groundhog day #8
Off feels like shit, and it wasn’t the booze.
“Ai’Tay!” he shouts, without even sitting up.
He hears a muffled call back, and only shouts again in response until Tay is opening his door.
“What?” Tay asks, looking concerned and exasperated at once.
“Calm down. I’m the one going through something.”
Tay’s expression changes, clearly racing through his thoughts until he furrows his brows meaningfully. “Oh?”
Off gets it far too quickly and tosses a pillow at Tay. “Not that. Something real. Kind of.”
Tay looks skeptical, and Off still doesn’t sit up fully, but he props himself onto his elbow to look at Tay.
“I want to know what you think.” Already, that sounds like a bad start. He tries again. “Things keep happening. Stressful things. I keep thinking it’s over, but then it’s happening again, and here I am…and I have to do it all over again but it’s too much.” Off shakes his head. “I feel hungover.”
“You can be emotionally hungover,” Tay tells him.
“That’s fucking stupid.”
Tay rolls his eyes. “You’re the one who asked me for advice.”
“But you keep not being helpful.” Not that he’d given Tay a chance last time—or this time, really. He tries to drag his Sundays together into an organized folder of information, but there’s too much overlap and it’s more like a haphazard heap. “Can I tell you something crazy?”
Tay shrugs. “Sure.”
Off hesitates. “Have you ever seen the movie Groundhog Day?”
“Are you going to tell me all this stress makes you feel like you’re living in the movie?”
“I am. My day keeps repeating.” Tay laughs, but Off continues, angry now, “It’s true! I’ve already lived this Sunday. I go do some interview and photo shoot with Gun, and then something happens to endanger him, and then I wake up here again.”
“Sounds like you’re having nightmares,” Tay replies. “And about something bad happening to Nong Gun and you can’t save him. Maybe—”
“I never said I couldn’t save him,” Off interrupts. “And they’re not nightmares. I’m awake!” He slaps his own face for emphasis and collapses back down onto the bed. “If this were a movie, there would be something to resolve, right? Something that would end the loop. I thought saving Gun would do it, but…”
“So don’t save him,” Tay replies.
Off sits up fully and glares at Tay. “Let Ai’Gun die? Really?”
“Your subconscious—”
“Isn’t what I’m talking about,” Off finishes. “But I guess I’ll just keep Gun with me? While I try to figure out what else it might be?” He gives Tay a look. “Just in case today’s the one that sticks, don’t hurt yourself, alright?”
Tay opens his mouth, closes it, then says, “No promises.”
At least Off can laugh at Tay being Tay.
“Text me if you think of any unresolved issues,” Off says, followed immediately by, “but it’s not that.”
“It could be!” Tay argues, but he grumbles out of the room.
Then, he texts Gun.