. Then, softer:

"Was it too early again?"

Del nods.

"She died in my arms. I couldn't stop it. I didn't--I wasn't--"

She breaks. Collapses. Hits the floor hard, knees first, palms splayed on cold tile. The blood's drying now. Sticky. Real.

Crenshaw kneels beside her.

"It's okay," he says. "It's okay."

She shakes her head. "It's never okay."

Crenshaw's hand finds hers. Holds it.

"You remember what I said when you first showed up in the 1890s covered in gunpowder and peach blossoms?"

She laughs. One broken exhale.

"You said I was early."

"No," he says. "I said: If you insist on making a myth out of love, you'll suffer like a god."

He squeezes her hand.

Then adds, "But myths can be rewritten."

And behind them, the hologram flares back to life--rewinding, refracting, searching for a moment just before the knife.

Del wipes her face with a rag Crenshaw offers. It smells like oil and lavender. She's still in Valerie's blood, dried now, crusted in the creases of her knuckles. She stares at the humming core of the machine he built from genius, instinct, and parts no one's supposed to have.

She breathes once. Then again.

"There's no way back, is there?" she asks, eyes hollow but sharp.

Crenshaw doesn't answer right away.

He twists a knob on the console. Time bends, audibly--a low groan like the Earth complaining about being picked at.

"Every moment has a heartbeat," he says. "Once it stops, it's done. Rerouting to a fixed point in the same year would vaporize you. But..."

He flicks a switch. The air goes sharp and cold.

"There's a variant event. Same trajectory, different rails. She's alive there. Changed, maybe. Scarred, maybe. Different age. But breathing."

Del closes her eyes. Hears her name, soft on Valerie's lips. I wasn't ready. The way her body went slack in Del's arms. The way time sealed over it like it never mattered.

"Date?" she asks, voice flat steel.

Crenshaw punches it in. The console stutters. Buzzes. The air writhes.

"August 15, 1965."

Del blinks. That date's a splinter in her brain. Familiar. Echoed. A memory she hasn't lived yet. Some part of her's been heading there all along.

She swallows.

"Location?"

Crenshaw adjusts the dial, mutters to himself. "Temporal grid is messy. Too many vectors. I can't give you street-level, not safely."

The hologram pulses. He leans close, squints, then exhales:

"Queens, New York. 123--01 Roosevelt Avenue. Closest I can drop you is within three miles."

Del nods once. "That's as close as you can get me?"

"Del," Crenshaw begins, "The events of 1965 took place not just 18 years ago, they also occurred 131 billion miles away. You're lucky I can set you down on the planet."

Then again.

Her jaw tightens. She tears the bloodstained flannel from her shoulders and lets it fall. Beneath, she wears a thin tank top, threadbare but clean. Her body is lean, carved from years of running through centuries. Her back bears a tattoo: Val's name in seven scripts.

"Send me."

Crenshaw steps back. "No guarantee she'll know you. Or love you. Or even like you."

Del's mouth curls at the edge.

"I'll make her fall all over again."

He grins, flicks the final switch.

The machine screams--like it's being ripped open from the inside. Del's mind is forced into some new shape, a new person. Something like that.

Queens. August 15, 1965.

The sun is brutal. The city reeks of summer and sweat and stickball chalk. A radio plays "Help!" by the Beatles. Somewhere, a church bell rings. And on the edge of a railyard, Del slams into the moment, barefoot and breathing hard.

Time bruises her ribs, but she grins.

She's coming for her girl.

Del lands on her knees in a weedy vacant lot behind a Mobil station, halfway between Roosevelt Avenue and the roar of Shea Stadium. The air tastes like gas fumes, fried dough, and screaming.

Thousands of voices echo through the night. Girls shrieking like they've seen God. Because to them--they have. The Beatles are just arriving onstage, and the world is coming apart.

Del coughs once. Spits blood. Time travel never gets easier.

She stands, brushing gravel from her palms, and looks around. The whole borough's vibrating.

Girls in matching mod dresses run down the sidewalk, arms linked, eyes wild. Vendors hawk buttons and bootlegged Beatles merch. Cars honk, radios blare, someone's sobbing in a doorway just from being this close to Paul fucking McCartney.

And Del--barefoot, sunburned, eyes red from crying in another year--looks like a vision from the wrong side of the looking glass.

She steps out of the alley.

She's got three miles to find Valerie.

And not just any Valerie. Not the bleeding girl in a sand-blown 1964. Not the one who whispered I wasn't ready into her mouth as she died. No--this Valerie is alive, somewhere in this chaos.

Maybe she's different.

Maybe she never met Del.

Maybe she's forgotten everything.

But Del hasn't.

And she will not let time win again.

Queens, 7:48 p. m.

Half a mile from Shea Stadium.

Valerie Moretti slammed her palm on the hood of a Ford Fairlane and barked, "Lot's full. Turn the fuck around."

The man behind the wheel looked like he wanted to argue--tie loosened, red-faced, some kind of insurance prick who thought his radio station badge gave him parking immunity. Valerie stared him down like she was packing heat.

He backed up without a word.

Another one turned in behind him.

Valerie stepped into the lane and pointed at the makeshift sign duct-taped to a traffic cone: "LOT FULL. GO HOME."

She had a voice like gravel and cigarettes and not tonight. Her uniform shirt stuck to her back. Her name patch--"V. MORETTI"--was barely visible under a smear of sweat and car grease.

She hadn't signed up for this. The lot was supposed to hold two hundred cars. She'd counted four hundred and thirteen before she stopped trying. Girls were crying in the bushes. Somebody threw up in a glovebox. A group of teenage boys had hotboxed a Plymouth and were screaming about Ringo.

Valerie hadn't even blinked.

But inside--somewhere behind her ribs--something was wrong.

Not the crowd. Not the heat. Not the noise.

Her.

She felt it like a missing limb. Like a dream she'd been wrenched out of, mid-kiss. Like the taste of a name she'd never spoken but still woke up whispering.

She hadn't slept right in years.

She hadn't felt right in years.

People told her she was lucky. Got out of the Navy just before just in time. Smart girl, tough girl, got a good job with the city. She should be grateful.

She was pissed.

She stalked back to her folding chair. Lit a cigarette. Watched the next idiot roll in and pretend he hadn't seen the sign.

She stood again, ready to throw a cone at his windshield.

Then--

She froze.

A flicker.

Across the street.

A shadow between headlights. Barefoot. Moving through the crowd like she owned the space between heartbeats.

That walk. That goddamn walk.

Valerie's mouth went dry.

She stepped forward, cigarette forgotten, feet carrying her before her brain caught up.

"No," she whispered. "No, no, no. That's not--"

But it was.

Del.

Not aged. Not changed.

The same.

Like time had bent around her instead of through her.

Del stopped at the edge of the lot. Looked up.

And smiled.

"Knew I'd find you."

Valerie stood frozen.

The heat of the lot, the roar from the stadium, the smell of grease and cheap perfume--it all dropped away. Her world tunneled down to her.

Del.

Still barefoot.

Still dangerous.

Still--her.

Val didn't move forward. Didn't speak. Her chest rose and fell like she was about to sprint or scream.

Del approached slowly, careful not to spook her. But her eyes... God, those eyes. Like she'd crawled through time just to look into hers again.

Val's voice cracked when it came.

"Where the fuck did you go?"

Del stopped. A car honked nearby. A girl screamed for George like it mattered.

"I was dying," Val said, louder now. "I was dying, and you left me there. I lay there in the sand bleeding like a fucking dog, and you just--vanished."

Del's jaw worked. But no words came.

Val took a step closer. She was shaking.

"They found me the next morning. Still alive. Barely. I don't know how. No one could explain it. I should have bled out. But I didn't. I woke up in a hospital in Long Branch with a cop staring at me like I was a ghost."

Del's eyes burned. Wet. Full. But she let Valerie speak.

"I never saw you again."

One more step. Closer now.

"You were gone. Like a fucking fever dream. Like the best lie anyone ever told me."

Her hand shot out and grabbed Del's shirt--not to pull her in, not yet, but just to hold on.

"You left me," she whispered, all the fury hollowed out, grief leaking through. "You left me and I've been half-dead ever since."

Del's voice, when it came, was cracked glass.

"I didn't want you to die."

Val looked up, eyes shining. "I did. That night. And you weren't there."

Beat.

Del pressed her forehead to Valerie's.

"Then I came back wrong."

Del didn't move.

Not when Valerie's hand fisted in her shirt.

Not when her breath hitched like it was caught on barbed wire.

She just stood there, letting it happen--letting Val decide.

And Val kissed her.

Hard.

Mouth to mouth like a war. Like a scream swallowed mid-sentence. Like everything she hadn't had in the year since Del disappeared had risen in her chest all at once, hungry and feral and done waiting.

It wasn't sweet.

It was everything.

Val gripped the back of Del's neck, crushed their mouths together, tongues tangling, lips slick and open, breath panting through noses and teeth. Del whimpered--fucking whimpered--into her mouth, and it only made Val push harder.

They didn't notice the car horns.

Didn't notice the crowd noise swelling again behind them.

Only the kiss. The heat. The grief dressed as need.

And when Val finally broke it, she shoved Del back.

Del stumbled a step, dazed. Eyes wide. Lips wet.

"Fuck you," Valerie spat, tears burning down her cheeks.

She turned away.

Del reached out. "Val--"

But Val was already walking. Storming.

Out of the lot. Into the street.

The headlights came too fast.

There was no screech.

No warning.

Just the sick, heavy thud of metal meeting body.

And the sound Del made--not a scream, but something lower. Animal.

She ran.

People shouted. A girl screamed. Someone yelled for a cop. The driver stepped out, trembling, a teenager with a mop-top haircut and blood on his hands.

But Del didn't see them.

She was already on the pavement, knees skidding in spilled Coke and oil and blood.

Valerie wasn't breathing.

"No. No. No--"

Del gathered her up, cradled her like before, like again, like the world couldn't be this cruel twice.

"Not like this," she sobbed. "Not again. Not like this."

The neon of Roosevelt Avenue painted their faces pink and sickly yellow.

And the crowd started whispering:

Del screamed into Valerie's chest.

She was already gone. Again. Still. Always.

Time itself winced.

A tremor shot down Roosevelt Avenue, unseen by the crowd. The air buckled. The neon hiccuped.

And then--

Everything snapped black.

Del landed hard on concrete.

Cold. Not wet. Not bleeding.

She blinked. Sat up fast. Heart still in her throat.

"No no no no--"

She was back in the hallway. The hallway. The one with Valerie's photos on the wall. But now they shimmered, blurred slightly. Like old film catching fire at the edge.

Crenshaw stood above her, wearing a different shirt--a Beatles Shea Stadium tour shirt, ironically. His hair looked more gray than before, like the stress of chasing her across eight branches of time had finally found a place to root.

His voice cracked through the quiet like a whip:

"Enough."

Del flinched.

"Crenshaw--"

He held up a hand. "This is the eighth time, Del. Eight." His voice wasn't angry--it was tired. Frayed at the ends. Threadbare.

Del tried to speak. Failed. Her lip trembled.

Crenshaw walked to the console, not looking at her.

"She's supposed to die. Lung cancer. July third, 1979. Alone. Hospital bed in Tacoma. You want the name of the nurse? I can give it to you."

Del staggered up. Her voice came out raw. "She wasn't supposed to die in 1964. That's what started all this."

He turned. "No. That's what started you."

Silence.

Then, softer, like an ache:

"I don't think you can save her, Del. I don't think you're meant to."

Del's face crumpled. "I have to."

"You've had to seven times now. And every time--every fucking time--the world kills her harder."

Del paced. "So what, I let her go? Let her rot in some hospital bed with no one there to hold her hand?"

Crenshaw didn't answer.

Because he didn't have a good one.

He only said:

"There may be no timeline where she lives.

But there might be one where you get to say goodbye."

Crenshaw adjusted a dial on the console like he was fine-tuning a violin strung with nerves.

Del stood beside him, arms crossed, jaw tight, like she was keeping herself from unraveling through sheer force of will.

He didn't look at her when he spoke.

"Love is irrational."

Del snorted softly. "So is time travel."

Crenshaw smiled grimly. "Yeah, but at least I can map that."

He pressed a few keys. The machine throbbed--a dull, pulsing heart made of electricity and failure.

"Variant 1977. Newark. Same woman, same shape. But the story's different. She's a community organizer. Former military. Tense, focused, always looking over her shoulder. She keeps a little pistol in her glove box and too many regrets in her spine."

Del didn't breathe.

Crenshaw went on. "The infamous blackout. July 13th. Gangs. Police. Looting. She'll be in the middle of it. Shot through the chest at a protest. Wrong place, wrong time. Dead before midnight."

Del nodded slowly. "How long?"

Crenshaw looked at her. The overhead lights made him look ancient. Kind, but worn. Like the only god in a dying pantheon who still gives a damn.

"I can set you down a few days ahead. But that's all. Newark's too unstable. There's no elasticity in the thread--too many already tangled timelines. If you stay past the thirteenth, your atoms will scatter."

Del's eyes burned. "I just want to see her again."

Crenshaw's voice dropped.

"You will."

He turned a final dial. The machine screamed. The photographs on the walls shimmered--Val in uniform, Val in bed, Val with a child Del never got to meet. Faces blurred by time, but real.

Del looked at them all. Then stepped into the light.

"Drop me."

Crenshaw exhaled. "You'll have until sundown on the twelfth. After that, it's countdown."

"Understood."

He paused. "Del..."

She turned.

He looked at her like a father, or a god, or something older.

"Don't waste it trying to save her."

Del's mouth trembled.

"I won't."

And then she was gone.

Cedar Sinai Medical Center. Los Angeles.

July 3rd, 1979.

The air was too cold and too still, humming with the fluorescent lull of dying things. A television murmured game show laughter down the hall. Somewhere, a nurse dropped a clipboard. It echoed like a gunshot.

Del stepped out of the corridor and into the room with eyes already wet.

She knew.

The moment her boots touched the tile, she knew.

The sheets were pale blue. The oxygen hissed with practiced indifference. Valerie lay still. Thinner than Del remembered. Face half-sunk into the pillow. Hair gone in patches, skin pale. Her hand twitched once and didn't move again.

Del stumbled to the bed. No noise. No scream.

Just one word:

"No."

But she wasn't in time. Not really.

She had landed at 3:38 p. m.

Valerie died at 3:26.

She sat beside the bed anyway.

Took the hand.

Held it like it might still warm back up if she asked nicely.

"Crenshaw, you son of a bitch," she whispered, voice hoarse, cracking. "You sent me to her fucking deathbed."

No one answered.

No one ever did.

The world had moved on.

She stared at Valerie's face for minutes that didn't belong to anyone. Remembered the laugh, the heat, the rage. The way she used to hum under her breath without realizing it. The way her shoulders looked in moonlight.

She bent down. Pressed her forehead to Valerie's chest.

"I should've been here."

A nurse entered softly. She was young. Tired.

"Oh. I'm sorry. Are you family?"

Del didn't move.

"Her wife," she said.

The nurse blinked. "I didn't... her file didn't... You can't..."

"I wasn't on the file," Del said, voice hard. "Doesn't matter. We were each other's."

She stood.

Walked out.

Didn't look back.

Back in the hallway, Crenshaw was waiting.

A cup of coffee in his hand. A different shirt again. He looked older than God.

Del stopped cold.

"You bastard."

Crenshaw took a sip. "I told you she dies July third, 1979. You just didn't ask what time."

Del's hands curled into fists.

"I could kill you."

Crenshaw shrugged. "I'd regenerate somewhere in 2155. I've done the math."

Del's jaw clenched. "You wanted me to watch."

"I wanted you to know. No more illusions. No more threads to pull. No more versions to rewrite. This is the moment the story ends."

Del didn't speak.

Crenshaw took another sip, sighed.

"I'm sorry, Del. But there's no version where you grow old together. There's only this one."

She stared at him for a long time.

Then:

"So what do I do now?"

He looked at her.

Really looked.

And said:

"Now? You live. For both of you."

Crenshaw steps into the hall. Coffee half-full. Watching Del as she stares at the machine he built--the altar, the gallows, the mausoleum of possibility.

She says nothing.

Her eyes gleam with something final.

Then--she moves.

She walks past him. Back into the room beyond the photographs. The machine is still humming. Waiting. It always waits for her.

Crenshaw says, softly, "Del... don't."

She turns.

"You said there was no version where we grow old together."

She steps up to the console.

"So I'll take all of them."

She grabs the dials.

Flips every possibility to OPEN

Power surges. Lights strobe. The photographs on the wall begin to multiply, blur, collapse, recombine--Valerie in thousands of lives, infinite expressions, infinite fates.

Del doesn't flinch.

She steps into the heart of it.

The machine shrieks.

Her body fractures mid-step--her bones stretched across time, her blood rewriting its memory, her soul dividing.

She becomes plural.

Ten. Fifty. Hundreds of Delanies.

All stepping into different doors, different years, different possible hers.

One in South Philly, 1986--Val's a teacher with two kids and a secret she's too scared to name.

One in Saigon, 1968--Val's dying in her arms again, but it's her last breath and it tastes like peace.

One in Paris, 2003--Val owns a bookstore and kisses her behind the poetry shelf every Sunday.

One in the void, where Valerie never existed--and Del screams until time folds in on itself.

Some of them succeed. Some of them fail.

Some of them never find her at all.

But all of them look.

Every Del in every flickering loop hunts for the same thing: Valerie Moretti.

Back in the hallway, Crenshaw watches.

His expression?

A smile.

Not smug. Not cruel.

Soft. Proud. Maybe even grateful.

He takes a sip of his coffee.

"Love is irrational," he says to no one.

Then, chuckling softly:

"But fuck me, does it move mountains."

He stands alone in the long hallway, the air heavy with burnt ozone and the metallic sweetness of paradox.

The photographs on the wall shimmer and shift constantly now. A thousand Valeries. Alive. Dead. Laughing. Pregnant. Screaming. Kissing Del on a fire escape. Holding a rifle in a trench. Sitting alone in a kitchen waiting for a letter that never comes.

Each frame is still becoming.

Crenshaw watches, eyes flicking like a man reading a scroll only he can see.

He takes another slow sip of coffee.

"I wonder," he murmurs, voice barely audible over the low thrum of the machine,

"How many times I've watched her do this?"

He runs a hand through his hair. Sighs.

"Four hundred? Five? Seven hundred and twenty-nine? Always the same beginning. Always the same shiver in the air when she says, 'Drop me.' Always the same scream when Valerie dies."

He pauses. The lights flicker blue.

"Always the same moment she stops asking and starts tearing holes in time causing coincidences, encounters.., problems... solutions..."

He walks to the console. It's still hot.

Still shaking.

He rests a hand on it, almost lovingly.

"Maybe this is how the universe teaches itself mercy."

Then he leans back. Smiles that tired, mad-genius smile.

"Let's see how many of her find home."

Nyack, New York. December 31st, 2039.

The last night of the decade. (Sort of... don't get me started.)

It's snowing lightly outside, soft powder piling on the railing of their little balcony overlooking the Hudson. Streetlights glow gold. The river looks like steel velvet.

Inside, the lights are dim.

Elle and Vee sit on the floor, back against the couch, wrapped in the same blanket. There's a mug of tea between them, gone cold. Neither of them moves to warm it.

They're watching their holographic fireplace--it crackles in perfect imitation of the real thing, flickering warm tones across their faces. The logs never shift. The flames never die. It's a loop, but a beautiful one.

Secretly, by Jimmie Rodgers, plays from the living room speaker.

Elle hums along, eyes half-closed.

Vee leans into her. "Where'd you hear this one?"

Elle shrugs. "My great-grandmother, Grandma Delany, played it for me a long time ago. Feels like it's always been around."

Vee smiles faintly. "It sounds like missing someone."

Elle brushes a strand of hair behind Vee's ear. "Maybe it's about finding someone, too."

They sit in silence as the song plays. Outside, fireworks pop from across the river, muted by distance and snow.

The song fades. The fire flickers on.

Vee speaks softly.

"Do you ever feel like we've been here before?"

Elle doesn't answer at first. Just tightens the blanket around them both. Then--

"Not here, exactly. But... close. Someone like us. Others struggled... died... to give us what we take for granted."

Vee nods. "We should be grateful."

"Yeah."

Another beat.

Then Elle says:

"Whoever those women were, I'm glad I found you. I'm glad we have this."

Vee closes her eyes.

And finally--finally--they both let themselves rest.

The fire hums.

The snow falls.