(AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN) ON THE PRECIPICE

When Taylor started talking, she did not stop.

She had expected to stumble, to hesitate, to feel that familiar pressure clamp down on her chest and choke the words off before they could fully form. That was how it usually went: the instinctive tightening, the urge to minimize and deflect and keep everything neatly contained within. Instead, once the first sentence slipped free from her lips, the rest followed in an unbroken rush.

It felt less like choosing to speak and more like finally exhaling after holding her breath for far too long.

She began with the locker, because everything always circled back to that. She described the smell, the cramped darkness, and the way time had stretched into something unbearable while she waited for it to end. She talked about dying there—about waking up and doing it again, and again, and again—until death lost any sense of finality.

Jessica did not interrupt. She did not rush Taylor or offer reassurance or try to steer the conversation somewhere safer. She simply listened, her posture open and attentive, and her expression carefully neutral. Even so, Taylor caught the brief tightening around her eyes, and the subtle intake of breath at certain details. The moments where the horror slipped through before being smoothed away.

Encouraged by the silence, Taylor kept going.

She talked about the loops, about waking up to the same moments over and over again until the idea of a future free from them began to feel theoretical. About learning the patterns and routines of people so well she could predict their reactions before they happened. About dying in ways that ranged from sudden and meaningless to prolonged and unbearable, and how pain never became easier, no matter how familiar it became.

Eventually, she talked about the bus.

The words came faster then, tumbling over each other as though afraid they would be taken away if she slowed down. She described the woman’s shaking voice, the certainty of the coming explosion, and the knowledge that none of them were going to make it. She talked about the moment understanding finally clicked into place, about knowing what was coming and realizing that stopping it meant crossing a line she could never uncross.

She talked about breaking the window, about the scream as the woman fell, and about the explosion that followed, crystalline and wrong yet almost beautiful in a way that made her sick even now.

Saying it out loud, finally telling someone about what she had been through, really put into perspective just how fucked up her situation was. Especially since no other voice rose to argue with that assertion. 

She laughed, suddenly, the sound bursting out of her hard enough that it startled her. She grabbed the edge of the bed to steady herself, her shoulders shaking as the laughter tipped into something near-hysterical before collapsing into tears. She did not bother trying to stop either. Both felt earned.

Jessica slid a box of tissues toward her without comment. Taylor took them with clumsy hands, the words continuing even as she grabbed a handful and pressed them uselessly to her face.

“I don’t even know how old I am anymore,” she said at one point, her voice hoarse. “I mean, I know how old I’m supposed to be. Fifteen. But I’ve lived through days that never stuck, which could have added up to weeks. And I’ve died more times than I can count.” She laughed weakly. “That has to add up, right?”

She wiped at her eyes, the motion rough, and laughed again. "I think I’m immortal. Functionally, at least. As long as I do whatever the loop wants, I just… come back.”

Immortal.

The admission hung in the air, and Jessica stilled in her seat.

Taylor barely noticed. She was staring at her hands again, at scars both real and imagined, at evidence of things that technically no longer existed and yet had left their mark all the same.

“I don’t heal right,” she went on quietly. “Mentally. Everything just piles up. There’s no space to process any of it before it happens again. I can’t forget, and I can’t move on, and the world just keeps going on like none of it mattered.”

Her voice cracked. “I’m so tired.”

She kept talking until her throat burned and her chest ached. She talked about Sophia, about learning to live in a constant state of anticipation, and about learning to read danger because failing to do so had gotten her killed more than once. She talked about how easy detachment was becoming—how people were starting to feel like variables in a problem she had already solved—and how much that frightened her, even as it helped her survive.

At some point, Armsmaster appeared in the doorway.

Taylor noticed him distantly, registering the tall silhouette and the larger-than-life presence without stopping. He did not try to interrupt her. He simply stood there, listening, his expression unreadable behind the visor, though his posture was rigid in a way that suggested he was paying very close attention.

She did not care.

If anything, the fact that he was here too felt oddly appropriate. Let them know, a reckless part of her thought. Let them all know.

She spoke until her voice finally gave out, dissolving into quiet, exhausted sobs she made no effort to hide. When she fell silent at last, the room felt too large and empty, as though something vital had been pulled out of her and left behind.

The relief that followed was almost dizzying.

It did not fix anything. The loops still existed. The PRT‘s intrusion into her life would only get worse, after her admission. She was not naive enough to think otherwise. And yet, in the face of the sheer relief she felt finally letting it all out, it didn't seem worth paying any mind to.   

She leaned back against her pillows and breathed.

No one in the room spoke.

Jessica’s gaze was still on her, but her earlier composure was frayed just enough to betray how deeply the story had landed. Armsmaster remained where he was, but she was unable to tell what he thought. 

Taylor closed her eyes.

She knew that no one here would ever truly understand what it meant to live and die and live again like this. Maybe no one ever could, except for people who had been trapped in time in their own ways, like Gray Boy’s victims. And wasn't that food for thought? 

Ignoring the slight shudder that ran through her at that association, she opened her eyes again. 

Maybe sharing the burden did not make it lighter, but it made it bearable. It meant she was not carrying it alone. 

And that was more than enough.