WEBVTT
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Calaroga Shark Media.
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Welcome to Romance Weekly. This is February second, Episode two. Shadow.
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We drive back in silence. The ocean disappears behind us,
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swallowed by hills and highway and the ordinary world that
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doesn't know it's been repeating for seven years. I watched
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the mile markers countdown and try to understand what THEO
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told me. I died February second, eleven, fifty two pm,
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mile marker twenty three, black ice and a median crossing, and
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a paramedic who held my hand while I bled out.
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Except I'm still here, still breathing, still thinking, still sitting
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in this truck with a man who watched me die
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and has been carrying that for seven years. Say something,
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THEO finally says. His voice is rough. I don't know
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what to say. You can be angry, you can scream
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at me. I've been lying to you all day, lying
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by a mission. At least you have every right to
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I'm not angry, and I'm surprised to find it's true.
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I'm just trying to understand. I've had seven years to try.
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I still don't. The highway unspools ahead of us, gray
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and ordinary somewhere on this road is mile marker twenty three.
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Somewhere on this road is the place where I stopped existing.
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What do you think we are? I ask? If I
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died and you didn't, why are we both stuck? I've
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thought about that a lot. He keeps his eyes on
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the road. My best theory is that the loop caught
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both of us at the moment of connection, you dying
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and not ready to go, me promising to save you
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and meaning it with everything I had. We were linked
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in that moment, your desperation and my failure, and the
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loop formed around both of us like a shared prison,
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like a shared purgatory. We're stuck because neither of us
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could let go. You couldn't accept dying. I couldn't accept
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losing you. You didn't even know me. I know his
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hands tightened on the steering wheel, But in that moment,
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holding your hand, watching you fight so hard to stay,
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I felt like I did, like I'd known you forever.
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Losing you would be losing something essential. I think about that.
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A stranger kneeling beside my wrecked car making promises. He
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couldn't keep feeling a connection so strong it broke time itself.
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That's a lot of pressure to put on a dying woman,
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I say, and I mean it as a joke, but
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it comes out sad. I'm sorry, don't be If you
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hadn't felt that, I wouldn't be here at all. I pause.
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Whatever here means. We stop at a rest area near
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the state line. It's dark now, the February night. Pressing
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against the windows, THEO gets us coffee from a vending machine,
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burnt and bitter, exactly like the coffee at the hotel,
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and we sit on a bench watching trucks rumble past.
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I need to ask you something, I say, and I
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need you to be honest. Okay, away out. In seven years,
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have you found anything that might actually break the loop?
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He's quiet for a long moment. The trucks keep passing,
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their headlights sweeping across us like searchlights. I think so,
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he finally says, But it's not something I can do alone.
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Tell me. The loop formed around the moment of your death,
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your refusal to let go, my refusal to accept it.
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If we want to break it, we have to go
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back to that moment, both of us, and we have
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to choose differently, choose differently. How he turns to face me,
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his eyes are dark, serious, heavy, with seven years of
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thinking about this. You have to let go, June. You
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have to accept what happened. Stop fighting, stop refusing, stop
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clinging to a life that already ended. He swallows, and
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I have to accept that I couldn't save you, that
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some things are beyond fixing no matter how hard we try.
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The words hit me like ice water. You're saying I
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have to choose to die. I'm saying you have to
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choose to stop being afraid of it. There's a difference.
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He reaches for my hand, and his fingers are warm
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against the cold. The loop exists because we're both running,
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you from death, me from failure. If we stop running,
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if we face the moment instead of flinching from it,
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I think the loop releases us. And then what I
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just die for real? This time? I don't know. His
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voice cracks. That's the part I can't figure out. Maybe
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the loop has been keeping you alive somehow, and breaking
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it means losing you. Maybe you'll wake up in a
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hospital February third, alive and whole. Maybe we'll both just
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move on, whatever that means. You've been on this for
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seven years. I couldn't ask you to make that choice,
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Not without giving you time to understand, not without He stops,
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starts again. I've watched you, June, not in a creepy way,
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just I've seen you go through the motions of this
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day over and over. I've seen how tired you are,
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how empty. And I kept thinking, maybe if I just
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leave her alone, she'll find her own peace. Maybe I
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don't have the right to drag her into my mess.
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But you talk to me today. I couldn't stay away anymore.
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He looks at me, and there's something raw in his face.
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You were at the wedding, same as always, but something
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was different. You looked so lost, and I thought, what
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if she's giving up? What if she's about to do
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something permanent? And I could have helped, and I just watched.
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I wasn't going to hurt myself, I know, but you
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weren't really living either, and neither was I. He squeezes
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my hand. We've been in purgatory together for years, June,
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running from the same moment, stuck in the same day.
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Don't you think it's time we faced it? The memories
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start coming back on the drive to mile marker twenty three.
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They're fragments at first, the smell of the venue, hay
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and flowers and too much perfume, the weight of my
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camera bag on my shoulder. The bride recovered from her
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vomiting incident, giving a tearful speech about second chances. Then
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later my car, heater blasting against the February cold, the
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radio playing something I can't quite remember, the satisfaction of
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another wedding in the books, Another poset cleared, another step
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toward the career I was building. And then the ice.
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I remember the moment the tires lost traction, the sickening
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lurch as the car began to spin, the headlights of
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oncoming traffic, impossibly bright, impossibly close. I remember the impact.
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Pull over. I gasp theo pull over he does, jerking
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the truck onto the shoulder. I stumble out, fall to
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my knees in the dead grass, and wretch. Nothing comes up.
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I haven't eaten since the diner, but my body is
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trying to expel something, the memory, maybe the fear, the
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absolute certainty in that moment before impact, that I was
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about to stop existing. Theo'neal's beside me, his hand is
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on my back, steady and warm. I remember I choke out.
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I remember the crash. I remember the cold, the twisted metal,
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the pain that was everywhere and nowhere, too much to process,
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and then a face above me, illuminated by emergency lights,
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dark hair, serious eyes, a voice saying, hold on, You're
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going to be okay, just hold on.
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That was you.
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I whisper you were there. I was there. You told
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me to hold on. I told you to hold on.
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I sit back on my heel, staring at him. This
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man I met this morning, this man who held my
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hand while I died and has been living with that
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for seven years. Why couldn't you save me? It's a
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cruel question. I know it's cruel even as I ask it,
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but I need to understand the damage was too severe.
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His voice is flat, clinical, the voice of a paramedic
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giving a report, internal bleeding, spinal trauma, collapsed lung. Even
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if we'd gotten you to the hospital in time, the
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odds were he stops breathes. There was nothing I could
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have done. I know that now, but in the moment
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I couldn't accept it. I just kept promising you'd be okay,
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kept telling you to hold on, even after you stopped responding.
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When did I die eleven fifty two? You held on
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for five minutes after we arrived, the longest five minutes
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of my life. He looks at me and his eyes
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are wet. You squeezed my hand right at the end,
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like you were saying goodbye or thank you or please.
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I don't know what to say. There are no words
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for this, for sitting on a highway shoulder, learning the
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details of your own death from the man who witnessed it.
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I'm sorry I finally manage that you had to carry that.
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I'm sorry I couldn't save you. We sit there in
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the dark, two people bound by the worst moment of
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both their lives. The trucks keep passing, the night keeps deepening,
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and somewhere ahead, mile marker twenty three waits. We reach
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it at eleven thirty PM. I recognize it somehow, the
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curve of the road, the stand of trees, the way
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the highway opens up, just before the spot where black
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ice forms. When the conditions are right, theopal's over. We
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get out. The cold is bitter, the kind that finds
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every gap in your clothing, every exposed inch of skin.
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This is it, he says, This is where it happened.
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I walk to the edge of the road, there's nothing
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to mark the spot, no memorial, no flowers, no sign
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that anything significant occurred here, just as Fulton and the
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indifferent dark. What happens now? Now? We wait? The accident
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happened at eleven forty seven. If we're going to break
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the loop, we need to be here at that moment,
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both of us facing it instead of running. I turned
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to look at him. He's standing a few feet away,
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hands in his pockets, looking older than his years. What
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if it doesn't work, What if we just reset again?
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Then we try something else? We have time. He attempts
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a smile, literally infinite time. And if it does work,
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if I actually die this time the smile fades, then
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at least you won't be alone, and neither will I.
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I think about that, three years of being alone in
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a day that never ended. Seven years for him longer.
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Lonelier waited with guilt I didn't know existed. I don't
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want to die, I say, I know I'm supposed to
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accept it, let go all of that, but I don't
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want to. I know I spent three years being numb
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because wanting things hurt too much, and then today I
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stop try again. Today you showed me the ocean. You
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showed me what it feels like to actually live, even
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inside the loop, and now you're asking me to give
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that up. I'm not asking you to give anything up.
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I'm asking you to choose. He steps closer. For three years,
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you've been stuck because you couldn't accept death, but you
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couldn't really live either. You were frozen June, suspended between
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one thing and another. And you think this will fix that.
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I think this will end the suspension, one way or another.
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He takes my hands. His fingers are freezing, but I
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hold on anyway. Whatever happens at eleven forty seven, it'll
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be real, a real ending, or a real beginning, not
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this endless middle we've been trapped in. The wind picks up.
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I can see my breath fogging in the cold. I
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want to live, I say, slowly, not just exist, not
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just survive the day until the reset. I want to
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actually live. I want that for you too. Then give
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me a reason. I step closer, close enough to see
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my reflection in his eyes. Tell me something true, something
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that makes the risk worth it. He's quiet for a moment.
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Then I've been in love with you for seven years.
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The words hang in the frozen air. I know that
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sounds insane. I know you don't know me, not really,
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But I've watched you live this day over two thousand times.
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I've seen you at your worst, and you're most numb,
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and you're most hopeles, and I've never stopped thinking that
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you were the most alive person i'd ever met, even
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when you were dying. Even when you were dead, there
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was something in you that refused to give up. And
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I've been in love with that something since the moment
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I held your hand, theo you asked for a reason,
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That's my reason. I want you to live, really live,
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and I want to be there when you do, not
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as a ghost from your worst moment, as someone who
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chose you and keeps choosing you every single day. The
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clock in his truck reads eleven forty four three minutes.
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If I hold on this time, I say, if I
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really hold on, will you be there? I'll always be there, Promise,
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I promise. I kiss him. It's not a gentle kiss.
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It's desperate and cold and taste like coffee and tears.
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It's the kiss of two people who've been alone for
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years and find found each other at the edge of oblivion.
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It's a reason to live, condensed into a single moment.
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When we break apart, the clock reads eleven forty six.
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It's time, he says. I take his hand. We walk
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to the spot where I died, where I'm about to
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die again or not, and we wait. The world shimmers.
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I feel it before I see it, a displacement like
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reality hiccuping. And then I'm not on the shoulder anymore.
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I'm in my car, behind the wheel, the radio playing
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and the heater a blasting, and the road unspooling ahead
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of me. I see the ice, I feel the tires
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lose traction, and this time I don't panic. I think
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about theo about the ocean, about the diner where the
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waitress knew his name, and the cliff where I cried,
236
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and the look in his eyes when he told me
237
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he'd been in love with me for seven years. I
238
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think about wanting to live, really wanting it for the
239
00:17:18.440 --> 00:17:22.000
first time since the loop started, maybe for the first
240
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time ever. The car spins, the headlights rushed toward me,
241
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and in the moment before impact, I make a choice.
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Hold on not because I'm afraid, not because I can't
243
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accept death, but because I have something worth living for