“Hey, you little sadist,” Not-me said. “I lost count after a hundred. I didn't think you had it in you. Well played. Over a hundred loops you left me in the damn girl's bathroom. I thought that was a hollow threat. But answer me one question, kid. What are you doing?”

I was still sitting on Mrs. Streep’s examination table, and she was still standing close to me, having dropped her words of wisdom on my head. Of course, she had her stethoscope around her neck. I'd been so careful not to look into any reflective surface. And here I was, opening up to this kind lady. Having let my guard down, I broke my own rules.

I had been absentmindedly staring into middle distance when the stethoscope swung into view. Mrs. Streep was standing there with a hand on my shoulder, letting me have my moment. After I had said that I was going to schedule time with people, I had begun to stare, and she seemed patient enough just to let me.

Unfortunately, my reverie had been broken by Not-Me's rude voice. Still, he had asked what I'm doing, and I decided to answer. In a whisper, figuring he could hear me and Mrs. Streep would ignore it, I said, "I'm training. I'm growing stronger. You've trapped me in a time loop where I now have all the time in the world. I plan to read every book in the school library, gain a grasp on telekinesis, grow stronger in aura control, figure out this whole luck transfer thing, and then I'm going to find a logical route to the city library, and I'm going to read every book there. I would read all of Wikipedia, but apparently, I can't see any sort of screen, so that's a problem. But one for later."

"That doesn't sound anything like you're trying to head in the direction that my life took," Not-Me said. "Sounds to me like you're trying to do whatever you want."

"I am trying to do whatever I want," I said. "And once I've armed myself with knowledge and skill, I still intend to try and come roughly in alignment with the life you lived for a while. It's clear that our lives diverge at some point from who I am to become who you are. And after your frank assessment of my glowing people skills, I realized that I don't want to see the future through your lens, and I don't want to be who you are. You're crass, you're grumpy, you're rude, and as far as I can tell, you're probably whatever caused the disaster that you're now trying to avoid."

Mrs. Streep patted me on the head and went back to her computer. "I'm not done with the conversation," I huffed up and grabbed the spoon. As she sat down, she poked her head into the room. "Just let me know if you need anything, dear. I've just got to take care of some paperwork."

I gave her a thumbs up.

“Harsh. I created the mess huh? Let me smack you with some knowledge; You don't have infinite time to waste. I don't know if you've noticed this, but you're absorbing me, you little shit.”

"What?" I said, completely not processing what he just said.

"Yeah, you have as much time to be in this loop as I have been alive before I went back. And every day that you burn here is a day off of my longevity that you're eating up. But not only that, every time you burn a day, you're absorbing part of me. I don't know if you've noticed this, but your thought processes have probably been changing to become more like mine. You want to become me, or you want me to become you? As you colorfully painted that analogy before, just keep it up. Keep doing what you're doing and there will slowly be less and less you and more and more me. That what you want?"

The thought was sobering. I was absorbing the thinking processes of my future self. Becoming him slowly. That's not what I wanted at all.

Dostoevsky came back to my mind. When had I read House of the Dead? I tried to recall. I remembered the book, but I didn't remember when I read it. I hadn't read it online. I'd had a physical copy, hadn't I? But when would I have gotten my hands on a physical copy of House of the Dead?

All this flashed through my mind in a moment, and I refocused on Not-me.

"Are you familiar with Dostoevsky's House of the Dead?" I asked.

Not-me chuckled. “Of course I am," he said. "Question is; are you?"

"Well, I am now. I can remember reading it," I said. "The whole reason I'm here, and not still in the loop that I was cycling through, was because I remembered a quote from the book."

Not Me began to laugh. "Yep," he said. "You are beginning to digest my thought processes. You remember reading a book that I read, but you have not read yet."

"Does that mean my thoughts and conclusions about the book are yours and not mine?" I asked.

"I think you're overthinking it," Not Me said. "I think your thoughts and conclusions are yours, whether they include some of mine or not. After all, I'm just an older version of you."

"But I don't want to be you," I said.

"Well, you feel strongly about that, don't you? I don't think there's any danger of you becoming me, as long as you don’t spend one hundred years in this loop. You've diverged so far from any path that could lead you to becoming me that you're certainly going to become who you are, whether you have some of my thought processes or not. Just as long as you leave this damn day."

I shifted uncomfortably on the examining table, despite the fact that it was padded. This was proving to be a ten-minute seat at best. The paper underneath me crinkled, and I looked out the window, longing to be out there underneath the tree, enjoying the sunshine. Some vampire I was. I sighed.

"You keep saying you're me, and I'm you, but I'm not you," I said, feeling ridiculous, sitting on the nurse's examination table, having an animated conversation with a spoon. I was glad that Mrs. Streep was engrossed in what she was doing because it occurred to me right then that I looked like I was out of my mind.

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"Again," Not-me said, "you are oversimplifying it. You and I have the same mind. That's how I was able to come back and possess you, as you call it. Because we have the same mind, we think in very similar ways. I have spent more time honing my thought processes and informing my worldview by reading. You are twelve, and you have not spent time deliberately thinking and reading. Instead, you're simply trying to come to grips with your existence. We are and aren’t the same person.”

"So which one is it?" I said.

"It's both. Sometimes the thing is both, kid," Not-me said. "You are both me and not me. I am both you and not you. By the time you have lived as long as I have, because of the divergence here, you will be a very different person. At this particular point in time, I can still remember what it was like to be you. So no, you're not a different person yet. Yes, you're clearly going to become different, no matter how much of my thought processes you digest, because you will still have your own experiences to inform how you choose to think about things. Life is not so simple as to fit into a template. When you grow and mature, you will make choices. These choices— and how you focus your thoughts— and what you choose to focus on, will choose who you become. I don't get to choose that for you, even if you remembered every single thing that I've ever thought. I'm not overwriting you. You're not a damn computer program. You're a fucking person."

"I'm a fucking person," I said. It occurred to me this was the weirdest positive affirmation I had ever heard of. But I think Not-me had a point. And also, I needed to get out of my own head.

I hopped down from the examination table and walked over to Mrs. Streep. I put my hand on her shoulder, and I took a bunch of her luck. It felt like a callous move, after the woman had comforted me, but right that second I had to go talk to Kay, and in order to get past whatever prickly defenses that had deflected me before, I needed a lot of luck.

"Sorry about this," I said to Mrs. Streep.

She looked up at me. "Sorry about what, dear?" she asked.

"Hard to explain," I said. "I'm just, I'm unlucky for people I’m around sometimes.”

She chuckled at that. "That's a funny way to look at yourself, dear."

I shook my head. "You'll probably understand in a while. Hey, listen. I've gotta go. Thank you for listening to me. I feel a lot better, but I've got an appointment that I've gotta go catch."

Mrs. Streep nodded and smiled at me, not seeming to have noticed the luck that I took.

***

I made it out into the hall and passed about forty lockers before I realized I had no idea where I was going. Why didn't I know where Kaye was this time of day?

“Because I'm not a creepy stalker,” I said aloud.

I shook my head. I was doing a very poor job of groundhog-daying my experience inside this time loop. I didn't know everyone's name. I hadn't read every book. I didn't know where everyone was at every time of the day.

Feeling a little bit overwhelmed, I put my face in my hands and sat down in the middle of the hall to try and think. I could go to the registrar's office and try to look up Kaye's schedule, but I didn't know her last name. So that idea was right out. I could plan to try and meet her in the hallway at the same time as I had met her the previous loop. I had successfully bumped into her, but that was already earlier in the day. I had spent my morning outside underneath the tree, which had become my new favorite activity.

I could systematically walk through and open every classroom looking for her pink Converse. It would make her easy to spot.

That was what I would do.

If I got into too big of a mess, I could start the loop over again. Although, thinking about that, I shuddered. Every loop reset… I was eating a day of not-me's life and digesting it. I really was a vampire, consuming the soul of my future self. This was so morbid.

Did this make me a goth? Was I now indulging in teenage angst? With that thought, I decided to disregard the whole thing. I didn't want to be an angsty teenager. My older self was apparently already full of angst.

Speaking of which, I stood up with the intent of pulling a spoon out of my pocket and having a word with Not-me when I nearly bumped noses with Kaye. She was standing right there in front of me. I gaped at her.

"When did you get here?" I said.

"Just a second ago," she said. "Whatever's going on in that head of yours must be pretty distracting that I could get this close without you noticing.”

"Yeah, wow, I was just coming to look for you."

She cocked her head at me. "Really?" she asked, a note of disbelief in her tone. "You were just coming to look for me?" She squinted at something in the middle distance, like she was looking through me. Then she nodded. "You're telling the truth," she said. "Do we know each other?"

It occurred to me then that I was supposed to give her the whole doppelganger phrase and response stuff.

“Come on in, the water’s great,” I said.

Instead of growing angry this time, she squinted her eyes and gave me the responses.

Then at the end, she said, "Becky… Is that you?" She was studying me, her eyes narrowed, looking for something in my face. I don't know what.

I hesitated. I didn't know how to respond. Why would she think I was Becky?

Oh, it occurred to me.

I shook my head. "Sorry, no, I may have misled you by not explaining carefully. We've met in a previous iteration of this day," I said, struggling to explain. "I'm stuck in a time loop, and you and I became friends before, and you taught me your whole doppelganger-story-passcode in order to allow me to prove that I know you, except..." I hesitated. Did I tell her what had happened the last time I had tried this when I didn't have a surplus of luck? I hadn't even bothered to count what I had taken from Mrs. Streep. Taking a look at my core, I studied it for a moment. I was at plus twenty-five. Each new knot that formed, joined the glowing rotating sphere inside my core and made it glow brighter.

I decided honesty was the best policy since I probably would get a do-over if I messed up. "Yeah, the last time I tried this, I had a lot less luck. And you looked at me like I had run your cat over or something," I said.

"Oh," Kaye said. "So this feeling that you're generating, you're calling that luck. And you have the ability to increase that?"

I nodded. "I know it's not luck. It's been explained to me before, but I don't know what it is, and it's the best word I have for it."

Kaye laughed. "I like you. You know what? We are going to be friends. Come on." She grabbed my hand and began to pull me down the hall and outside.

"You're very forceful," I said.

She looked at me. "This is what you call being forceful?" she asked. "I don't think so. I think everybody who is involved in your life is very passive," she said.

I laughed at that. "Wait till you meet Cece," I said.

"Who's Cece?" Kaye asked.

"My babysitter," I said, "and also my best friend."

"What?!" Kaye exclaimed. "You mean your best friend status has already been claimed? That's not fair."

I shrugged. "Who says you can't have more than one best friend?" I said, trying to offer an olive branch.

"No," Kay said. "There can only be one best friend, otherwise the whole thing loses its meaning. We'll be friends, and we'll see whether or not I usurp ‘best’ status from this Cece, so-called," she said. "What is she, your girlfriend?"

I laughed. "No, I'm twelve, and she's twenty-two," I said.

Kaye gave me a look. "Oh. So you think ten years is too much of an age gap?"

"I have no opinion on that," I said. "I think me being a minor is too much of an age gap."

Kaye whistled. "Touché, Mr..."

I realized I had not introduced myself. "Call me Freak, all my friends do. Hi, I'm Timmy Thompson," I said, sticking out my hand.

"Timmy ‘Freak’ Thompson," Kaye said. "That does have a certain ring to it, although we're going to have to come up with something better for your superhero name."

"My what?" I said.

"Oh yeah," Kaye nodded. "You're going to need a superhero name. You've obviously been working on superpowers."

I stared at her. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, first off, you just admitted and confirmed that you're stuck in a time loop. And second off, you clearly have the aura of a hundred-year-old yogi who's been practicing under a trained master daily."

"Oh," I said. "I hadn't looked at it that way."

Kaye said, "Yeah, they call it the ‘supernatural’ for a reason. When you learn to use it..." Kay reached out and twitched a finger. To my complete astonishment, the locker at the end of the hall swung open in perfect timing with what she did.

"You're kidding," I said.

Kay shook her head. "No, there's something happening. I haven't been able to talk to anyone about it because no one believes me. But things are changing. It's like the supernatural is becoming more real. Check it out," she said. She finished pulling me outside of the school. Once we were outdoors, she led me over to the tree. "Watch. I need to borrow a little bit of the energy from this tree, but look what I can do.”

She put her hand on the tree and with a look of deep concentration, stared up at one of the leaves high on a branch.

I waited for another feat of telekinesis. After a long moment, there was a loud snap, like a crack of electricity, and then the leaf burst into flames. I cried out and took a step back as the flaming debris fell to the ground near where I had been.

"Hey," I cried. "Watch it." I looked at her. "Pyrokinesis?"

Kay nodded, grinning at me. "Seriously, I've been trying to track down everyone who's been developing gifts at astonishing rates. There's something happening. No one seems to be taking notice."

I struggled to close my mouth or form anything to say. It was going to be a contest whether or not Cece would keep the official title of best friend or whether Kay would usurp it.

***