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Lucy's great grandmother died when she was eight.
For a while after, her dad brought her out to the balcony on a certain day every year to burn fake money for her dead great grandmother. Even now she can still remember the smell of the incense paper burning, the feel of the heat whenever she'd get too close, before Ye-Ye would inevitably yank her back and her mother would warn her about getting her hair caught in the fire.
They stopped burning things after they moved to the new house. At the time Lucy hadn't realised anything was changing, but when she thinks back now, she realises she hasn't seen a single sheet of incense paper since the last time they were all at the old house.
Her dad had explained it to her once, that they were burning fake currency, dead currency, so that her dead great grandmother could use it wherever she was.
Maybe they'd burned the equivalent of a billion dollars, so her great grandmother was set for the rest of her afterlife. Or maybe, by the time her family had moved into the new house, they'd forgotten about it.
(The new house had a lot of things. A pool, a backyard, two floors.
It did not have a balcony.)
Lucy wakes up smelling smoke. She sits up with the feeling of something pressing on her chest, but the first thing she does is run her hands through her hair, like she used to do when she was little, to check if the ends of her hair have been burnt.
Her hair is fine. Nothing is on fire.
The red-black of her hair looks strange to her all of a sudden. New. She feels phantom fingers in her hair, combing through and looping them into braids. She hears Nai-Nai's voice in her ear mumbling incomprehensible things in Mandarin. Probably complaints about how she wasn't taking care of her hair well enough, or how she should let it grow out some more.
She blinks. The feeling disappears. She's alone.
Something isn't quite right. Lucy can't place what it is that's off, only that something definitely is.
The bathroom looks the same, when she walks inside. Her toothpaste still kind of stings her mouth when she brushes her teeth, and she looks as dreadful as she always does every morning. Nothing's off about her. So it's something else then.
Halfway through pouring herself a bowl of cereal, someone knocks on her door.
Three knocks. Precise, a little familiar. Lucy gets hit with the strongest sense of deja vu she's ever felt in her life.
Yesterday she opened the door at nine in the morning to Beau's face on the other side. Today, she opens the door at nine in the morning to...
Beau's face. Again. Smiling with those same puppy dog eyes from yesterday. In the same shirt from yesterday.
"What the hell?" The same words out of her mouth too, from the day before, only she means it a little differently this time.
"Look, babe, I know we left things pretty bad the last time we saw each other, but—" It's the exact same speech. The exact same speech. He keeps using the word we as if Lucy had equal fault in the way things fell apart in the end. As if he hadn't wrecked things singlehandedly with his wandering eye.
She slams the door in his face.
She'd wanted to, the first time, but got sucked in by that pretty face of his. Plus, the time spent away from him had lessened her anger somewhat, made her feel kind of nostalgic for the good times they'd shared.
This time the anger is still fresh.
"Babe! Come on!"
Lucy's mind starts to spin as Beau bangs on the door. Whatever this is, it doesn't feel like a dream. It feels real. Vivid.
A second chance, then. To re-do the terrible day she had yesterday. Or the terrible day she's about to have today.
But... why?
She thinks of Kendall, with his nice smile and even nicer eyes, and how he'd chosen Jo in the end. Her chest aches. What, exactly, is she supposed to do here? What is she supposed to fix? To do differently? Should she have begged? Should she have tried harder to get him to pick her?
No. No. It wouldn't have made a difference. And it won't now.
She needs answers. She needs...
"I knew you'd come to your senses— wait, Lucy? Where are you—"
Lucy races down the hall. She takes the stairs so that Beau doesn't get a chance to corner her in the elevator, and then walks into apartment 2J without knocking.
Inside, the boys, Kendall's mom and Katie, are in the middle of breakfast. James is the one who sees her first, but before he can open his mouth to start flirting, Lucy grabs Logan by the wrist and drags him out the door.
"Lucy? What— wait—"
Somewhere down the other end of the hall, she can hear Beau's voice, calling out to her desperately.
With no other options, she flings open the door to the storage closet and shoves Logan inside before closing the door behind her. She claps her hand around his mouth and tells him to shush, which only makes him begin gesturing wildly to make up for the lack of noise, at least until she uses her free hand to threaten to poke him in the eyes.
Beau passes by the door, then seemingly disappears to search for her on another floor.
The moment Lucy loosens her grip, Logan darts into the other end of the room, pressing himself up against the wall like some kind of cornered animal.
"I have a girlfriend! And I warn you, she does not like other girls touching her boyfriend!"
Lucy rolls her eyes and wipes her hand on her jeans. "Relax. I didn't bring you in here so I could canoodle with you behind Camille's back. I need your help with something."
At that, Logan really does relax, approaching her cautiously, though making sure to keep a safe distance between the two of them.
"This is serious, isn't it?"
Lucy takes a deep breath. "Depends on what you consider serious." And then explains.
There's not much to say, actually. But Lucy finds herself going through the entirety of (her) yesterday's events, from Beau to Kendall to Jo to her eventually packing her bags and leaving that very same night. Then she gets to the part where she's doing it, all over again, right now, and that's when Logan's eyebrows go from high to high. They look like they might fly off his forehead at any second.
"Lucy." He grips her shoulders, frowning, eyes serious. "I think you might have lost your mind."
Yeah. That's about the reaction she expected.
"Trust me, I considered that, but, Beau's actually here so either he's somehow completely lost his memories of me dumping him a second time, or this is really happening."
Logan narrows his eyes at her, clearly still suspicious. The expression is as amusing as it is frustrating.
Lucy sighs. "Look, would it help if you just pretend it's a hypothetical? If I hypothetically went back in time, what should I do? Or what shouldn't I do?"
"Okay, well, assuming this is genuine time travel and not a closed loop situation, the first thing you shouldn't do is change anything. But, oh, oh no, you finding me and dragging me in here didn't happen originally, did it?"
"No, I—"
"Oh, this is bad. This could butterfly effect into the world imploding in on itself! You could've just erased hundreds and thousands of future children being born by trapping me in here!"
"It's times like these that I wonder what Camille actually sees in you."
"Hey—!"
"Anyway, calm down, this is all just a hypothetical, remember? I'm crazy and you don't believe me so the future's safe, yeah?"
Logan's ability to wind down after working himself up into hysterics is honestly impressive. He clutches at his chest, dramatic as ever, but looks a lot less like he might faint.
"Right. Right, you're right. This is all just... make believe. You're crazy and I'm sane and the future is fine."
So much for answers.
Lucy leaves Logan in the room, muttering to himself about butterfly effects and alternate timelines and things that she doesn't care enough to try and understand. She still doesn't have a clue what's going on, but since she's already changed things by not talking to Beau, and talking to Logan instead, she figures anything she changes from now on will be negligible anyway, right? What's a couple more kids not being born in the future?
...Christ. That's dark.
Shaking off morbid thoughts of a future that may or may not come to pass, Lucy turns and heads downstairs.
She likes elevators less now, she realises. She can close her eyes and still picture so clearly the shock and heartbreak on Jo's face, the confusion in Kendall's eyes. The elevator doors closing on a version of the future she'd created for herself in her head.
There are no surprises waiting for her when she exits the stairwell, just the sight of the lobby, and all the people she hadn't had a chance to meet yet before she decided to leave.
Well, since the universe has given her time, she might as well spend it doing something she'd always thought about but never gotten around to.
The Jennifers are all sitting around a table, reading from separate (or maybe identical) scripts. When Lucy walks up to them, they all snap their head up and regard her at the same time.
"Lucy Stone," Jennifer #1 says, tone somewhere between careful and suspicious. "This is our table."
She's reminded of those girls in school, the ones she hated. Pretty and popular and effortlessly perfect. She'd wasted all her high school years fighting them, buying into rumours and even spreading some herself. She knows better now, but she'd be lying if she said the Jennifers weren't intimidating in that specific way all pretty popular girls were. Still are.
"I'm not trying to poach, don't worry." She drops into the free seat beside Jennifer #3, kicking her boots up onto the table.
Jennifer #2 wrinkles her nose. "Then why are you here?"
"To make friends?"
All three of them look at her in disbelief.
"Yeah, okay, actually, I might be having some... boy problems." Lucy decides to lie. It's not a problem if the boy's decided he wants his ex girlfriend over you, that's just a tragedy. "Figured since you're the Jennifers, you'd have plenty of advice to give me on that front."
Jennifer #1 scoffs. "Yeah right. You, having boy problems? Everyone was tripping over themselves to ask you out when you first showed up."
"Yeah, well, I don't like everyone, I just like... one person. And he happens to have a beyond beautiful ex girlfriend who just so happens to be moving back into the Palm Woods."
Cue a synchronised gasp from all Jennifers. Jennifer #3 even looks a little bit sympathetic, which would usually grate on Lucy's nerves, but she finds she appreciates now.
"No way. Jo's coming back?"
The Jennifers then begin whispering feverishly to one another, every once in a while stopping to look at Lucy before returning to whispering.
Eventually, Jennifer #2 clears her throat.
"You're doomed. Sorry," she says.
The blunt honesty startles Lucy into a laugh.
Jennifer #1 sighs. "We're not saying your chances of winning are zero, but they're like... really low. Rocker Chick has never beaten the Girl Next Door."
All of this has been destined to end in flames, then. At least for her. Boys like Kendall don't ever end up with girls like Lucy, but girls like Lucy will always fall for boys like Kendall.
Maybe the world is just messing with her, putting her in Kendall's trajectory and knowingly pushing her head first into a brick wall. Maybe repeating this day is only a reminder of all the things she can't have, the things she's not supposed to have. Maybe the only lesson she's supposed to take away from this is that she should stay in her lane. Where girls with hair like hers who write songs like hers don't end up with the nice boy with the nice eyes.
That's seriously depressing.
"Lucy!"
Crap.
"Who is that? He is super cute."
"That is my ex boyfriend, Beau, and the last thing I want to do is talk to him, so that's my cue to leave."
Lucy gets to her feet, but before she can dart out the doors, Jennifer #1 puts her hand up.
"Leave this to us," she says, before pulling Jennifer #2 along with her and intercepting Beau before he can reach Lucy.
It really doesn't take any effort at all for the two Jennifers to distract Beau completely. A bit of hair twirling and touching his arm and then he's turning into flirty Beau, cheating Beau, eyes on whoever's in front of him instead of the person he supposedly loves. Typical.
Jennifer #3 offers Lucy a kind smile. "Kendall really likes you, Lucy. I think you have a real chance."
"Thanks, Jennifer."
If only.
-
Nai-Nai never had any patience for making mooncakes from scratch, even though she loved them.
Every time Mid-Autumn Festival rolled around, they'd all go to Chinatown, find a store that sold them, and bought as many as they could. One time Lucy had eaten so many she'd been unable to sleep later that night because of a bad stomach ache. While her dad had fussed over her and scolded her for eating too much, Ye-Ye was doing the same to Nai-Nai in the other room.
(The next day she and Nai-Nai still secretly pilfered mooncakes while no one was looking.)
Lucy wakes up, tummy aching, something sweet stuck in her teeth.
Someone's knocking on her door.
She struggles to get out of the bed, clutching at her stomach, but the moment she leaves the threshold of her bedroom, the pain goes away. She stands there for a moment, half bent over, hand still splayed over her stomach, head swimming.
"Lucy! Babe!"
Beau. It's Beau. Again. Still.
She yanks the door open. And he's in that same red shirt.
She shuts the door. Ignores Beau's pleas. Walks into the bathroom.
Once she's inside, she sinks onto the floor, back to the door, knees pulled up to her chest. Something loose is rattling around inside her chest and she doesn't know what it is, how to piece it back together. She's broken time somehow, she can feel it. There is no groundhog around to blame. This is her fault.
She spends thirty minutes sitting there, pressing her head to her knees and thinking about how wrong everything is.
Her hands shake when she finally stands again to brush her teeth, wash her face. They're still shaking when she gets dressed, when she walks past Beau, still not listening to what he's saying.
This time, when she arrives at the boys' apartment, she knocks.
Mrs. Knight answers. "Oh, hello, Lucy. Are you looking for Kendall?"
"I'm looking for Logan, actually."
This time, she doesn't drag him off to a storage room. She makes him follow her all the way to the park, where the sun is bright and shining and the people are blissfully unaware of her little time issue.
"It's a loop." Lucy speaks around her straw, sounding more calm than she feels.
Logan blinks at her. "What's a loop?"
"I'm not going back in time, I'm stuck in a time loop," she clarifies, as if it makes any of this less confusing.
Logan wouldn't remember the previous conversation they had about this though, so he's just as confused as he was the first time.
"Lucy, I think you might have—"
"I have not lost my mind, thank you very much. Not yet, anyway. If I have to go through this day again I might, but for now I am still one hundred percent, completely sane."
The look he gives her shows that he clearly thinks the opposite. Lucy kicks his leg under the table, and then goes through her last two days while he grumbles. The second iteration of the same day she'd managed to avoid Kendall and Jo entirely at the end of the day. She'd spent the entire night holed up in her room, blocking out everyone and everything with her headphones on, music blasting. Saved herself from experiencing the same heartbreak a second time.
"And I'd just really like to get to the next day so please, if you have any ideas on how to stop this, tell me."
There's a strange look on Logan's face this time. More contemplation than last time, less freaking out and thinking 'oh she's crazy crazy'.
"Well... time loops basically function on trial and error, so clearly the universe wants you to change something, it's just your job to figure out what." Insightful. Yet still unhelpful.
"So what you're telling me is that I just have to keep repeating the day over and over until I figure out what the universe wants from me?"
"Yep."
Lucy drops her head onto the table. She's most definitely going to leave a mark on her forehead, but with time being finicky the way it is right now, she doubts the mark will last past the night. She could do anything, actually, and none of it would matter because she'd be able to do everything over again.
Wait a second.
She whips her head back suddenly, startling Logan into dropping and spilling his lemonade.
"Oh no... I do not like that look in your eyes."
Lucy is grinning now, which only seems to unnerve him further. "This is a time loop. If everything resets in the morning, then I can just do whatever I want, right?"
"Uh..."
"I'm going to go push my ex boyfriend into the pool. See you later, Logan."
She's up and off before he can get another word in.
Predictably, she finds Beau flirting with a pretty girl by the pool chairs. He's got his shirt unbuttoned and he's smiling the way he knows makes girls weak at the knees. That smile falls quick when he notices her approaching, and twists into open mouthed surprise when she kicks him and the chair he was lounging on into the pool.
The people around her scatter, maybe fearing they'll be next, but Lucy doesn't care.
There's something almost therapeutic about the way his head bobs back up to the surface, the way he coughs and looks at her with wide eyes.
"I came here to win you back! I bought you a nine hundred dollar necklace!" He says, as if it makes a difference.
Nine hundred dollars. On a necklace for a girl he doesn't love. Everything about him is ridiculous. "You can shove that necklace up your ass, Beau."
She walks away, feeling unbelievably cool, like the star of some action movie, only to see Kendall in the distance, walking towards the pool. Suddenly feeling much less cool and definitely not ready for talking to Kendall, she slips inside the nearest pool cabana before he can spot her.
Carlos is inside, apparently on the phone with someone and speaking in rapid fire Spanish. He startles a little when he sees her, but doesn't seem bothered by her presence exactly, hanging up his phone after a quick goodbye and a kiss pressed to the speaker of the phone.
"Hey, Lucy!"
"Hi, Carlos. Were you just on the phone with your... grandmother?"
Carlos gasps. "You can speak Spanish?"
"Oh, no, I can't. I can recognise a few words though. That's what abuela means, right? Grandmother?"
"Yes!" Carlos looks positively delighted, even though Lucy is pretty sure this is basic stuff.
For some reason, she feels compelled to tell him, "Nai-Nai is grandmother in Mandarin."
Carlos gasps again. "You can speak Mandarin? That's so cool!"
Lucy laughs. No one's ever said that to her before. "I can't, not fluently anyway, but I am half Chinese, you know."
"Oh, wow, I had no idea!"
Huh.
"You really didn't know?"
"I really didn't!"
Lucy doesn't know what to do with that, why her chest feels hollowed out all of a sudden.
She changes the subject. "Carlos, what would you do if you were stuck in a... if you could do anything, and there would be no consequences?"
An unholy glint enters Carlos's eye.
A few hours later they're both dressed in black and breaking into the zoo. Apparently Carlos has always wanted to see the animals at night, see what they're up to while everyone else is asleep. Lucy's pretty sure they're just also sleeping, but since she's decided to throw all caution to the wind today, she goes anyway.
The first few enclosures are honestly kind of boring. Lucy was right, most of them just sleep at night, but then they end up wandering into where the zebras live and that's when things get interesting. Not only are the zebras awake, they're friendly. Carlos has the time of his life petting zebras in the dark. Lucy takes photos, even knowing they'll be gone from her phone in the morning, laughing as Carlos continues to run his hand over the zebra's mane.
One of the foals end up walking over to her, nudging her leg with its nose. Lucy bends down to pet it, feeling the urge to cry, when there's suddenly a burst of light in her eyes.
The two of them end up getting arrested, because of course they would. Lucy can't help smiling though, as they shove both her and Carlos into the holding cell.
"I can't go to jail! My parents will be so disappointed!" Carlos is groaning, much to the annoyance of the drunk man sitting opposite them in the cell.
"I said no consequences, remember? Trust me. In the morning it'll be like we were never here at all."
Carlos looks at her a little oddly. "Really? You promise?"
"I promise."
"Pinky swear it then!"
Lucy thinks of the zebras she saw, thinks of a whole new world of possibilities opening up for her when she starts the day over again, and hooks her pinky around Carlos's.
Fifteen minutes later, Logan and Camille wearing wigs and old people clothes come to pick Carlos and Lucy up. They trick the cops no problem (mostly Camille's doing), and by the time they return to the Palm Woods, it's two in the morning and Carlos has to be dragged back to his apartment, already dead asleep.
Logan stops Lucy before she falls asleep herself, face suddenly drawn tight.
"Are you really stuck in a time loop?" He asks, voice quiet.
By now Jo would've already shown herself, so he must believe her at least a little bit. "Yeah, I really am."
"Okay." Logan exhales, breath shaky. "Okay. I'm going to tell you a secret that I have literally never told a single other person before. My first kiss was Carlos."
Oh my god.
"What?"
"Carlos doesn't even remember it so literally no one else knows."
"...Why are you telling me this?"
Logan huffs, as if it should be obvious. "When the loop resets, if you tell me that you know my first kiss was Carlos, I'll know I told you the secret and then I'll believe you about the loops, before Jo arrives to prove that you're telling the truth."
"You want me to find you again? In the next loop?"
"Duh." He's grinning a little now, like she's slow. "I'm not going to let you go through this alone."
Huh.
-
One of Lucy's first memories of watching something on the television was of bright, colourful qipaos and hair tied up into elaborate, impossible looking knots.
There was always a princess of some kind, an emperor, and the types of tricks and traps too convoluted for a kid's mind to comprehend. She had always enjoyed them though, fascinated by the costumes and the dramatics. Ye-Ye would sometimes sit beside her and explain what was happening, talking her through a scene as it happened on screen. She always laughed when he laughed, as if she was in on the joke.
For one of her birthdays, Ye-Ye had gotten her a hairpin. A plastic one, unlike the shimmering sparkling ones she saw on the TV, but she'd treasured it like it was made of gold. She used to beg Nai-Nai to twist it up into her hair, and then she would prance around pretending she was a princess, locked away due to the schemes of the evil empress dowager and waiting to be saved, or she was an empress, fighting to keep the concubines from snatching the attention of the emperor away.
(Secretly, she liked being evil a little better.)
Lucy wakes up laughing, her fingers folded into her palm like she was holding onto something.
She opens up her palm. There's nothing there.
She runs her hand through her hair, then stops short when she reaches the end, like there should be more.
Laughter that's not her own echoes in the room.
She gets out of bed and walks into the bathroom. She turns the tap on and the laughter disappears.
Beau starts knocking at 9:05. Lucy thinks of nine hundred dollar necklaces and cheap plastic hairpins and opens the door.
Even without her opening line, Beau goes straight into his speech. She wonders idly if he's rehearsed it, if he'd come up with the words on the way here, thinking of just the right things to say to get her to take him back. She wonders why he's here at all.
"Beau. Why are you here?"
He stops, sensing something in her voice. "Like I said, I came to get you back."
Lucy opens the door wider to let him in. He follows, looking a little lost now, confused by her attitude. Lucy's confused too. She still remembers dunking him into the pool the previous loop, the way he looked when he came up for air, all confused and angry. Petulant. It had felt so good then, to see him that way, but now she thinks back to it and all she is is tired.
"But why? I know you don't love me, Beau. I'm not even sure you loved me when we were dating. So, again, why are you here?"
Beau looks so small, suddenly, standing in the middle of her living room. She knows there's an expensive necklace in a fancy box in his pocket, that he came all the way here to give it to her. She just doesn't know why. And the longer Beau goes without saying anything the more it looks like he doesn't know the answer to that either.
"I missed you, okay?" He makes this face. He's uncomfortable now, she can tell. Being honest too, miraculously. "I know I was a terrible boyfriend. I know. But I knew that you loved me, that you were serious about me. And I know I messed it all up by cheating on you, but I just... I missed it. Being..."
"Loved?"
He winces, turning his face away in guilt. Or maybe shame.
There is something deeply sad about this boy, she realises. Maybe about her, too. But for a while there he had tried, she can see that now. He had wanted to love her, he just couldn't. Everything about her love life is tragic, she's beginning to learn.
"You know what's better than just being loved, Beau? Loving someone in return. It's never going to be enough if it just goes one way." She smiles, something sad and final. "And I'm not going to settle for a one way kind of love anymore."
Beau smiles back, something equally broken, says, "I know this is late, but I'm sorry, for everything," and then leaves with the necklace still in his pocket.
Lucy tilts her head back and blinks at the ceiling, chasing away tears threatening to spill, and then forces herself out the door too.
She finds Carlos and Logan together, just outside the door to their apartment. She remembers the zoo, the zebras at night, but Carlos, Carlos won't know any of it. The photos on her phone won't be there, because it won't have happened yet. Probably won't happen again.
"Hey guys."
"Lucy!" Carlos turns to greet her first, beaming. Always happy to see her, it seems. And not in the way James is happy to see her, either. It's nice. "Hey!"
"Could I uh, borrow Logan for a sec?"
Carlos doesn't even hesitate. Just slaps his helmet on and then takes off down the hall without Logan, who turns to Lucy, already suspicious of her motives it seems.
"I'm stuck in a time loop," she says without preamble. "And I know your first kiss was with Carlos."
It takes a second for all the words to sink in, at which point Logan's mouth drops all the way open. He stays frozen there, mouth gaping, for a while, until his jaw suddenly snaps shut and he jumps a few feet in the air.
"This is impossible!"
"And yet I'm living it—"
"But you know the secret! And if you know the secret that must mean I've told you... in a previous loop!"
With Logan's deepest darkest secret in hand, he's a lot more agreeable this time around. There's less judgement, but still a healthy dose of suspicion.
She's sitting cross legged on her apartment floor as he jots things down on his notebook. He has her walk through the first version of events, before the loops started to... loop. He tries getting her to remember innocuous things, little details that she's definitely forgotten. "However insignificant it might seem, it's still a clue!"
By the time she's finished recounting her first and second loop, Logan's somehow managed to fill about twenty pages.
Lucy sprawls out on her rug, her hair fanning out under her head. "So, what's the consensus, Mr. Genius? Why do we think this is happening to me?"
Logan purses his lips, tapping his pen against his chin. "I hate to say it, but I think this is less scientific and more... spiritual."
"Spiritual?"
"It's your time loop, Lucy. It's... personal."
Personal. Right. So this is Groundhog Day, and Lucy has somehow been chosen as the unlucky victim.
It doesn't make any sense. She was a good person (mostly). And she didn't have a close friend she was secretly in love with she needed to win over. Unless... she glances over at Logan, who's returned to jotting things down in his notebook. No. No way. The universe definitely isn't trying to tell her that.
If anything, Beau should be the one getting screwed over by time. He's the one with the commitment issues, the one who cheated on her and came to win her back just because he liked the attention she gave him. Didn't he have life lessons to learn? Didn't he deserve to be tortured a little bit for all his crimes against women?
"Logan, if it was your last day on earth, what would you do?"
Logan glances at her for a moment, looking like he might lecture her about distractions and running from her problems, but then he sighs, sets his notebook down.
They end up stealing Gustavo's car and driving all the way to the outskirts of the city. For a while there's nothing but sand and tumbleweeds, and then suddenly, a large, shiny building in the distance comes into view. Fenced up to all hell and guarded by bulky men with guns strapped to their waist.
Getting shot is a bit too much even for Lucy, but Logan is giggling as they sneak past the guards.
They manage to snatch a keycard off a passing scientist. Logan then dons his lab coat, gasping a little as he slips it on. Lucy rolls her eyes and shoves at his shoulder as they enter the facility.
Inside it's completely white and sterile, kind of eerie looking, but three more fancy doors that go woosh later and they reach the centre. Lucy blinks at the view, the blueprints and gears and nerds all gathered under one roof.
Logan is squealing, by this point. Lucy picks up her own lab coat from the rack, puts on some safety goggles too just to complete the look, then drags Logan down to where the action is.
For a robotics lab, it's surprisingly fascinating. All the technical jargon goes over Lucy's head, of course, but the things they're trying to do are honestly impressive. A little scary, too, but that only increases the appeal.
A little off to the side, there's a sad looking robot slumped against the wall. It looks dirtier and rustier than the newer robot they're showing off in the middle of the room. While Logan is busy gushing over the cleaner, prettier robot, Lucy approaches the other one. On the table in front of it there are papers labelled 'prototype 1.0'. She sorts through the papers until she finds one that lists all its features, the types of things it's programmed to do.
Number five looks promising.
You, you walked into the room
On a Friday afternoon—
For an old, busted robot, the speakers still work pretty well.
Lucy turns to find that everyone's watching her now, varying degrees of shock and confusion on their faces. She merely smiles and waves in response, knowing she looks out of place, with her streaked hair and black boots. A lab coat and goggles can only cover up so much.
"Lucy! We have to run!"
From the other end of the room, Lucy spots a couple guards starting to make their way over to her. Logan is waving his arms frantically as he attempts to reach her before they do, looking stupid and strangely kind of endearing. Lucy laughs, picks up the old robot that the robotics nerds definitely aren't going to miss, and then runs.
I see you walking, but all you do is pass me by
Can't even talk, 'cause words don't come into my mind—
They make it back into Gustavo's car, stolen robot shoved into the backseat, just as the chorus ends. The song is still playing as Logan takes off, Lucy whooping while he mutters about the law and other things that don't really matter.
"You are a terrible influence," Logan tells her, after they've returned to the Palm Woods and he's barricaded them both inside her apartment.
His eyes light up every time he looks at the robot though. She can see him itching to take it apart. So she leaves him to it, hearing his mad scientist speak in the background as she drops onto her bed, smiling up at her bedroom ceiling.
She wrestles her phone out of her pocket, thinking of plastic robots and toy cars, and calls her brother.
"Luce?"
Her lips twitch at the voice, familiar still despite the amount of time that's passed, and the nickname that she still hates. "Hey, Luke, guess what I did today?"
"What, no 'hi, big brother, sorry I haven't called in two years, how are you'?"
Lucy rolls her eyes. "If you're going to be annoying I'll hang up."
"Mom said you'd grow out of your mean phase... clearly she was wrong. But fine, I'll bite, what did you do?"
"I broke into a robotics lab. One of those top secret types, had the lab way out in the desert and everything. Might've even stolen a robot."
On the other end of the line, Luke laughs. The sound of it hits her like a freight train. "You? The same girl who always used to throw my robot toys in the trash? I'm supposed to believe you actually stole a real robot?"
She rolls her eyes. "You're the one who always left your robots just lying around! Besides, it wasn't my idea to break into the lab. I have this friend, he's just as big of a robot nerd as you were. It was my idea to steal the robot though, but that's just because I'm an anarchist who doesn't like following rules."
"Sounds like you're really living it up in L.A." Luke's voice crackles over the phone. She can hear the smile in it.
She hadn't meant to stop calling, stop talking. She just started feeling so stifled at home, everyday getting crushed underneath the weight of her deceptively small violin, her parents' heavy expectations. Luke had tried breaking free, and paid the price for it. Now he's... older, boring, exactly what their parents wanted him to be.
Lucy was living out her dreams, in a way he never could. She hadn't known how to talk to Luke about that.
"Yeah, it's... nice." She can still hear Logan outside the room, tinkering away on the robot. "I'm writing music. On a guitar."
Luke laughs again, softer this time. "Proud of you, Luce."
She knows. She's always known. Their parents had always wanted something from Lucy, for Lucy. Her brother had never wanted anything, just accepted her as she was. For a while it had been Luke and Lucy against the world. She isn't sure who let go first.
"I kind of miss you."
"I kind of miss you too."
Lucy closes her eyes, smiling.
-
There was only ever one type of new years that counted in Lucy's family.
The six of them, Lucy, Luke, Mom, Dad, Nai-Nai and Ye-Ye, would take a take trip out to visit Ye-Ye's brother and his side of the family. Lucy remembered it always being a big affair. The house they arrived in would always be decorated in red and gold, and she'd always end up sneaking off with Luke and her second cousins to play made up games while the adults were inside, making dinner.
Her favourite part was, of course, the red packets. There was no way to figure out how much someone had put inside until she went home and opened them all at once. Lucy always liked it the most whenever she received a crisp twenty dollar bill. She'd tuck it into her jewellery box for safe keeping before hiding it under her bed.
(By the time she moved out, the jewellery box was empty.)
Lucy wakes up seeing red.
The clock on her bedside table flashes 8:17 in gold-yellow.
She stumbles into the bathroom, brushes her teeth, washes her face, and when she opens her eyes again nothing is out of the ordinary. The only thing that's red are the streaks in her hair.
Today she's up early, long before Beau arrives. She walks out the door, thinking about finding Logan again, but when she knocks on the door Kendall is the one who answers.
Her heart leaps into her throat. She wasn't ready, to be faced with him again, and certainly not a version of him that hasn't yet fallen back in love with Jo. He smiles at Lucy, still with a bit of toothpaste crusted over one corner of his mouth.
Carlos walks by behind him. Before Kendall has the chance to say anything, Lucy reaches past him, latches onto Carlos's arm and tugs him out of the room.
"I just need to borrow him for a bit," she says, breathless, before pulling Carlos down the hall with her.
Carlos lets her pull him along, all the way until they're standing outside the front doors of the Palm Woods. Lucy is panting, heart racing not because of the running, but a pair of green eyes that she thinks might honestly haunt her for the rest of her days.
"You okay, Lucy?" Carlos gently removes her hand from his arm, frowning.
No, she thinks.
"You up for an adventure, Carlos?"
Something in her aches painfully. Carlos nods, grinning, lets her drag him over to a bus stop.
It takes them almost three hours before they arrive in Bakersfield. They're just in time for lunch, and Carlos's stomach has been complaining for the last hour and a half, so Lucy takes him down a street she knows by heart. Carlos keeps stopping by the windows of every restaurant, pressing his face up against the glass and drooling. Lucy's laughing as she tugs him along, all the way until they reach a Chinese restaurant.
The bell jingles over their heads when they walk in. The waiter pops his head up, spots Lucy, and then waves them over.
"Lucy! What's happened to you?" He gapes a little when he sees her hair up close. "L.A. changed you this much?"
Lucy shoves Carlos into a booth, gesturing for him to wipe at his saliva. "This has always been me, I've just finally decided to embrace it."
"I see. Well. It's good to see you again! I will make sure your portions are extra big."
It's odd, being in this place again, and with Carlos of all people. She can still remember when her family would come in as a unit, sit at one of those big tables, and linger long after they've finished their food. Nai-Nai talked to all the waiters and waitresses here as if they'd known each other all their lives. By the time Lucy was ten, the staff here had already had all of their orders memorised.
Even now, Lucy doesn't need to order. Carlos looks uncertain, tapping his foot impatiently and asking if she's sure they'll bring out something good, but he stops talking real quick when they bring out the spring rolls.
She watches him stuff two at once into his mouth, getting a little taken in by his enthusiasm. She pops one into her own mouth and agrees that it's delicious. The taste remains unchanged, even after all these years. She finds some of the ache in her chest easing, soothed by the familiar taste in her mouth.
Lucy's not one to indulge much, not the way Carlos always does, but here, today, she decides to follow his lead. She shovels the fried rice into her mouth with abandon, uncaring of the rice that spills out of the spoon. When Carlos struggles with his chopsticks, she sets hers down and starts using her hand to pick up the sweet and sour pork, laughing when Carlos follows her example and gets sauce all over his face.
After they're done eating, they end up on another street with ice cream cones.
"You used to live here? Cool." Carlos starts looking around, as if the storefronts look different now with the added context of Lucy having grown up walking past them.
"My parents and my grandparents still live here." If she was brave enough, she would follow the familiar path home.
"We should go see them! I never got to talk to them that night I went on my date with Jennifer."
Lucy remembers. She remembers Kendall catching her, her wig being sent flying, playing that song together. Kendall getting her parents to finally accept the part of herself that she never thought they'd understand.
Her stomach flutters unpleasantly.
"They're probably working right now. Maybe next time."
Carlos pouts, but doesn't complain when she steers them into the direction of the local playground instead.
It's a weekday, so the kids are busy being stuck in school.
Carlos heads straight for the swing set, throwing himself onto one of the swings and pushing off into the air. Lucy drops herself into the one beside him, doing nothing but pushing herself back and forth lightly. She watches him swing higher and higher with each push off the ground, marvelling at the brightness of his smile, how he looks like he's always having fun.
Must be nice, she thinks, to be that free.
He eventually slows to a stop, face a little green. "Oh, man, I shouldn't have done that right after eating."
Lucy barks out a laugh.
"Not that I didn't appreciate the free lunch, and free dessert, but why did you bring me out here in the first place?" Carlos is still moving beside her, but much slower than before.
She tilts her head back and looks up at the sky. "I'm avoiding Kendall," she admits. "Jo's coming back soon."
"So?"
She turns to look at Carlos, blinking her eyes in confusion. "So... he's still into her."
Carlos scoffs. "No he's not."
"What? Yes he is! She'll come back and then he'll dump me and then I'll move out and—"
"Woah, wait! Why would you move out?"
Lucy opens her mouth, but doesn't say anything. The most simple answer is that it would just be easier, if she was gone. That way she wouldn't have to watch Kendall and Jo walk around hand in hand, with hearts in their eyes.
"It would be weird if I stayed," she says eventually.
"For Kendall and Jo, maybe. But we're friends, aren't we? I don't want you to move out."
Oh.
Carlos doesn't care. He doesn't care if she's Kendall's maybe kind of girlfriend or not. He cares that she's Lucy, that she's his friend.
Oh.
"We're friends." Lucy is choked up, close to tears.
Carlos smiles, soft and understanding. "You wouldn't abandon your friend, would you?"
"No." Lucy laughs wetly. "I wouldn't."
"And anyway, Kendall is my best friend, I know him, and I'm telling you he is not into Jo anymore. He's been trying to ask you out for days! Just because Jo's coming back doesn't mean he's going to magically stop liking you."
It would be nice if that were true. "Come on, Carlos. Think about it. It's Jo, right? His first love? Hard to compete with that."
Carlos furrows his brows, attempting to picture it. Lucy watches his face cycle through a few different emotions before eventually settling on something torn between dejected and hopeful.
"Okay, maybe he would be a little confused, but just a little! If he listens to his heart he'll know the answer. And the answer is obviously you. He's started writing songs about you, you know? Even though Gustavo never likes anything we write."
She'd like to buy into Carlos's words, but unfortunately she knows exactly how it turns out for her and Kendall. What's a couple songs for Lucy when the rest of them are dedicated to Jo?
God. This is maybe getting a bit pathetic.
Lucy stands up, dusts off her jeans. "We should go. Come on, we've got a long trip back."
They make it back to the Palm Woods just before dinner. Lucy drops Carlos off at 2J right as his stomach begins to protest.
She turns to leave before any of the other boys can spot her, but gets unexpectedly stopped by Logan. He looks worried about something.
"I just wanted to warn you that, um... Jo's back."
Oh. Right. If she'd stuck to the script this would be long past the elevator moment.
She's kind of touched that Logan thought to warn her. "You know, you're a good friend, Logan."
He blinks, caught off guard. Lucy's gone before he can think to say anything.
She thinks about how the rest of her night might go. Ordering in, maybe. Catching reruns of an old sitcom again before she inevitably falls asleep and wakes up just to start the day all over again. Then she walks past 3I and stops in her tracks.
Jo is behind that door. Behind that gold plaque.
Lucy knocks on the door.
Jo opens it, smiling, but it drops once she sees who it is. Or maybe who it isn't.
"Oh, uh, hi. Can I help you?" She's nice, which Lucy had always known in a distant sense, but it's different getting those kind eyes directed to her in person.
"This is going to sound really strange, but I'm Lucy and I'm... a friend of Kendall's." If Jo catches the hesitation before she says friend, she doesn't show it. "I just, I've heard a lot about you so I thought I'd introduce myself."
Everything about this is weird. Jo smiles anyway, lets her inside anyway. She introduces herself, not as Kendall's ex girlfriend, just as Jo. Lucy sits amongst all of Jo's still unpacked things, and listens to her as she talks about the time she spent in New Zealand, about the time she'd spent in Palm Woods just before she left for New Zealand.
As expected, Jo is sweet. Perfectly likeable.
"So... you still like him? Kendall?"
Jo stills for a moment, staring at Lucy for a second like she can't quite figure her out. "Yes, I do. When we broke up it wasn't... it wasn't because we stopped liking each other. I left the country but I don't think I ever really closed that door between the two of us."
Open doors, huh?
Beau was a closed door. Fully slammed shut. Yet Lucy still found herself opening it back up when she saw him again (the first time). A history like that is pretty hard to ignore, even with the way things had soured for them in the end.
Opening a door that was never fully closed must be even easier.
"You know what, Jo? I like you. I think we could actually be friends. I think the Palm Woods is big enough for the both of us."
Jo smiles brilliantly, all white teeth and pretty brown eyes.
It's blinding.
-
When Lucy was still small enough to sit on her dad's lap, she used to sit in on Mahjong games.
She'd look at all the pretty tiles, unaware of what they all meant, or why her dad shuffled them in that specific order, but enjoying herself nonetheless. Whenever he took out one of the tiles to place them in the centre of the table and called out the name of it, she'd echo him. Everyone would laugh.
Her dad rarely ever won, not when he was up against Nai-Nai and Ye-Ye, who could both tell which tile they were holding just by feeling the grooves under the pads of their thumbs.
She had yearned to join in on those games properly as a kid, but by the time she got old enough to learn, she'd forgotten all about it.
(Nai-Nai used to say once Luke and Lucy grew up and learned how to play, they'd have the perfect amount of players for a game.)
Lucy wakes up to the sound of tiles click-clacking in her ears.
She looks out the window and sees the streets of Bakersfield instead of L.A. The deli she used to walk by everyday on the way to school is staring at her through the glass. The massage place her mom visits every weekend is right next to it, the purple storefront worn with age but still colourful.
She turns away and heads to the bathroom.
When she comes back out, her bedroom window is overlooking the L.A. streets like always. She watches as unfamiliar cars pass by before getting distracted by the knocking on the door.
"Lucy, babe." Beau looks the same, yet different somehow too.
"Let me stop you right there." It's hard to be angry at him now, given the circumstances. "I loved you, I really did, but we tried to be together and it didn't work, remember? Find some other girl to give that super expensive necklace to, and maybe don't drag things out this time if you don't fall in love with her. Goodbye, Beau."
"Wait, how did you—"
She walks away from him again, this time knowing exactly where she wants to go.
She doesn't stop by the boys' apartment. Doesn't go to the pool. She leaves through the front doors and heads straight to the bus station.
The three hour drive passes by in a blur. Lucy thinks of family picnics, barbecues, vacations.
She steps off the bus a street down from the house, knocks on the door just in time for lunch.
Nai-Nai opens the door and gasps when she sees Lucy standing there.
Lucy bursts into tears at the sight of her grandmother. Nai-Nai pulls her into the house, more concerned than confused. She doesn't hug her, has never been the hugging type, but she strokes a hand up and down Lucy's back as she guides her over to the couch.
There are a million things Lucy would like to say. Most of all, she wants to say sorry. Sorry for not calling enough, for forgetting the things they used to share, for being ashamed of the parts of herself that she got from her grandparents, for trying to leave them behind.
She loves them. She should've never forgotten that. Should've never tried to run from it.
"You hungry?" Nai-Nai asks, once Lucy's sobbing has lessened into silent tears and some sniffling. "Ye-Ye is cooking."
Lucy nods, wipes at her stinging eyes, and follows after her grandmother into the dining room.
If Ye-Ye notices the redness around Lucy's eyes, he doesn't mention it. He just welcomes her with a smile, gives her an extra helping of rice, and then carries on as if this isn't the first time Lucy has been home long enough for a meal in months.
Lucy eats. She picks up her chopsticks and she eats, and a hole in her chest she hadn't noticed before begins to fill up.
Nai-Nai complains about Lucy's hair, saying she doesn't like the colour, that it doesn't look proper. Ye-Ye thinks it looks cool, even if he doesn't understand it much. They tell her that their parents miss her, that even Luke calls them once a week every week and he has a real job. Lucy loves her family so fiercely her chest aches with the force of it.
"Why were you crying, silly girl? If no one wants to listen to your music just come back home! It's still not too late to go to college!"
She doesn't take anything Nai-Nai says to heart. It's just like this with her, always has been, probably always will be.
"That's not what this is about, Nai-Nai."
"Then what's it about? Oh, don't tell me. Is it a boy?"
It's about much more than just a boy, but Lucy doesn't know how to explain the whole of it, how disconnected she's felt from herself the last few months, weeks, so she just nods. It's not not about a boy.
"Aiyah, how old are you now? Still crying over boys! You're beautiful girl, there are many boys to choose, what's the problem?"
The problem is, it's not just any boy. It's Kendall. Kind, sweet, sincere Kendall, who Lucy genuinely likes. A lot. Granted, it hasn't been long since they've met, but it's funny how little of a difference that makes.
"This boy has a beautiful ex girlfriend he's still half in love with," she confesses with a sigh.
Ye-Ye pats her on the leg, sympathetic. "I went through the same thing with your Nai-Nai, did you know? She had so many men chasing after her, but I won her over in the end."
This story Lucy definitely hasn't heard before. She looks to Nai-Nai for confirmation, who suddenly looks a little shy. "No way. Nai-Nai?"
"It was a long time ago!"
"Lucy," Ye-Ye brings her attention back to him, "have you told him how you feel?"
Lucy swallows. "I... no... we never really got around to that part."
"You should tell him," he says to her gently. "You will only really have a chance if you lay all your cards out on the table. That's what I did with your grandmother, and look at where we are now!"
Nai-Nai places a hand over hers. "If he breaks your heart, you come back here and cry as long as you want."
"Okay."
Lucy steps onto the bus heading back to L.A., her heart lighter than it's been in months.
When she arrives back at the Palm Woods she takes the stairs two steps at a time until she reaches 2J, where she hesitates, hand poised to knock.
The door opens before she can, and suddenly Kendall is standing before her, eyes a little wide.
"Oh, Lucy! I was just looking for you."
"Well, here I am."
She's still nervous being around him somehow. It seems not even being under the effects of a time loop will stop that from happening.
"Do you uh, want to take a walk maybe?" He seems a bit nervous too.
Lucy's stomach twists. "Yeah, sure."
It feels like she's wandering into a trap on purpose, walking like this beside Kendall, feeling butterflies any time their arms brush against each other. She lets him buy her a smoothie, stays quiet when he brings her to a specific bench a little out of way from where most of the people have gathered in the park, and waits for him to speak.
It's selfish maybe, but she wants to know how things might've gone without Beau to get in the way. If they would've officially been boyfriend-girlfriend by the time Jo appeared. If maybe he would've found it just a little bit harder to let her go.
"I was just wondering if you would— if you were interested in... going on a date sometime? With me?"
Lucy doesn't say I'd love to like she means, like she should. Instead, she says, "I don't know... why don't we do a trial run first? Let's pretend this is a date, right here, right now. If you impress me enough maybe I'll let you take me on a real one. Tomorrow."
It's not exactly out of character, to turn this into a game.
"Oh, you're doubting my first date skills?" Kendall does that funny little eyebrow thing, grinning. "I'll have you know I'm great at first dates. Just watch."
Kendall takes her hand and whisks her away.
Their first stop is to a theatre that shows only horror movies nonstop for the entire day. Kendall keeps a tight grip on his armrest the entire way through Nightmare On Elm Street, making it pretty obvious that they're only here for Lucy's sake. It begs the question, did he just happen to know about this theatre beforehand? Or did he look for one, specifically intending on bringing Lucy to it one day?
Her heart hammers in her chest, fast and painful. The entire movie goes by in a blur.
"That was... fun." Kendall is pale, clutching a still full tub of popcorn.
Lucy laughs, ignores the knots in her stomach, and grabs a handful of popcorn from him. "Really? I'm pretty sure I saw you shaking at some point, Kendall."
"Okay, so maybe horror movies aren't exactly my thing."
"You're right, they're really not. But I kind of like that about you."
"Yeah?" Kendall's smiling, something soft, private.
Lucy knocks her shoulder into his, making him spill some of the popcorn onto the floor. "Yeah."
Somewhere between the theatre and their next destination, they end up holding hands. Lucy's not really sure who reached out first, but she knows she's the one who decided to thread her fingers through his. If this is a game, she's losing. Badly.
Eventually they make it to some kind of dessert shop, where the staff greet Kendall by name and whistle when Lucy follows in behind him, her hand still wrapped around his.
"The boys and I found this place the first week we got to Palm Woods," he explains, as he brings her to one of the more secluded booths. "The people who work here have sort of seen us go from no names to... kinda almost pretty famous? So this has become our official spot. And uh, full disclosure, this would usually be a fourth maybe fifth date kind of reveal but, I figured I'd pull out all the stops so I can convince you to give me a real first date."
Lucy slides into the booth opposite Kendall, and knows getting over him is going to be difficult. Much more difficult than getting over Beau ever was.
They get a banana split to split between the two of them.
"So... written any good songs lately?" Kendall asks, as he scoops up some of the chocolate ice cream with his spoon.
"This is the 'get to know me' section of the date, huh?" Lucy talks around the spoon in her mouth, grinning when he coughs a little.
"Hey, there's nothing wrong with a cliche if it works, right?"
"You have a point." She sits up a little straighter now. "I've got a couple songs swimming around in here," she taps the end of her spoon against the side of her head, "I just need to find a moment to write it all down."
"What are the songs about?"
You. "Big stuff. Complicated stuff. Never ending time loops and things like that."
"Sounds mysterious."
"I'm very mysterious. Don't you forget it."
They bump their shoes together under the table and laugh, and it's simple. It works. Lucy decides this is the first and last date she'll let them have. If she lets it get any further than this, it'll only hurt worse in the end. If this ever ends for her, anyway.
She pulls her phone out of her pocket, glances at the time. "Aaaand I'm afraid your time's up. Trial date's officially over."
"There was a time limit? Wait, wait, before you make your decision, we have to do the 'boy walks girl back home' section of the date. Can't end a date without that."
Lucy laughs, fond. "You make another good point."
Kendall offers his arm, ever the gentleman. Lucy loops her arm through his, and walks out the door with him.
She doesn't discover anything she doesn't already know, on the walk home. He's funny, she's funny, they make each other laugh. She teases, he teases back. When she says something, he pays attention. When he says something, she listens. It's unfair, how well they mesh together.
This is definitely at least three or four songs worth of material.
"Well. We're back." They stand in front of the doors leading into the Palm Woods. Kendall turns to face her. "Did I pass? Do I get that real first date tomorrow?"
She leans up to press a kiss to his cheek. She pulls back smiling. "I like you a lot, Kendall Knight. Probably more than I've ever liked anyone before. But, as for the date tomorrow, you tell me if that's still on the table after you talk to your ex girlfriend."
"My—"
Kendall whirls around, and there's Jo, getting out of a cab, right on time.
Lucy disappears through the front doors while he stands there stunned, and doesn't look back.
-
Lucy wakes up.
She sits up, out of breath, with the feeling that something is very very wrong. Or maybe...
The clock on her bedside table reads 9:07. No one is knocking on her door.
Maybe things are very right.
She swings her legs over the side of her bed, heart racing. She grabs her phone off the table, switches it on, checks the date.
It's tomorrow. Today is another day and it's not yesterday.
Lucy laughs. She sits there, on the edge of her bed, holding her head in her hands and laughs until she cries. She wants to see her Nai-Nai again, to eat Ye-Ye's food again. And she can. There's nothing stopping her from visiting. But first, first. She wipes at her tears, clears her throat, and dials her dad's number.
He picks up after two rings. "Lucy? Is something wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong, Dad, I just... I think I might go home this weekend, to visit, is that okay?"
"Of course! Your mother and I would love to see you."
"Is it cool if Luke comes too? I feel like we haven't all been together in so long."
He hesitates, for the briefest of moments. "I... yes, yes. Of course your brother can come."
"Maybe you can finally teach us how to play Mahjong."
The laugh she gets out of him is full of surprise. "You remember that?"
"You promised to teach me and Luke when we were old enough. We're old enough now, aren't we?"
"Yes. You are."
She ends the phone call with a smile on her face, until she remembers that everything she did in the last loop counts. Showing up in front of Nai-Nai and Ye-Ye and bawling her eyes out. That not-date she had with Kendall. They'd remember.
Lucy races through her morning routine, blinking away the memories that keep resurfacing of Kendall's smile, Kendall's laugh, the feel of his palm against hers.
She sighs at her own reflection, thinking she kind of looks like someone who's just been through the same day over and over again.
She turns the tap off, adjusts her hair one last time, and then leaves the apartment, where she promptly runs into Logan and Carlos.
Carlos is wearing a helmet, Logan is not, and Lucy thinks she might love the both of them a little bit.
"Lucy!" They say in unison.
She throws her arms around the both of them, uncaring of the way Logan's head smacks into Carlos's helmet. She only laughs when Logan groans, hugging them both tighter even though Carlos starts squirming to get away, at least until Logan elbows him in the side, at which point they slowly hug her back.
When she finally lets them go, Logan's looking at her like she's lost it while Carlos just looks beyond confused.
"I think you guys might be my best friends," she says. It doesn't even feel like an exaggeration.
"We are?" They say, again in unison.
They don't know what she knows, of course, but it doesn't change the fact that Logan always tried to help her when she needed it, even when he thought she was crazy. It doesn't change how Carlos accompanied her when she was lonely, saw her for her instead of just as Kendall's maybe almost something.
She might be strong enough to get her heart broken again, finally. They'll be there to help her pick the pieces back up, she knows.
"You are."
Carlos and Logan exchange a look. Then Logan shrugs, and Carlos beams.
"Cool! A girl best friend!"
And that's that.
Lucy gives them both another hug, just for a little extra strength, and then goes to press the button for the elevator.
The elevator doors open to show Kendall standing inside. They lock eyes. Now or never, then.
Lucy steps into the elevator with him. The doors shut. They start going down.
"So, Jo's back," Lucy says.
Kendall looks somewhere over her head. "Yep."
"Good thing yesterday wasn't a real date, huh?" Even if it was very real to her.
The elevator stops all of a sudden. Lucy stumbles a little, then turns to look at Kendall, who has apparently pressed the emergency stop button.
"I think, maybe, we should talk."
Lucy swallows, suddenly nervous. "I... okay."
She tries searching his face for a sign of what's to come, but she can't tell what he's thinking. He looks worried, eyes a little sad, but the expression's a little off to the one she remembers from the night he dumped her. She can still remember that entire conversation vividly, the way he'd apologised to her, the words he used.
"Look, me and Jo, we were... when we broke up it... it didn't feel like our relationship was ending. It just, it felt like the world was cutting it short. It didn't really feel finished." He takes a deep breath, running his hand through his hair. He's more frazzled than she expected him to be. "And then you came along, being all pretty and cool and mysterious, and, I don't know. With you around I could forget all about Jo and the break up."
"But now she's back... and you can't not think about it anymore."
Kendall sighs. "I didn't want it to change anything with you, with us, but seeing her got me all confused, and I—"
"I get it, Kendall. I'll be fine without you, you know. I'm tough, it'll take much more than this to break me."
"You say that like this," he gestures between the two of them, "is over."
"Isn't it?"
Kendall takes a step closer to her. He's really going off script now. "I don't want it to be."
This... isn't supposed to happen. He's supposed to be back together with Jo and looking at Lucy with those sad, sorry eyes. Not looking at her... like this, all serious and determined. With those hungry, wanting eyes.
She takes a sharp breath in. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying... I like you. Really like you. And I think we could be something amazing."
He's saying all the right things this time.
Lucy's finding it hard to breathe. This elevator is suddenly too small. Kendall is standing in front of her, with something like hope in his eyes. Maybe Ye-Ye was right, about chances coming only if she's honest with herself, with him.
"What about Jo?" She can't not ask, not be worried.
Kendall takes one of Lucy's hands. "We talked yesterday. We've, uh, decided to try being friends."
"And what if you realise that was a mistake? That you can't be just friends with Jo?"
He pulls on their joined hands, tugs her closer. "I won't," he promises.
He says it with such confidence, as if he hadn't chosen Jo once already. But this is the thing about the future, isn't it? It's unpredictable. Anything could happen. Maybe two days later Kendall will snap out of it and dump Lucy just like he did before. Or maybe Kendall and Lucy have a real chance at happiness. The future is full of possibilities.
"Well, in that case..."
Lucy jumps in with both feet.
She leans up and kisses him. She's not sure if this counts as their first all over again, or if it's technically their second, but the semantics don't really matter, do they?
When they pull away, they've got identical dopey looking smiles on their faces. Kendall leans in to rest his forehead against hers. The moment is kind of perfect.
She thinks of Ye-Ye again, of what it means to really put your heart on the line.
"My last name is Shen," she confesses, quiet. "My real last name, I mean. Stone was always just a... stage name. Something to hide behind." She leans back, so that she can look Kendall in the eye. "I think for a long time I was scared to show the world who I really was. The me behind all the red hair and the rocker persona, you know? But... I think I'm ready now to show the world the whole picture. I think people can handle it. And if they can't, that's their problem, not mine."
There's no safety net anymore, no resets to fall back on. There are parts of her now that Kendall will see that she'll never be able to take back. Underneath the fear, the worry, it feels kind of... nice. A bit of a relief, to be able to share this with someone else.
The smile on Kendall's face is all heart, all acceptance.
Lucy wants to kiss him again. "Still like me even without the mystery?"
"You could have brown hair, wear glasses, play the violin, and I would still like you." He says this as if liking Lucy is inevitable, as if in any other universe the two of them would still collide. "None of that stuff changes the fact that you rock, that you can play the heck out of a guitar, and that you can be really sweet when no one's looking."
"Okay, sweet talker, that was smooth. I think you've earned that date after all."
Kendall pushes the emergency stop button on the elevator, jerking them into movement again. "Hold on, you haven't even let me ask the question yet."
"Seriously? Alright, fine. Ask away, then."
He reaches up to tuck some of hair behind her ear, smiling softly. "Lucy Shen, will you be my girlfriend?"
It's a different question to the one she was expecting, but, well, that's the thing about life, right? It surprises you sometimes.
"Yes," she says, right before she leans up to kiss him again.
The elevator doors open as they separate.
They step out hand in hand.