Page 33 of Only You

Washington, D.C.

‘We really appreciate your help, Stephen.’

‘It’s no problem, Ms Diane,’ Jones replied.

The librarian smiled brightly, and, for a moment, it took him back to Atlanta.

She reminded him of some of his aunties, her silk press dotted with grey though there were no wrinkles to be found and her smile was as warm as her mahogany skin.

Though he hadn’t talked to her much – the Tenley-Friendship Library being fairly new – there was already a level of comfort between them.

Every time he visited, she would tell him about a new book, and he would tell her about a new album, going back and forth at the reference desk.

Of course, when she asked him to host a music class over the autumn break, he immediately agreed.

‘Well, it’s not every day we have a world-class musician visiting. Oh, the kids are going to love you,’ she gushed, making him feel a bit bashful. He was never good with praise. ‘I have to get back to the front desk, but I will send you the details later this week, okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘Wonderful.’ She patted his shoulder before walking off, throwing over her shoulder, ‘And make sure you get a book before you leave!’

‘No promises,’ he teased, even as he headed to the stacks.

Jones explored the shelves with cursory glances and a slow gait.

Occasionally, he would pick something up, but nothing caught his attention.

It seemed to be a running theme for a while.

He looked at his phone, checking his call log.

He scrolled until he found Dani’s last call, sighing and leaning on the shelf in defeat.

Dani hadn’t contacted him in over a month.

At first, he didn’t panic. She was a grad student; of course, there was going to be a point where she fell off the face of the Earth.

But the days stretched to two weeks, and he just called to check on her.

He even sent a video, a remake of her friend’s video, with a text saying, ‘Copycats or a remix?’ but there was silence.

For a moment, he feared the worst – accidents happened everyday – but a quick Facebook search revealed she was fine.

So, after the relief wore off, he was forced to realise the truth: she didn’t want to talk to him.

He wished he could wonder why but it wasn’t hard to guess.

By now, she probably remembered the end of Sabine and Damien, possibly even David and Sarah’s, stories.

What did people say? Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times would make it a pattern…

And who the hell would want this kind of pattern?

He pushed off the shelf and continued to walk around the library. It was smart; it might hurt less when the inevitable happened. Still, it felt like his heart was turning to stone at the thought that it might be all over.

The universe, however, seemed to have another idea.

The moment he rounded the corner, time seemed to halt.

He spotted Dani at a nearby table. He watched her pore over a pile of books.

Her braids were piled on top of her head, pulled out of the way, showing off her cheekbones and full lips.

She almost looked at peace were it not for her furrowed brows.

He almost wondered if he should give her a few minutes to study, but she huffed, looking around.

It didn’t take her long to spot him. Her mouth formed an ‘o’ and Jones felt it would be too awkward not to walk over.

‘Hey,’ he said. His voice seemed to break her shock and she looked down quickly.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I have to go.’

‘What?’ She didn’t look as she grabbed her books, hastily getting up from the table. She didn’t notice that she had left her coat on the back of her chair and he grabbed it. ‘Dani, wait.’

She didn’t turn to look at him, instead picking up her pace as she weaved between stacks and towards the exit.

He jogged lightly to catch up to her. He expected her to stop at the front to checkout her books but she beelined for the doors.

What is she doing? He hurried to catch up to her as the alarm went off.

‘Dani, what are you doing?’

‘I have to get away from you,’ she said, still not looking at him.

‘Why?’

‘I can’t be near you. We can’t be close. It’s a trigger,’ she continued, walking towards the street.

‘What are you talking about?’ he asked, seeing a truck speeding down the street.

He dropped the jacket and ran as she stepped out.

His heart jumped out his throat as he narrowly pulled her to safety, making her drop her books.

He gripped her arms tightly, pinning her to his chest. They were both breathing heavily, hearts racing as the truck drove by, not slowing down for a second.

‘Dani, stop! You could have gotten yourself killed,’ he snapped, unable to hide his fear. If he had been even a few seconds late… he looked at her, seeing her eyes start to gleam.

‘Then, I guess it’d be over. Like it’s s–supposed to.

’ Her words gave into sobs. She gripped his shirt tightly, crying into his chest. The cries were ugly and desperate, the ones reserved for losing someone you couldn’t imagine living without.

He swallowed the lump that suddenly formed in his throat and held her close, wishing this wasn’t their first hug.

He could feel her leaning onto him more, her legs probably about to give out.

He held her up, refusing to let her fall.

‘It’s okay.’ It was probably the worst thing he could have said but it was all he had, all he could force himself to believe. ‘It’s going to be okay.’

Dani could barely look up from her lap as she waited for Jones to sort things out with the librarian.

One of them had followed, after seeing her crying her eyes out.

Jones had led her to a stone bench just outside the building, promising to be right back.

She had thought about leaving but couldn’t gather the strength to get up, much like Sarah.

She placed her head in her hands at the thought.

She had researched for weeks but she couldn’t find an answer. There was no rhyme or reason to why she was reincarnating, why she was only remembering now when she couldn’t before, why she kept falling in love with the same person and why – oh, why – did it always end with both of them dying.

She tried listening to Dr Castillo, but everything pointed to their lives repeating.

The only way she could think of solving it was by avoiding Jones.

And now she almost killed herself trying to do so.

She would laugh at the irony if she wasn’t so exhausted.

She heard footsteps approaching and she moved her hands to her lap.

Jones sat down next to her, placing the books she was researching and her coat between them.

‘Ms Diana told me to tell you that she likes the variety in your taste of books, just not your checkout method,’ he said.

She huffed out a tired laugh, but it was half-hearted and fell flat.

‘I’ll remember that next time,’ she told him. Her eyes softened as they landed on him. ‘You have the same eyes.’

He raised his brows. ‘As who?’

All of them , she wanted to say. He didn’t look like any of their past lives but the look of care and longing in his eyes was one she had lived with for over a century. A prize possession she could only ever cherish temporarily.

‘I’m trying to figure out what’s happening to us,’ she said instead. ‘I keep looking but nothing’s coming up. All I know is that the closer we get, the more likely it’ll be that you’ll die, or I’ll die, and I can’t figure out how to fix it.’

Her voice got wobbly at the end, and she bit the inside of her cheek to hold back her tears.

She had been breaking down almost every other day.

Every time she reached a dead end, she almost felt like she was dying all over again.

It was too painful to bear, too hard to admit, when her friends or professors asked why she looked so tired or sad.

How did she tell them she was going to pass away because the universe or God decided she couldn’t have life and love at the same time?

‘The dreams started when I was a kid, maybe five-ish,’ Jones said, suddenly.

Dani scrunched her brows before she recalled their conversation in the McDonald’s parking lot.

‘Like I said, the memories triggered during freshman year. My first love broke up with me, and I had never felt heartache like it. I guess that pain made it all come back. At first, I thought the headaches I was getting for weeks afterwards were just me missing her, but one day, the veil lifted. I remembered everything all at once, all those memories crashing together, and I had no idea what belonged where.’ He grimaced, staring off in the distance.

‘Some days, I felt like I couldn’t even get out of bed.

I had to make one of my senior class projects about memory just so I would have an excuse to spend days mapping out the lifetimes, hoping that sorting it would make it make sense. ’

‘What’s the first story you fully remembered?’ she asked.

‘Damien and Sabine and then the rest. I think it goes in order before getting chaotic.’

‘What do you mean chaotic?’

‘Sometimes it jumps to the first life, sometimes the fourth,’ he clarified. ‘It hasn’t jumped to the future yet, so I think we’re in the clear there.’

‘How many lives do we have?’ she asked warily.

‘It’s… hard to tell,’ he admitted. ‘From what I’ve calculated, we’re in life five or six now.’

‘And all the endings…’ Dani looked at him expectantly and he felt the weight of every lifetime, every disappointment coming back; he shrugged helplessly. The feeling of defeat made her shoulders slump. ‘We should stop seeing each other.’

‘Considering I almost made you run into the street, I think that’s fair,’ he said, remorse colouring his tone and she immediately wanted to take it away.

‘I ran because—’

‘You were scared,’ he filled in but she shook her head.

‘Because I knew I would run to you,’ she confessed. ‘I would ruin all my plans because I missed you. I missed talking to you, laughing with you. My only foolproof plan and I wanted to throw it out the window the moment I saw you. That scared me.’

The implication hung in the air between them but neither seemed to know what to say. Yet, her skin was vibrating in anticipation as she realised that a barrier had just broken. It seemed the further she ran from him, the more they were drawn together. She should be devasted.

She was almost embarrassed by the amount of relief she felt.

‘Try Mali,’ he said suddenly. ‘I went to see an exhibit on the griots and—’

‘Wait. Don’t tell me right now.’ She watched his face fall at her interruption and licked her lips nervously. There was no turning back when she said, ‘Tell me when I call tonight.’

Watching the smile stretch across his face was like watching the sun break through the clouds and for a moment, she foolishly thought it might be worth their impending doom.