The Perfect Life of Thom McGriber

Imagine never waking up on the wrong side of the bed. Never having the kind of day that makes you wish it was over from the moment it begins. A life where that heartbreaking rejection from Penelope Watters never happened. Where your favourite blue button down shirt was not stained with French fry grease. A life where you could make every day…perfect.

For Thom McGriber, a perfect life is not fantasy. Nor is it the product of a wish upon a star or a genie in a lamp. He would dare anyone to say otherwise. No. For Thom McGriber, the perfect life is a culmination of hard work, determination, and a never ending drive to do better. Days, sometimes weeks spent carving out the perfect history from the sands of time so that when Thom looked back at his life story, he could only feel a sense of satisfaction.

Thom could not pinpoint the precise moment he realized he could manipulate time. His earliest recollection of closing his eyes and wishing he could undo his mistakes traced back to when he was around eight years old. When, closing his tear-filled eyes against the sting of his father’s hand connecting with his face, Thom wished more than anything that he could go back to before he accidentally knocked over the antique vase on the sideboard. Could undo the guilt, the shame, and the fear. Could fix what was broken within him – he was too clumsy, too stupid, too much of a nuisance – and become the perfect child that his parents wanted. When he’d opened his eyes to find time seemingly having reversed before him, the vase whole and the red heat of his cheek but an echo, he’d done what any eight-year-old would have done in the same situation: he’d panicked.

Another explosion of anger from his father. He’s a lunatic! his father had yelled at his mother. Another hand across Thom’s face. Thom’s eyes squeezed shut yet again, everything within his trembling form willing whatever magic or dream or delusion to take him from this moment so he could try again.

So that he could do better.

Over time (or through it, or between it, call it what you wish), Thom learned to stop accidents before they happened. To retrace his steps in arguments and tell his parents what they wanted to hear. To relive the days at school so that he never had to stand before the class and feel shame for providing a wrong answer. His parents’ attitude toward him changed. They became more pleasant, complimenting him, bragging to their friends about their son, the straight-A student. The star of the little league baseball team. He forgot the feeling of his father’s hand across his face.

Over time, Thom learned that as long as he could undo his mistakes, he could live the perfect life.

It had occurred to him sometime in his teen years to test whether he could move forward through time as well. Managing that had proved more difficult, but not impossible. It was easier for Thom to jump backward, when all he needed to do was to will himself back to a particular moment. The future was harder to place. He could not initially wrap his mind around a time and place he had never been. The first time he’d been able to make the jump ahead, he felt satisfied with himself for but a moment before the weight of the unknown around him settled like a boulder in his chest. He didn’t know what that day would bring. He wasn’t prepared. He could not do better if he didn’t know what had transpired in the time between his present and that future. What if, by going forward, he cemented an unknown mistake in his timeline? Feeling sick to the stomach, Thom had returned to his timeline and not dared to dip his toes into the unknown again.

Instead, he focused on his perfect day. Waking up at just the right time so as to feel well-rested but not overtired. Brewing the perfect coffee, tested again and again until he’d discovered just the right recipe. Thom knew what clothes he looked best in and that felt most comfortable. He knew the exact time to leave to make it to work on time. Of course, he could not predict every unforeseen circumstance that could throw a wrench into his perfect day.

Sometimes he would get jostled on the street and step into a puddle.

He could do better.

Sometimes he would be on the receiving end of his boss’ anger, feeling the familiar shame and disappointment in himself rising up from the depths of his consciousness.

He could do better.

And, on this particular day, that something came in the form of one Daisy Larssen.

Now, Thom had accepted long ago that the tradeoff for a perfect life would be meaningful relationships. Reliving he same days over and over meant that, despite months of Thom’s life passing, sometimes only days or weeks would go by in the linear plane that everyone else moved on. So, a friend that he’d spent months interacting with, by consequence of his reliving so many moments, had only spent weeks interacting with Thom. He knew this to be a fact of his existence. Sometimes he even made a game of it: telling his friend James that he travelled through time or reciting that night’s winning lottery numbers, just to see his reaction. Then, of course, undoing that moment so that it never happened except in Thom’s memory.

The day that Thom met Daisy had already been a day that Thom had relived twice. The first, an unforeseen rainstorm had left him drenched. An easy fix. Next, the milk he’d purchased from the office vending machine had turned out to be sour. Another quick rewind and his gut was spared. When he’d then bumped into someone on the walk home, Thom had chalked it up to just one of those days when things go wrong. Like second nature, his eyes began to shut, prepared to jump back a few minutes, when the object of his collision turned his way and Thom found himself staring into the most remarkable pair of cobalt eyes he had ever seen.

Another person shouldered Thom out of the way, stopped as he was in the middle of a crowded New York sidewalk at quarter after five in the afternoon.

Do better! his mind screamed at him, logging two mistakes now. Marking each passing second as a stain on his perfect record. Do better!

But Thom could not tear his gaze away from the woman before him. She was tall and willowy, her golden hair cut close to her chin, a simple pair of diamond studs in her ears catching the light of the setting sun. Her mouth was painted the precise colour of cotton candy. Was he staring at it too long? Would she think him weird or creepy?

Do better, do better, do better.

But what if by going back even a little bit, something on the linear plane shifted and Thom would not collide with Daisy at precisely 5:12 in the afternoon?

For the first time in his life, a new fear filled Thom: what if going back to the past cost him his future?

“I’m sorry,” Thom said, hiking the strap of his satchel higher up on his shoulder.

“It’s my fault,” Daisy replied, a faint flush colouring her cheeks. “I’m so clumsy.” Me too! Thom almost said, before remembering that clumsiness was a thing of a past that no longer existed. “I listen to music and sometimes its like I’m in my own world,” she continued. “You know?”

It had been so long since Thom had made a new connection. Since he’d allowed himself to stop and get to know someone. But against all odds, he found himself asking her what sort of music she liked. Found himself turning and walking alongside her, away from home, away from his routine, the newness before him opening up like a set of doors that had always been there but that he’d never dared to open.

What are you doing? His inner voice panicked. You have no idea how this is going to turn out. She could ridicule you. She could reject you and leave you heartbroken. She could –

As the days passed and Thom got to know Daisy, his inner voice grew quieter. They texted and spoke on the phone. They met up for dinner and walks in the park. For the first time in his life, Thom would wake up excited to see what new things happened on that day. What new jokes Daisy would tell. What she would wear. What her lips would feel like.

He invited her over to his apartment so he could cook her dinner, a meal he spent hours making and remaking until he was certain it was perfect. She blew into his place like leaves on an autumn wind, her coat in his closet, her perfume surrounding him even over the scent of cooked chicken. Her smile made the sun pale in comparison. It was undeniable that Daisy Larssen had become the center of Thom’s orbit.

As he set out two plates, two sets of cutlery, two glasses of wine, it dawned on Thom that he could be doing this for the rest of this life. The meticulously rehearsed days he’d strung together up until this point would be replaced by a future of the unknown with Daisy. She could move in with him. Her things on his nightstand. Her books disrupting his alphanumeric cataloguing system. A whole new coffee recipe. Clutter. His routines changing to accommodate hers. New friends, new places. Interactions he had never rehearsed, could not predict. Could not perfect.

Daisy smiled brightly as Thom set her plate in front of her, none the wiser to the tsunami of turmoil cresting within him.

That smile wouldn’t last. They would have arguments. Insults hurled his way. If he let her become a part of every moment of his life, she would see through him to the clumsy, stupid, never-good-enough person he was at his core and she would leave him. And no amount of turning back time could erase that loss from his heart.

Even if he went back and relived every interaction they had until it was perfect, would that be fair to her? She would not be in a relationship with him, but rather with who he thought she wanted him to be. The guilt would eat him alive the same way it had when he was sixteen and repeated his first date with Alison Robins until he said and did everything just right so that she would kiss him. Instead of happiness at experiencing his first kiss, all he’d felt was guilt that he’d manipulated a girl into liking him. After that, Thom had sworn off relationships. Not only were they too messy – an additional hurdle he didn’t need to contend with – but they opened the door to a version of himself he didn’t like. And to what end? He would either lead a life of manipulation, in which case his relationship would be superficial at best, or he would never achieve perfection, for there was no way someone would see the real him and think that he was perfect. To be perfect, he had to go back. To be perfect, he had to do better.

To be perfect, he had to remove all other variables.

So, it was Thom’s natural conclusion that he could not have a perfect life when other people were in it.

Sitting across the table from Daisy, listening to her animatedly talk about her day, watching her laugh so hard that she nearly spat out her drink, Thom was overwhelmed with the amount of imperfection surrounding this marvellous woman. He was both jealous that she could live her life so liberally, and terrified of it. He could not thrive in chaos. It would only be a matter of time until he looked back on the life he’d built with resentment.

“What’s wrong?” Daisy asked, reaching across the table to set her hand atop his. His mask must have slipped. The cracks were already showing. He could never tell her the truth. So, what choice did he have? To live a life of deceit? To commit to a woman who could never know the real him? Could never know the things he’d done to curate exactly who everyone sees him as? Were she to see the truth, she’d reject him just like his own parents had.

“Nothing at all,” Thom assured her. “Just a long day at work.” This seemed to relax her. As if his days at work were anything but predictable. Little did she know.

Thom looked at Daisy for a long time. Committed to memory the feeling of her hand in his. Of her smile. Those deep blue eyes. Of the way her coat competed for space in his closet and the way it had felt to pour two glasses of wine.

He did not think he would ever be able to do better.

But at least, in this, he could do better by her.

Thom closed his eyes.