The Chronos Effect
Chapter Eight: Three O'Clock
I spent the next hour pacing our living room like a caged animal. Kitchen to couch. Couch to window. Window back to kitchen. The same path, over and over, wearing grooves in the hardwood with my restless energy.
Thirty percent chance of saving everyone. Seventy percent chance of destroying everything.
Those numbers kept spinning in my head like a broken record. In my physics classes, thirty percent would be terrible odds. You wouldn't bet your thesis defense on thirty percent. You wouldn't stake your career on it.
But your girlfriend's life? The woman you love more than breathing?
Thirty percent started to sound pretty damn good.
At 2:15, I called Amy's work.
"Emergency Department, this is Lisa."
"Hi, this is Damian Torres. I'm trying to reach Amy Chen?"
"Hold on, let me see... Oh, Amy left about an hour ago. Said she was going home early."
My stomach dropped. "She left at one-fifteen?"
"Around then, yeah. Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, everything's... everything's fine. Thank you."
I hung up and checked my watch. 2:17 PM. If Amy had left at 1:15, she should have been home by now. The drive from the hospital took twenty minutes in normal traffic.
Unless she'd stopped somewhere. Unless she'd gotten caught in construction. Unless...
I tried calling her cell. Straight to voicemail.
"Hey, it's me. Just wondering where you are. Call me back."
2:23 PM.
I called again. Voicemail again.
"Amy, I'm starting to worry. Are you okay? Just... call me, please."
2:31 PM.
This time I didn't leave a message. I just hung up and started pacing faster. Kitchen to couch to window, the cycle speeding up with each lap.
What if something had already happened? What if changing Amy's schedule had created some new disaster I hadn't foreseen? What if she was lying in a hospital bed somewhere, or worse?
At 2:45, I grabbed my keys and headed for the door. I'd drive her route from the hospital, look for her car, make sure she was okay.
I was halfway to the garage when I heard tires in our driveway.
Amy's blue Honda pulled up to the house, music playing loudly enough that I could hear it through the closed windows. She was singing along to something, her head bobbing with the beat.
The relief hit me so hard my knees almost gave out. I leaned against the doorframe and watched her gather her purse and a bag of takeout from the passenger seat. She looked... happy. Relaxed in a way I hadn't seen her in weeks.
"Hey, stranger," she called out when she spotted me lurking in the doorway. "Miss me?"
"Where were you?"
She raised an eyebrow at my tone. "Getting food, like I said in my message. And I stopped by the bookstore. They had that new biography you wanted." She held up a small paper bag. "Surprise."
I stared at her, trying to process the disconnect between my panic and her casual good mood.
"I tried calling you."
"My phone died while I was at work. Haven't had a chance to charge it yet." She walked past me into the house, setting the food on the kitchen counter. "Thai Palace was packed, by the way. Had to wait twenty minutes for our order."
"You should have called me from the restaurant."
"Damian, I was gone for like two hours. It's not a big deal."
But it was a big deal. Everything was a big deal when you knew the exact time and method by which the person you loved was going to die.
Amy turned around and really looked at me for the first time. "You look terrible. Worse than this morning, even."
"I'm fine."
"No, you're not fine. You're pale and sweaty and you keep clenching your jaw." She reached up and touched my forehead. "Are you running a fever?"
"I'm not sick."
"Then what's wrong? And don't say nothing, because you've been acting strange for days."
I looked at her standing there in our kitchen, surrounded by takeout containers and normal afternoon light, and the weight of everything I couldn't tell her pressed down on me like a physical thing.
"I've been having nightmares," I said finally. "Really vivid ones. About losing you."
Her expression softened. "Oh, honey."
"And I know they're just dreams, but they feel so real. Like I'm watching previews of the worst thing that could ever happen to me."
Amy set down the food and came over to wrap her arms around me. "They're not previews. They're just your brain processing stress and anxiety."
"What if they're not?"
"Then we deal with whatever comes. Together." She pulled back to look at me. "But we can't live in fear of maybes, Damian. We'll drive ourselves crazy."
"I already am going crazy."
"No, you're not. You're just scared." She kissed my cheek. "And that's normal. Loving someone means being scared of losing them."
If only it were that simple.
We ate lunch on the couch, watching some cooking show Amy liked. She'd gotten my usual—pad thai with extra peanuts—and her usual—green curry that was too spicy for normal human consumption. We sat close together, her legs tucked under mine, and for thirty minutes I almost forgot about time loops and quantum mechanics and impossible choices.
"This is nice," Amy said during a commercial break. "We should do this more often."
"What, eat lunch?"
"No, this. Just... be together without any pressure. No work stress, no wedding planning, no heavy conversations about our future." She poked my ribs with her chopsticks. "Remember when we used to spend entire Saturdays like this? Just hanging out, watching bad TV, being lazy?"
I did remember. Back when we first moved in together, before I started my graduate program, before she began her residency. When our biggest concern was whether we had enough pizza rolls for a Netflix marathon.
"I miss that," I said.
"Me too. Maybe when things settle down with work and school, we can get back to that."
When things settle down. As if we had all the time in the world. As if she wasn't going to die in eight hours and twenty-six minutes.
"Amy?"
"Mm?" She was stealing a piece of my pad thai, the way she always did even though she claimed she didn't like it.
"If you could change anything about your life, what would it be?"
She paused mid-chew. "That's a weird question."
"Just curious."
"I don't know. I'd probably worry less. I spend so much time catastrophizing about things that never happen." She looked at me pointedly. "Sound familiar?"
"What else?"
"I'd tell people I love them more often. Say the important things instead of assuming there'll always be time later." She curled up closer to me. "I'd probably take more risks too. Stop playing it so safe all the time."
"What kind of risks?"
"Like... remember when I wanted to do that medical mission in Guatemala? But I didn't apply because it seemed too complicated with our schedules?"
I remembered. She'd talked about it for months, then convinced herself it wasn't practical.
"I should have just gone for it," she continued. "What's the worst that could have happened? We'd have figured it out."
"You still could. Apply for next year."
"Maybe I will." She smiled. "See? This is what I mean. We get so caught up in the logistics of life that we forget to actually live it."
The irony was crushing. Here she was, talking about taking risks and living life to the fullest, while I was planning to let her die in a few hours to prevent a theoretical catastrophe.
"What about you?" she asked. "What would you change?"
"I'd be braver."
"Braver how?"
"I'd make the hard choices instead of trying to find easy answers to complicated problems."
Amy shifted to face me fully. "That doesn't sound like you. You're one of the bravest people I know."
"I'm really not."
"Are you kidding? You decided to get a PhD in one of the hardest fields imaginable. You moved to a new city where you knew nobody. You asked me to move in with you after six months of dating, even though I was terrified of commitment."
"Those weren't brave. Those were just... things I wanted."
"Exactly. Being brave isn't about not being scared. It's about wanting something enough to do it anyway."
Her words hit me like a punch to the gut. Being brave meant wanting something enough to do it anyway.
Did I want to save Amy enough to risk everyone else's life?
Did I want to keep her safe enough to let her die?
Which choice took more courage?
"Damian, you're doing it again."
"Doing what?"
"Disappearing into your head. I can practically see you spiraling."
She was right. I was spiraling, caught between Dr. Vasquez's thirty percent solution and the certainty of Amy's death if I did nothing.
"Sorry. I just..."
"Just what?"
"I keep thinking about parallel universes. About all the different ways things could go."
Amy sighed. "You know what your problem is?"
"What?"
"You think too much. You analyze everything to death instead of just trusting your instincts."
"My instincts aren't exactly reliable these days."
"Says who?"
"Says the fact that I'm having prophetic nightmares about my girlfriend dying in car accidents."
"Okay, point taken." She grabbed my hands. "But maybe that's exactly why you should trust your instincts. Maybe your subconscious is trying to tell you something important."
"Like what?"
"Like maybe you need to stop trying to control everything and just... be present. Stop worrying about all the terrible things that might happen and focus on what's actually happening right now."
Right now, she was alive. Right now, she was safe in our apartment, stealing bites of my lunch and giving me relationship advice that I desperately needed to hear but couldn't follow.
Right now, we had seven hours and thirty-eight minutes left.
"You're right," I said.
"I usually am." She grinned. "So what do you want to do with the rest of our afternoon?"
I wanted to memorize every detail of her face. I wanted to record her laugh so I could play it back later when the silence became unbearable. I wanted to tell her about the loops and the choices and the impossible mathematics of love versus responsibility.
Instead, I said, "Whatever you want to do."
"Dangerous words, Torres. I might make you watch a rom-com."
"I can handle a rom-com."
"Even the kind where the girl dies at the end?"
The question was innocent, just Amy being playful. But it hit me like ice water.
"Maybe not that kind."
"Fair enough." She grabbed the remote. "How about the kind where the guy has to choose between saving the girl and saving the world?"
I stared at her. "What?"
"You know, superhero movies. The hero always has to choose between personal happiness and the greater good." She was scrolling through Netflix options, not looking at me. "It's such a stupid trope. I mean, obviously you save the world. One person can't be worth more than everyone else."
"Obviously."
"Right? Like, it's not even a choice. You do what's best for the most people, even if it hurts." She found something and clicked on it. "That's what being a hero means."
On the screen, some action movie started playing. But I wasn't watching it anymore. I was watching Amy, the woman who had just unknowingly answered the question that had been torturing me all day.
You save the world. Even if it hurts.
She'd made the choice so easily, so matter-of-factly, never knowing she was essentially voting for her own death.
"Amy?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you. More than anything."
She looked away from the TV, something in my tone catching her attention. "I love you too. You know that, right?"
"I know."
"Good." She settled back against my shoulder. "Now shut up and watch the movie. I want to see if this guy makes the right choice."
I held her close and watched the hero on screen struggle with the same impossible decision I was facing. And when he finally chose to save the world instead of the girl, Amy squeezed my hand approvingly.
"See? That's how you know he's actually a hero."
The movie ended at 6:47 PM. Five hours left.
Amy stretched and yawned. "I should probably start thinking about dinner soon."
"We just ate."
"That was lunch. And it's almost seven."
Almost seven. In the original timeline, Amy wouldn't get home from work for another forty minutes. We were already off script, already in uncharted territory.
"What are you in the mood for?" she asked.
"Whatever you want."
"You keep saying that. It's like you're afraid to have an opinion."
If only she knew how afraid I was to have any opinions at all. Every choice felt like it could be the one that changed everything, that sent us spiraling into a new disaster I hadn't foreseen.
"I'm just happy to spend time with you."
"Okay, now you're being weird again." She stood up and stretched, her shirt riding up to reveal a strip of skin I'd kissed a thousand times. "Seriously, what's going on? You've been acting like I'm going to disappear at any moment."
She was going to disappear. In four hours and fifty-six minutes, she was going to disappear forever.
Unless I chose thirty percent odds over certainty. Unless I decided to risk everything on one more desperate attempt to change fate.
"I just love you," I said. "Is that so weird?"
"No, but the way you're saying it is. It's like..." She paused, searching for the right words. "It's like you're saying goodbye."
The accuracy of her observation took my breath away.
"I'm not saying goodbye."
"Good. Because I'm not going anywhere." She leaned down and kissed me. "We've got forever, remember?"
Forever. Four hours and fifty-four minutes.
"Yeah," I whispered against her lips. "Forever."