I Need To Tell You Something

I NEED TO TELL YOU SOMETHING

Kyle kept his phone pressed to his ear, weaving through the afternoon sidewalk traffic. Spring had finally arrived in the city. Warm sun. Cherry blossoms starting to bloom along Bridge Street.

He was supposed to be in a meeting right now, but screw it. Izzy's birthday was tomorrow and he'd convinced her to ditch work as well and join him for lunch at that Italian place she'd been talking about for weeks.

Two blocks ahead, he spotted her waiting at the crosswalk. Phone to her own ear, that familiar tilt to her head when she was thinking through her words. She didn't know he was already here, thought he was still coming from the office.

The plan had been to meet her at the restaurant, but there she was in that blue dress he liked, hair pulled up because of the heat. He couldn't resist.

This was going to be good.

"I need to tell you something."

"Okay," he said, dodging a woman with a stroller. "What's up?"

"It's… hold on, light's changing."

He watched her step off the curb. Watched the silver sedan round the corner too fast. Driver's head glancing down toward something in the passenger seat. The driver wasn't paying attention. They were going too fast.

Time slowed.

Dropping his phone, Kyle ran. Dress shoes slapped against concrete, briefcase swinging wild. His throat opened for a scream that wouldn't come fast enough.

Izzy was three steps into the crosswalk.

The sedan was twenty feet away.

Ten.

Kyle grabbed her arm and yanked hard. Her phone clattered to the asphalt. She stumbled backward, her shocked face turning toward him. No recognition at first, but then—

"Kyle?"

The sedan swerved, tires shrieking. The rear end fishtailed. Izzy's heel caught the curb and she fell. Her head glanced off the light pole but the sedan was already there.

The bumper caught her legs. Kyle heard the snap. The sickening crunch of metal crushing flesh. She screamed, the sound cutting off as the impact threw her sideways.

Kyle felt her arm tear free from his grip.

She was on the ground, twisted wrong, blood spreading beneath her. Her eyes found his, wide with shock and pain.

Then nothing.

"I need to tell you something."

Kyle stopped walking.

His phone was still pressed to his ear. Izzy's voice, casual and alive. He blinked hard, the sidewalk coming back into focus. Business suits. A stroller passing by. The smell of hot dogs from a nearby cart.

Two blocks ahead, Izzy stood at the crosswalk. Phone to her ear.

"Kyle? You there?"

His mouth opened. Closed. His hand shook against the phone. "Yeah. I'm... yeah."

"You okay?"

No. He'd just watched her die. Felt her arm pull out of his hand.

"Fine," he managed. "What did you need to tell me?"

"Hold on, light's changed."

She stepped off the curb.

The silver sedan rounded the corner. Same car. Same too-fast approach. Driver with his head turned.

Kyle's legs moved before his brain caught up. He ran, shoving through the crowded sidewalk. Different this time. He'd do it different.

"Izzy! STOP!"

She didn't hear him. Or couldn't. The wind took his voice, and she was already four steps into the crosswalk, and the sedan was coming.

He tackled her at full speed. They hit the pavement together. Her head cracked against the concrete. Sharp. Final. The sound echoing in his ears. Blood bloomed immediately, spreading in her hair.

Her phone skittered away. The sedan's tires locked, the shriek of brakes splitting the air. The smell of burned rubber.

The sedan's front end clipped his leg.

Pain exploded through his shin. His vision whited out. He felt his ankle twist, felt something tear deep in the joint. His suit pants ripped at the knee, fabric tearing loud in his ears.

Beside him. Izzy. Eyes too wide, mouth open in accusation.

"I need to tell you something."

Kyle's legs gave out.

Catching himself against a newspaper stand, he gasped. Gingerly, he checked his ankle.

The pain hit immediately. Sharp. Hot. Blood on his hand. His ankle was swollen, already darkening with bruises that shouldn't be there. The tear in his suit pants was still there, hanging ragged at the knee. When he tried to put weight on it, his leg buckled.

Phone was still in his hand. Still connected. Two blocks ahead, Izzy stood at the crosswalk. Phone to her ear. Alive. Whole. Waiting for his response.

"Kyle?"

"I'm here." His voice cracked. His hands wouldn't stop shaking.

This was impossible. People didn't just reset. He'd watched her die twice. Been hit by a car. And now time had reset but his body hadn't. The injury was real. The torn fabric was real.

But Izzy was fine. Standing there like nothing had happened.

And she was about to step off that curb again.

"What's wrong?" Izzy's voice softened. "You sound weird."

"Don't—" He started walking, limping hard. Each step sent fire up his leg. "Don't cross yet. Wait for me."

"The light's changed."

"Izzy, wait—"

She stepped off the curb.

The silver sedan rounded the corner.

Kyle was still half a block away. Too far. Even if his ankle wasn't screaming, he couldn't reach her in time. He was going to watch her die again, and there was nothing he could do.

"Izzy, run!" He yelled, vocal cords tearing at the intensity.

A man driving by turned to stare at him, attention pulled away. The car jumped the curb instead of going straight and clipped Izzy and the approaching sedan.

Her yell was drowned out by blaring horns.

He couldn't see her body. Just—

"I need to tell you something."

He'd lost count after one hundred.

The space between had compressed into a frantic sprint on legs that barely worked. The silver sedan always came. The driver's head always turned. Kyle always ran.

"I need to tell you something."

His dress shirt was gone. Lost somewhere between loop twenty and thirty when the sedan's mirror had caught his shoulder and torn the fabric away. His undershirt was gray with grime and sweat, collar stretched and hanging.

His right bicep throbbed. He'd torn it in which loop? The one where he'd tried to drag a newspaper stand into the intersection as a barrier. The muscle had separated with a wet pop he still felt every time he moved his arm. The leg injury from loop two must have healed at some point, or maybe he'd just gotten used to that pain. Hard to tell anymore.

A woman with a stroller veered wide around him, pulling her child closer. He didn't blame her.

Two blocks ahead, Izzy stood at the crosswalk. Phone to her ear. Still whole.

"Kyle? You there?"

His voice came out rough. Screaming through so many loops had shredded his larynx. "Yeah."

"You sound terrible. Are you sick?"

He looked down at his hands. The knuckles were swollen, two fingers bent wrong from when he'd tried to punch through a car window. His wedding ring hung loose. When had his hands gotten so thin?

"I'm fine," he lied. When he tried to warn her too quickly she got distracted or nervous and ended up dying.

"Hold on, light's changing."

Kyle ran.

His ankle gave out on the second step. Yep, still hadn't healed.

Catching himself on a parking meter, he gasped. His ribs screamed. Cracked in loop sixty-five when the sedan had pinned him against a taxi.

No, sixty-five had been the school bus full of kids and the fire… It had to be sixty-three.

He forced himself forward. Limping, lurching, dignity long abandoned in some forgotten loop.

Izzy stepped off the curb.

The sedan rounded the corner.

It took everything, but he made it. Kyle threw himself forward.

This time he'd—what? Every intervention created a new way for her to die. But he couldn't just watch. Couldn't just stand there.

He grabbed a trash can and hurled it into the intersection.

The sedan swerved. Izzy froze, confused. The sedan's tire caught the trash can, metal shrieking. The car spun, the rear end swinging wide.

Right into where Izzy stood.

"I need to tell you something."

Oh yeah, he had already tried that. He'd forgotten.

Kyle collapsed against a building, retching. His suit pants hung on him, belt cinched tight, fabric stained and torn at both knees now.

He caught his reflection in a storefront window.

An older man stared back.

Gray streaked his hair at the temples. When had that happened? He tried to remember the last time he'd looked at himself. Loop thirty? Forty?

His face was gaunt. Cheeks hollow like he'd been starving. Eyes sunken deep, ringed with shadows that made him look sick. Stubble covered his jaw, patchy and unkempt.

Fifty years old, at least. Maybe sixty.

He was thirty-two.

Turning away, he couldn't bear to see what he'd become.

The phone was still in his hand. Still connected.

"Kyle? Hello?"

Izzy. Still waiting. Still alive. Still about to die.

"I'm here." The words scraped out.

"Are you sure you're okay? You sound really—"

"I'm fine. What did you need to tell me?"

"Hold on, light's changing."

Maybe if he knew what she needed to say, he could fix it. Maybe that was the key. If she just told him now, before the accident, before everything went wrong. The loop would break. It had to. He just needed to hear the words.

He had to give everything in his voice to get the words out. "Izzy, just tell me now—"

"Look, if you're going to yell at me then…"

She started to walk faster. She wasn't watching where she was going. Another pedestrian doing the same collided into her.

Izzy stumbled. The sedan was coming.

Kyle ran.

She fell.

The sedan's bumper caught her hip. She spun, her body ragdoll-loose, and—

"I need to tell you something."

Time lost meaning entirely.

The loops blurred together. Run, fail, reset. Each attempt left him more broken. Each reset brought him back to this moment, to Izzy's voice, to the same inevitable outcome.

Kyle stood at his starting point, swaying. His suit jacket was gone. The undershirt barely recognizable, torn and filthy. Dress pants reduced to rags held together by a few threads and the remains of the belt.

His hands shook so badly it took three tries to open the camera app.

The face on the screen couldn't be his.

His scalp showed through in places where white hair had thinned. Eyes sunken so deep they looked like holes in a skull. The cataracts he noticed earlier had gotten worse, clouding his vision, turning everything into smeared shapes.

He closed the camera app before he could see any more.

Two blocks ahead, Izzy stood at the crosswalk. He was pretty sure it was her. Still perfect. Still untouched by what he'd become.

"Kyle?"

"Yeah." His voice was barely human. A rasp. A whisper.

"You really don't sound good. Maybe you should go home."

Home. The word felt foreign. Had there been a home before this? Before the loop? He couldn't remember.

"What did you need to tell me?" he asked.

"Hold on, light's changing."

Kyle's legs wouldn't move.

Not couldn't. Wouldn't. His body had finally given up. The ankle wouldn't bear weight. The ribs couldn't expand for breath. The torn muscles couldn't contract anymore.

He sank down against a building, his back scraping against brick. From here, he could see the crosswalk. See Izzy step off the curb. See the silver sedan round the corner.

Just watch. Just this once, let it happen. Rest up for the next one.

But his body moved anyway. Some desperate, primal part of him that couldn't stop. That couldn't let her die even one more time.

He crawled.

Hands and knees on concrete, dragging himself forward. His torn pants caught on the pavement, fabric ripping further.

His palms bled from the rough sidewalk. He could see the concrete tearing his skin, leaving red smears behind him like a trail. Pieces of him trying to escape.

People walked past. A few stopped, most didn't. A woman pulled out her phone. He thought he could hear her reporting him to the police. Just another homeless man on the sidewalk. Nothing new. Nothing worth stopping for.

His wedding ring finally slipped off his finger, too loose on the skeletal hand. It bounced once, twice, then clattered away into a storm drain.

Gone.

Would it come back the next loop?

With great effort, he pulled his eyes away and back to the crosswalk. Always the crosswalk.

The sedan was already there. Already too fast.

Kyle reached out one trembling hand.

"I need to tell you something."

Kyle's chest seized. Not again. Not again. He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. His vision blurred, cataracts turning the world into smeared watercolors.

But something was different.

The phone was on the ground next to him. Still connected. Faint traffic noise on her end now. Different traffic. Moving traffic.

"Kyle? You there? I thought I lost you for a second."

He tried to speak. His ruined throat produced only a wet rasp.

Two blocks ahead. Maybe closer? He could barely make out Izzy's shape. On the other side of the crosswalk. Standing on the other curb. Safe.

The silver sedan eased closer, slowing naturally at the intersection. The driver's head was up, watching the road. The car honked once. A casual, annoyed honk at a pedestrian who'd already cleared the crosswalk.

She'd crossed. She was safe. And he hadn't—

He hadn't done anything.

Every time he'd grabbed her, yelled, pushed, thrown things had made it worse. He'd made the accident real when it was never supposed to be.

The irony of it should have made him laugh. But all he felt was tired.

"Kyle? Hello? If you can hear me, I'm heading to the restaurant. Are you close?"

His body gave out.

He collapsed forward onto the sidewalk, cheek slapping concrete. Her voice continued, the phone close to his ear. But it was tinny and distant, asking if he was okay.

The world was losing focus. Vision tunneling. His heart barely beat against his cracked ribs. Pain lanced through his chest. Sharp. The kind of pain that meant something was very broken inside.

The world tilted. His torn undershirt clung to him, gray and filthy. His pants were barely held together, belt worn to nothing, fabric shredded at both knees.

He looked down at his hands. Ancient. Skeletal. Fingers bent at wrong angles. The skin papery thin, spotted with age.

Footsteps approached. Quick, purposeful.

"Oh my god. Sir? Sir, are you okay?"

Izzy's voice. But not from the phone. From above him.

Kyle tried to look up. His neck wouldn't cooperate. Everything hurt. Everything was shutting down.

"Sir, can you hear me? Don't move, I'm calling for help."

Blood dribbled from his mouth and pooled in front. Each weak breath created a small wave that spread the pool outward.

He saw her shoes first. The same heels he'd bought for her last birthday. Was it yesterday? A century ago? Who knew.

Her face as she knelt beside him, phone pressed to her ear. Not his call anymore, a new one.

"Yes, I need an ambulance. There's an elderly homeless man, I think, he just collapsed on the sidewalk. Corner of Fifth and Bridge Street."

She didn't recognize him.

Kyle tried to speak. Tried to say her name. Nothing came out but a thin wheeze.

"Sir, help is coming. Just hold on."

Reaching for his phone, he tried to show her. Her contact still on the screen.

She shook her head, setting his phone aside. Reached for his hand instead.

"Don't worry. Help is coming. You're going to be okay."

Kyle's vision darkened. He couldn't see her anymore. He could only remember her face. And that image was fading with each heart stutter. Each time it skipped, struggled to keep beating.

She was holding his hand. Her fingers were warm. Alive. It was something beside pain.

Safe.

In the distance, sirens wailed. Too late. Too far away.

"What's your name?" Izzy asked softly, squeezing his hand. "Can you tell me your name?"

He couldn't. Couldn't speak. Couldn't even remember if he had one anymore that meant anything.

The sedan passed again, completing its turn. Same silver car. Same distracted driver. But this time it just drove on, part of the normal flow of traffic, completely unaware of the tragedy playing out on the sidewalk.

He thought he heard Izzy. She was crying, this stranger crying for a homeless old man she didn't know. She always cared. That's what he'd always loved about her.

"It's okay," she whispered. "You're not alone. I'm right here."

But she was. Alone. Making sure of that had taken decades. Lifetimes. Keeping her safe from nothing. And now she'd never know. Would never understand what he'd done. What it had cost.

The last thing Kyle heard before the darkness took him was Izzy's voice, steady and sad:

"I've got you. Just hold on. Please hold on."

He couldn't.

The ambulance arrived four minutes later. Paramedics told Izzy they were too late for the elderly man, but it was good that she had stayed until the end.

They’d checked him for possible next of kin. No ID. No wallet. Just someone else's phone with a cracked screen and a faded wedding photo in the case.

Izzy stood on the sidewalk, holding her own phone, staring at the spot where he'd fallen. Trying to remember what she'd been about to tell her husband.

It was probably nothing important. She'd tell him at lunch.