ଓ༉‧.⭒ֶָ֢⋆.

Falling in love with Lyra Sinclair wasn't any easier the second time around.

Part of Iris expected it to be simpler, in a way, be it thanks to naivety or wishful thinking—after all, Lyra was still the same person she'd known before it all went wrong, before things got bad—but, for whatever reason it might be, she assumed she'd be used to the process by then.

Long story short, she wasn't.

She had grossly underestimated how emotionally demanding it would be to have all those feelings (for a dead girl, no less) resurface like boiling lava and overestimated her ability to deal with them.

It was different, though. The first time around, Iris was never consumed by the knowledge she'd one day end up losing Lyra, but now . . . now it just felt like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the point of no return that would mark the beginning of their end.

Anything she said or did could be the trigger, even though she'd gone back in time all those years just to erase it, but it would be simplistic to reduce it to a singular event, wouldn't it? It being simplistic also made it more difficult, in a way; if she couldn't figure out exactly what she'd done wrong to send Lyra further down her spiral, then what had been the point of going through all of that? What was she doing back in the past, bending and breaking herself to save someone without knowing where to start?

Iris didn't necessarily want to be so pessimistic about the outcome of her decisions and actions, but she needed things to be guaranteed. She needed to know everything she'd done and sacrificed had to be worth it, and the only worthwhile outcome of the mess she'd trapped herself in would be a living, breathing Lyra, but she couldn't know for sure.

She knew they'd inevitably fall out, sooner or later, even if it would happen under different circumstances than it originally had gone down, but there wasn't even an opportunity to take things slow, take them day by day. Iris didn't know which would be the last; even if she were to succeed at avoiding Lyra's death following the unedited script, the uncertainty surrounding everything else was too scarlet of a flag to ignore.

Iris knew Lyra. That was the problem.

There had been something somewhat endearing about the reckless, impulsive way Lyra conducted herself at first, moving through life while enjoying every moment for what it was, but she'd often take everything to the extreme. She didn't understand the concept of a limit, not even her own, and Iris often lacked the power to convince her into doing something she had already set her mind to and vice-versa.

Lyra had always gotten everything she wanted, when she wanted it, how she wanted it. She'd always had Iris wrapped around her finger, too, but Iris would like to think she'd had the slightest bit of agency when it came to that—for the sake of her ego, at least.

After all, she'd walked away from Lyra and Emelle Bay the second things got too hard, had she not? Even when everything inside her threatened to collapse, even when Lyra begged her not to? Would a codependent person ever do something like that?

Realistically, there would be no way of saving Lyra from herself if she ever chose to follow down a spiral of self-destruction, either consciously or not, but nothing about Iris' current circumstances was realistic, anyway. There was no realistic way of facing time travel and alternate timelines, so why should she even try to find reason or rhyme where there shouldn't be any? Shouldn't she just focus on what she'd returned to the past to do and fix?

Falling back in love with Lyra Sinclair was both like coming home and entering an empty, unfamiliar apartment at the same time. It was still Lyra, but it wasn't Lyra, and Iris was keeping something monumental from her. 

Every time Lyra opened up about something, Iris would already know those things about her, and the connection would never be as genuine as it had been before. It allowed her to view things differently, sure, and she had a better understanding of who Lyra was as a person, but at what cost?

Years of her life were gone, but she had Lyra. A false version of her, but still Lyra, and she had never been great at choosing her priorities. She'd made it happen, had wished for it, and no matter how many times she pinched herself or regretted her decision, she couldn't rewind a rewind, could she?

(It wasn't like she had attempted to do so. Messing with the laws of time as extensively as she already had was dangerous enough, especially while not knowing a damn thing about it, and testing the waters just to get a little taste of being powerful for once didn't strike her as the greatest idea.)

Besides, she had yet to figure out how to go back to the present—if it would even be possible. Perhaps she'd be forever stuck in this alternate reality, forced to be aware of a version of her that had lived a completely different life, not to mention everyone else in the world. They, too, had been split into multiple versions of themselves.

At least Iris was aware of what she was doing and why it was happening, but what if everyone else was living with a permanent feeling of déjà vu they couldn't find an explanation for? They had the feeling, a mild annoyance they couldn't quite pinpoint, while she had the knowledge.

It was strange, she thought, being one step ahead of everyone—everyone including Lyra, who she had to pretend to be getting to know for the first time in both their lives. Iris had never been a particularly great liar, either, and Lyra would figure it out in no time; for someone who operated almost exclusively on spur of the moment decisions, she was surprisingly good at paying attention and reading between the lines.

"How did you know I like spicy noodles?" Lyra asked, head peeking into the communal kitchen, and, though Iris hadn't tasted the noodles (her spice tolerance was abysmal), there was a thin layer of sweat trailing down the nape of her neck the moment she realized her mistake.

Early that day, without even asking, she'd instinctively reached out for everything she knew Lyra liked on the grocery store shelves.

It was her turn to cook dinner, and there weren't many recipes she wasn't a disaster at, so she was relying on memory and poor cooking skills. However, she'd conveniently failed to account for the fact that she wasn't supposed to possess that knowledge in this timeline yet. It had never come up in conversation, had never been brought up during the awkward early stages of a blossoming friendship, and, the longer Lyra went without an answer, the worse.

"I assumed," Iris blurted out, setting her wooden spoon aside. "I mean, most people do. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have; I cannot eat spicy food to save my life, so I should be more considerate and remember there are people like me and—"

The frown curving Lyra's lips slowly turned upside down as she visibly relaxed. "Don't sweat it. I think it's cute that you guessed correctly." She slipped into the kitchen, tiptoeing across the linoleum floors in mismatched socks, and carefully dipped her index finger into the pot to taste the sauce. Iris' eyes, regrettably, were glued to her mouth, watching as it delicately closed around the tip of her finger. "Needs a bit more cayenne, just a tiny sprinkle."

"Noted." Iris reached out for the tiny bottle of cayenne pepper. "If we continue doing this, maybe it's a good idea to list down specific likes and dislikes, right? Allergies and all that. Just to make sure neither of us accidentally kills the other. Or the relationship. The friendship, I mean," she quickly corrected.

It was too late, though; no traces of the sauce had touched her lips and the kitchen wasn't that hot, but she could fry an egg on her cheeks. She knew Lyra had noticed—the smirk she threw her was a clear indicator of that.

Lyra hip checked her. "Good thing you're cute. Otherwise, I could have totally pegged you as a creep." Iris' heart skipped a monumental beat at being called cute, but she forced herself to keep calm. She had to reel it back in and ensure Lyra didn't figure out something was amiss; after all, how would she even begin to explain what was going on? It still sounded ridiculous in her head. "Okay, I lied. I wouldn't think of you as a creep; I think it's sweet that you figured it out without me needing to tell you. Maybe I gave off the spicy noodles enthusiast vibe or something, I don't know." She paused, biting her lip. "Or maybe . . ."

Iris' heart was beating now—thumping against her chest, threatening to explode all over the marinara. "Maybe?"

"Maybe this is one of those once in a lifetime connections, you know? You meet someone in the most random way possible, think it's a fluke, and then they guess your favorite food and pay attention to you and . . ."

She shook her head. Her blonde hair was a few inches longer now than it had been two months prior in the alternate timeline, and she'd dyed some of the strands neon pink—something she hadn't originally done.

Iris had replayed all her actions almost perfectly, but the minimal changes she'd made so far had changed something. It was bizarre to realize how much influence you could hold over someone without even noticing it, but it was also dangerous how high on it you could get.

"I know it's, like, the bare minimum to ask from someone, but there aren't many people in my life who bother to make an effort," Lyra continued, voice growing smaller. "You barely know me, and you're still going above and beyond to try and change that. It feels . . . easy with you. Like I don't have to try and put up a strong front. Like I don't have to pretend. You just get me. You get me like you've known me for a long time."

Of course Iris knew her—she loved her. She'd loved her for years, as they hadn't been erased from her memory the same way they had been erased from history and from the universe, and there were details about Lyra's entire existence she didn't couldn't even imagine Iris knew. Some of them, she would find out about, but there were others . . . there were others that weren't necessarily that obvious, ones that had taken Iris years and arguments and conversations and outings and moments of silent introspection and observation to notice and eternally save in her brain.

She knew what vinyls Lyra enjoyed listening to with other people and those she preferred to sit with in the comfort and solitude of her dark dorm room.

She knew how many freckles she could count speckled like constellations across Lyra's shoulders during the summer.

She knew all about the ridiculously adorable way she'd snort when she laughed too hard, eyes crinkling at the sides, and how she'd cover her mouth when she feared she was annoying people with her giggling—like she could ever be annoying to Iris in any capacity.

She knew about Lyra's desire to appear stronger than she felt at all times, the underlying softness of her being remaining hidden underneath layers of bravado.

She knew about her love for pottery and Joan Didion. She knew. She knew.

And she couldn't forget about any of it.

"It sounds like you're talking about soulmates," Iris murmured, setting aside the jar of cayenne. She carefully dipped her wooden spoon into the marinara and offered it to Lyra so she could taste the concoction. "Sometimes it's too soon."

"But sometimes you just know." Lyra threw her a shy smile. "You feel it deep within you."

ଓ༉‧.⭒ֶָ֢⋆.

ouch charlie. meanwhile, baby HIT REWIND was chosen as one of the ambassadors' picks for round one of ONC, which is SO WILD TO MEEEE. what do you MEAN people like this book??? what do you mean i'm being perceived???

wc: 2019 (docs) // 2010 (wattpad)

total wc: 12951 (docs) // 12787 (wattpad)