He saw himself—living, breathing, stubborn—moving into the house with M. He saw the moment he had tucked a small scrap of paper into a crack in the doorframe, a secret note she would never find.
Time began to lose its edges. It didn't flow; it sedimented. It didn't flow; it sedimented
He waited. He endured the loop until the house was empty once more. With a spectral fingernail, he picked at the paint, chipping away decades of grime until he reached the slip of paper. He pulled it out and read the words he had written to her when he was whole. With a spectral fingernail, he picked at the
Centuries collapsed. The house was torn down. He stood in the footprint of his bedroom while a skyscraper rose around him, cold and steel-eyed. He climbed to the roof and looked at a city that had forgotten the dirt it was built on. Then, he jumped. He wanted to reach out
He stood in the corner of the living room, watching M eat a chocolate pie. She ate it with a focused, brutal grief, scraping the tin until the sound set his non-existent teeth on edge. He wanted to reach out, to tell her that the house wasn't empty, but his hands were only folds of fabric. When he moved, the world didn't ripple; he was the ripple.