Page 108 of Kiss Slay Replay

“You, too.” She runs her hands under the faucet, works up a lather.

I let her rinse in silence, unsure of what to say next. Congratulations on your new relationship with the guy I almost married? Did you know that he didn’t tell me you were coming? What products do you use in your hair? Can you give me a quick physics lesson to help me break out of a time loop before we all die by, I don’t know, flesh-eating flowers?

She reaches for the paper towels, dries her hands, then turns to me with a brief, apologetic look. She starts toward the door, but before I can call after her, she doubles back, opening her mouth to say something. She changes her mind, shakes her head.

“Um, Tanya? Hi. There’s something I need to ask you…” I can’t say it. I can’t fucking say it. She’s pale. Horrified. “Not about Ravi. About…physics.”

She doesn’t seem at all relieved that I’m not confronting her about my ex.

I take a breath and keep talking. “Ravi told me you said something about a time loop.”

“I can’t believe this. I can’t…I can’t believe it,” she mutters to herself. “I should have left. I knew I should’ve just turned around the second I—”

“Tanya.” I don’t have the patience, and we don’t have the time. “Please.”

She looks at me with wide, anxious eyes. “I want you to know I’ve been there. I’ve been there. Here.”

“Wait, what? You’ve been—been where?”

“I’ve been there.”

Is she saying what I think she’s saying? This is the weirdest game of chicken I’ve ever played. I should say it, but I want her to say it.

The door to the bathroom swings open, and Olivia walks in. I expect her to stop and chat me up, but instead she hurries into the nearest stall, clearly sensing the weird vibe.

I look back at Tanya. “Meet me out front in ten?”

—

The floral arches are obviously in a different spot. At least, it’s obvious to me. They’re much closer to the reception hall and farther from the cocktail area. The mobile bar has been packed up, closed for business. I wonder if the bartenders noticed the arches walking away. I wonder if they’re still alive.

I hear the doors open. The click of heels. Tanya comes up beside me. After a beat, she asks, “How many times have you lived this day?”

Maybe I should feel relieved, but all I want to do is scream.

“We should…” I lead her over to the Adirondack chairs, beyond earshot of the reception hall or anyone who wanders out of it. I sit and she stands. “Five. This is my fifth time on today.”

“That’s it?”

I snort. “Certainly feels like a lot to me.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine. Um, yeah. The first time, it was a guy in a mask with eyeballs who stabbed me in the head. Then it was these ravens and—”

“Again, I’m sorry. But…what?”

“Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Ravens and this, like, ghoul in a top hat.”

“Ghoul? Willa, how does the day reset?”

“When I die.”

She gasps. “When you die?”

“Is that not how it works? How did it reset for you? Can we…can we back up, for a second? What happened to you?”

“This used to be a camp. First, Camp Serling back in the seventies, eighties, early nineties, then it shut down for a while after one of the campers had to be institutionalized. It reopened briefly as Camp Luna in two thousand seven. I spent two summers here, and during my second, I was upset one night because I was a fourteen-year-old girl addicted to romance novels and crazy about this guy Noah Cafferty, who didn’t know I existed, so I went wandering off into the woods to brood, and all of a sudden, I had this sensation of falling. When I came to, everything felt different in a way I couldn’t articulate. I ran into Noah on the way back to my cabin, and he was sweet to me. We had this magical fairy-tale night, and he kissed me, and then I woke up and I was in my bunk and it was the morning, and as the day went on everything was the same, people kept repeating themselves, Noah was ignoring me, and I thought I must have been imagining it, or it was a dream.”