Chapter 7:
The Looped Lovers
The city felt different that evening. Slower. The sky was bruised with purples and blues, and everything seemed to hold its breath—like the world knew something was coming.
Lana sat across from Xander at a rooftop café, fingers curled around a mug of untouched tea. The flickering bulb above them cast soft shadows on the table, their faces half-lit, half-hidden.
They hadn’t seen each other in days.
Not because they didn’t want to—but because neither of them knew what to say anymore.
“How’s work?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Same. Empty buildings. Same light.”
“And the tree photo?”
“I deleted it.”
She looked up, startled. “Why?”
Xander hesitated. “Because I think I took it in a dream.”
Lana didn’t laugh. Didn’t smile. She just stared at the candle between them, watching the flame lean toward him.
“I’ve been dreaming too,” she said.
He looked at her.
She didn’t elaborate.
They both sat in silence.
The flower she brought with her—a small red bloom in a paper cup—had begun to wilt.
1988.
Xayden adjusted the tracking on the VHS tape for the third time.
The image flickered. The Breakfast Club. He could quote every line.
Lilibeth sat next to him, curled up on the couch in a faded denim jacket, her fingers sticky from orange soda.
“You’re seriously gonna work here forever?” she teased, nodding toward the video rental counter behind them.
“Only until I’m famous,” he replied.
She smirked. “Famous for what?”
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he handed her a cassette.
She raised an eyebrow. “No label?”
“Guess you’ll have to play it.”
She turned it over. “You’re a mystery wrapped in a mixtape.”
They both smiled like they didn’t want the moment to end.
Lana sat in her apartment with her phone in hand. A blank voice note recording screen stared back at her.
She took a breath, held it, then hit record.
“I think I’m scared of knowing you,” she whispered.
“Because I already feel like I lost you.”
She stared at it for a long time before deleting it.
Lilibeth sat on the floor of her room, her suitcase half-zipped.
She held the recorder in one hand, cassette already loaded. The label read “Side A.”
She flipped it, pressed record, and spoke softly.
“If we meet again… please don’t wait this time.”
She stopped the recording, stared at the machine, and smiled to herself like she’d just confessed something sacred.
Her little brother knocked on the door. “You done packing?”
“Almost,” she said, slipping the recorder into a paper bag.
“Tell Xayden…” she paused. “Tell him he was always my favorite goodbye.”
Xander sat in his studio that same night, flipping through a notebook full of loops and lines. Her name repeated in various languages—some he didn’t recognize.
Then he found his old Walkman.
He hadn’t used it in years. It still worked.
A dusty cassette was inside, unlabeled.
Curious, he played it.
Static. Then—barely audible:
“If we meet again… please don’t wait this time.”
His hand froze on the play button.
He rewound it. Played it again.
Same voice. Same message.
He didn’t know whether to feel relief or dread.
They met again by coincidence—or maybe fate.
It was outside a flower shop. Lana was buying another red bloom.
Xander had been walking, trying to clear his head.
They smiled, awkward and quiet.
“Is that for someone?” he asked.
She looked at the flower, then back at him.
“Yeah. Someone I don’t want to forget.”
They walked side by side for a while. They didn’t say much. But everything inside them was loud.
When they reached the edge of a park they used to sit in, Lana stopped.
“I think we’ve done this before,” she said.
Xander looked at her, his voice low. “I know.”
There was a pause where anything could’ve happened. A kiss. A confession. A promise.
But none of it came.
She turned first.
He didn’t stop her.
[END OF CHAPTER 7 ]
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