Aleeza:Because you said you’re in room 225 right now, but I’m here right now, staring at your bed. The only thing on it is Tentacle Ted, my stuffed octopus.
Jay:Ted is a stuffed animal? I thought he was a boyfriend or something.
Aleeza:I don’t have a boyfriend. Ted is a large orange octopus. We are the only ones in the room. One more question. What’s on my Instagram story right now? My account is Aleeza_OctoGirl.
Jay:What kind of name is that? Are you an octuplet or something?
Aleeza:Just look it up—what’s on my story?
He takes a few seconds to respond. I use the time to look up my Instagram archive and find October 19. It’s the day I bought myoctopus mug. Instagram stories disappear after twenty-four hours, and only I have access to my own archive. If this is a prank, the prankster would have had to hack my Instagramandhack my ResConnect, which seems too far-fetched.
Jay:It’s a picture of a girl drinking from a mug with a tentacle handle. Is this you? You’re cute.
I blow out a long puff of air. The only person who can see this pictureright nowis me. Which means Jay isn’t in thisright now.
Aleeza:This is proof.
Jay:Proof of what? You’re not even in this room in that picture.
Aleeza:You’re right. But I am in your room right now, just like you are in your room right now. But our right nows aren’t the same. It’s March 15 for me.
Jay:You’re not making sense. Maybe you should stop hanging out with a stuffed octopus.
Aleeza:I know I’m not making sense, but it’s the only explanation. We are both in the same place, but at different times.
It’s completely preposterous, but Iknowit’s true. Jay Hoque and I are stuck in a weird-ass time loop. We’re five months apart.
He doesn’t respond to my message. I don’t blame him.
Aleeza:It’s been snowing for a week straight. We’re a month into second term.
Jay:You’ve completely lost your mind.
I need to figure out how to explain it to him.
Aleeza:You went to see Kegan, the housing guy, after you saw the message from me on ResConnect, and when he looked in the system, it showed that you’re the only registered resident in the room, right? I did the same thing when I saw your message. When I was in the office, Kegan looked at me funny and said he was having déjà vu. Because he was remembering having the same conversation with you five months ago.
Jay:An overworked school administrator mixed up student conversations, so clearly we’re living in a Keanu Reeves movie?
I frown.
Aleeza:Was there a time loop in The Matrix?
Jay:No, another movie. Okay, gimme a second.
Jay: Found something. There’s a basketball game on right now. Raptors versus Celtics. Look it up. Who’s going to win?
I don’t want to close ResConnect to look it up on my phone—I don’t trust this connection between us, and I don’t want the chat to disappear again. So I googleOctober 19 Raptors gameon my laptop.
Aleeza:Raptors win. Final score 136 to 134. Why are basketball scores so high?
Jay:No idea. Not a sports person. Except water sports. In about half an hour we can verify if you’re right. Should I put money on this game?
I make a face. I don’t love the idea of Jay trying to profit off this bizarre situation. Not until we have a better idea of what’s going on. Isn’t that, like, the first rule of time travel? My mom and dad are big sci-fi nerds, and I swearStar Trekhad an episode about not profiting off a time glitch. Then I remember that the person I’m talking to supposedly had several girlfriends at the same time. Ethics may not be his biggest concern.
Aleeza:We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet.
Jay:Send me more sports scores. Maybe another ten. There must be more sporting events today in the whole world, right? Bigger sample size to know if this is real.
