Chapter Text
Noah Czerny had been sitting on his own windowsill for the last hour, watching himself get drunk on his mother’s birthday schnapps.
He’d been looping though the same four-hour party for almost a day now, watching everything play out. Noah had other things he could be doing—helping his friends search for Glendower, or reenacting his own death. Instead, he kept coming back here.
I miss you. I miss you. I miss you.
There was a knock on the door. Past Noah flopped back onto his bed, not even trying to hide the schnapps bottle he’d stolen.
“Noah?” One of Noah’s sisters opened the door. “Mom’s looking for you—” She cut herself off when she saw the bottle.
Past Noah winked. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”
Tell her you love her, Present Noah thought. Hug her. Go downstairs with her. She’s your sister. You don’t have that much time.
But of course, Past Noah couldn’t hear him.
Noah drifted through his mother’s birthday party, watching his family as they hugged and laughed, as his mother opened her presents. Past Noah was still upstairs.
He should have been here.
Noah should have been here, alive, with his family. Not wandering through the party as a ghost.
Around him, the timeline shuddered and blurred. People fell away on either side, and then Noah was in his parent’s living room again. This time, there was no one there except his sister, Adele.
She was sitting at the end of the sofa, staring out the window. A picture frame sat on her lap. Noah moved closer to get a better look.
It was him. Past Noah had one arm around each of his sisters, a smile on his face, and no sign of the smudge across his cheek that marked Noah’s death now.
“Noah,” Adele said. Noah flinched back, certain, for an instant, that his sister could see him. But she couldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I… I should have been there for you. I don’t know what you needed. I should have paid more attention…”
Noah dropped to his knees next to Adele. His fingers brushed against her cheek, and she shivered.
“This isn’t your fault,” Noah whispered.
Adele couldn’t hear him any more than she could see him. She continued to weep.
Noah stayed with her until he couldn’t stand the sound anymore.
Noah found himself, again, at his mother’s birthday party.
This time, he returned earlier, watching his sisters climb the stairs, calling out for him. They needed help with the food, with the decorations, with the cleaning, and Past Noah was still in bed.
It was Adele who shoved open Noah’s bedroom door. “Noah? Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“It’s okay,” Past Noah said. He climbed out of bed and dragged on a bathrobe, kissing the top of his sister’s head on his way past her. “I couldn’t sleep, anyway. Not with all the racket you two were making.”
Why didn’t you thank her for waking you up? You almost missed Mom’s party. Why didn’t you help more?
Part of Noah hated his past self, his alive self, for all the time he’d wasted, for all the ways he’d hurt his family. The other part of him just wanted to be his past self again.
He could never be that, though. So he lived the moment again. And again. And again.