A darkened corner of the school, away from the classrooms, away from the crowds, away from Emily, wherever she was. I wasn't ready to face her yet, or really, face my own outburst from the day before. So I hid, I dodged, felt sorry for myself and felt angry at her. How childish, I know, but only now.

I think I felt betrayed, somehow. Like she had wronged me, in some way. I was upset at her back then, I believed she was the one to blame for it all, but looking back, it's embarrassing to admit that thought even crossed my mind.

I used to think that she was mean. I used to think that she was a bully, I... I used to think that she was wrong.

But Emily would never lie to me. She was my best friend. And that's what best friends are for. They tell you the truth, even if it hurts. Even if it hurts so bad that you can't bear to look at them, even if it hurts so bad you want to convince yourself you hate them.

Vi helped me out though. Vivienne, an old friend of Emily's, older than the both of us, though not by much.

Vi had always been smarter than me. Always so caring, so devoted to the world around her. She cared for everyone, you see. Always volunteering, always helping others. She just seemed to know things, like a wise old owl I used to think. She seemed to understand the world in a bigger-picture sort of way, something I've always struggled with. She was like my brother, in a way, always looking for big problems to solve, always wanting to help in the darkest moments, always aware of the scope of any situation.

I wanted to be just like her. I admired her, almost as much as Emily. So I hung around her a lot, tried to mimic the way she did things, became her friend. I think. Oh, probably not.

Anyway, that day after Emily and I had fought, she noticed I was sad. Really sad. She wasn't there the day before, she'd been out of town visiting family, and had only just got back that morning. She was worried, asked what happened. Did a family member die? Was someone sick? Did my house burn down? What could it have been, to have made me cry as I did? It must have been awful. She was so certain it was. She wanted to help, she said. Just tell her what it was, and she'd help.

She asked and asked that day, and as much as I didn't want to talk about it, I finally caved, and told her how Emily and I had fought.

For a long minute, she was quiet. I waited, wiping the tears from my face, watching the confusion cross her expression.

I got a bad feeling then. Maybe that was when I realized. More seconds passed, more silence, and the feeling grew.

"Is that..." she took a breath. "...it?"

I looked up at her, surprised. "It?" I asked.

"Is that all you were crying for?" A new tone was creeping into her voice. "A silly fight with a friend?"

I stared, dumbstruck. "But..."

"But! But honestly! You're so upset over something as trivial as that? Don't you know what other people go through? Don't you know how lucky you are? Every day, people lose family members, lose everything they have, they live though tragedies you can't even imagine, and here you are crying like it's the end of the world just because Emily finally got frustrated with you? What is wrong with you? Don't you have any shame?"

She shook her head at me. I stuttered, I didn't understand. I was self-centered and naive, aren't I still? If it still makes so little sense? She would be embarrassed to see how little I've grown.

"I can't believe you got me all worried over something like that. Next time, leave me out of your petty dramatics, I have better things to do." She said as she grabbed her bag, before shaking her head at me again, and walking away.

That was years ago, years, and look at me now, look how little I've changed. After all of that, all this time, I thought I'd figured it out, I thought I'd finally become a person they all could be proud of, but I did the same thing all over again, I haven't learned a single thing.

I went back to Emily that day. I apologized, I thought that was enough, I thought I'd learned my lesson, she told me she forgave me and I thought that was the end. But I just wasted more of her time. It was all ruined by then, and things were never the same between us. She didn't want to be friends anymore, who would, after all that?

Maybe I can say I won't go back this time. Maybe I can say I won't make it worse this time. Maybe I can say I've learned now, I'm stronger, I know better, I can do what I know is right.

But I said that then. I said it all then. And what did I do? What did I change? Nothing.

Emily was my friend when no one else was. She was the only one who didn't find me annoying, and what did I do? I ruined everything for her. And I blamed her for it.

Could I really believe she'd help me after that? That I'd be able to act in her image, follow in her footsteps, be that person I so admired? I have never done anything but fail her.

I really tried to be like her. At least, I'd like to think I tried. But really, I can barely remember those days at all. All I remember are routines. Patterns. Wondering what to do next, wondering how to be Emily.

I remember a smile. A question. An answer.

A suggestion, a consideration, a pause.

A decision. A preparation. A thanks.

A tinkling sound of a bell as they walk out the door, bag of warm bread in their hands. Another success.

The coworker on my left compliments me. I smile, and send one back. Another coworker in the back laughs, says I'm too kind, but they're all smiling, and so am I.

The bell rings again, and I turn, still showing the lingering traces of laughter on my face, careful not to let them fade too quickly, and help the next customer. Day after day, week after week. Pretending things were getting better, pretending it was alright that they weren't.

All of that was recent. Far more recent than my entrance to this world, my time at my other job, my time with Ayer. And yet I remember it now so much less. I can't recall conversations. Words said. Names, faces. Just smiling. Talking. Reflecting on Emily, and on myself, and focusing on how I could be more of one and less of the other.

What was she like? What did she enjoy? How did she talk, what did she say?

How strange it was, to realize that there was so much I had forgotten about Emily. I really hadn't thought of her much before then, even back in my old world. I'd kind of let her fade to the background, assuming her lesson had been taught, assuming I didn't need to dwell on it, on her, anymore. She had faded.

But she was still there. And in working so hard to be more like her, to act in her image and hold true to her name, I found myself remembering old pieces of her I'd forgotten.

She wore clips in her hair to hold it back out of her face.

I found something similar at a shop a few weeks ago, a pack of rainbow colored ones, and I think I'm wearing the ones of her favorite color right now.

She had other friends, that she hung out with pretty often, whose names I found myself remembering as well.

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I told my coworkers that those were my own friends' names. I told them about the time we all went to the movies together, and one friend spilled his drink all over the friend next to him right in the middle of an action sequence. I remembered when she told me that story.

She liked baking a lot. On her birthday, she and her mom would make cookies, and hand them out to everyone in her class.

That was why I took this job. Because she... no, I, liked... like, bread. Baking. I like baking. So I'm here.

I've been in this city for six weeks.

My plan was successful. Ayer never found me, and I doubted they were anywhere near. I hoped they stopped looking. I still do.

I live higher up now. I don't go to ground level anymore. I'm not afraid of heights. Why should I waste so much time going down there only to come back up again?

I still don't look down. But I don't look up either. I don't need to. There's nothing up there. I just look forward, and I smile.

It's basic customer service. You've got to smile. Make people want to buy stuff.

I enjoy my new job. It's fun, talking to people, and bread and cakes and cookies are all fun to make, though I spend most of my time at the register.

I don't avoid people anymore. Not like Io did. I hang out with my coworkers after work. I laugh with them, joke with them, we wander the bridges offering samples of the bakery's bread to all we pass, talking the whole time.

Because that is what I do. That is the kind of person I am.

I still did some research, for a while. Still continued looking into time travel. But as the days went on, I looked less and less. It didn't feel the same, researching as Emily. Trails I once would have followed, clues I would have kept, time I would have spent, all fell to the floor in bundles of paper, scattering the room in piles and stacks, slowly meaning less and less to me, until it got to the point where one day I simply entered the room, sat down on the chair, and stared.

I would look at the papers in front of me, and there was nothing in me that wanted to pick them up. To look through them. To see what they said. It all just seemed pointless. Exhausting. It just didn't matter.

When I would force myself to pick one up, to look at the page, to stare at the letters, they all said nothing. I'd read the same line a thousand times over, and see nothing. It didn't go anywhere. It didn't mean anything.

I remember leaning back, and letting the paper slide out of my hand and onto the floor. I remember the sense of déjà vu that hit me then, though at the time I was unsure of where it had come from. I think I remember now though.

The room was dark, then. It had sensed I hadn't moved, and the inner lights shut off. It thought I was gone.

The lights of the buildings outside still shone through the window, but dimmer, duller. They didn't hurt my eyes anymore. I barely noticed them.

I thought to myself, no. Don't do this. This isn't Emily. This isn't what she does. She doesn't sit alone in dark rooms, being strangely comforted by the fact that the world doesn't think she's there. She doesn't lose focus on the things she cares about, she doesn't feel nothing when looking at several months worth of her own work, she doesn't do nothing, she doesn't feel nothing.

I knew that. I knew who she was, and how to be that person. I knew it all. But I don't think it mattered.

I stopped researching that day. It wasn't something that Emily would do, I decided. She would live in this new world. She would accept it.

I did everything I could to be like Emily. I remembered her, piece by piece, and made those pieces my own. She would get me through this, I thought. She wouldn't let this world hurt her. If she knew she'd be stuck in this world forever, she'd simply become a part of it. So I did. Like her.

It was mainly at the bakery. Bracelets and doughnuts and drama and styles. Those were the things she'd talk about, so I talked about them too. I'd find someone I thought she'd have liked, and started talking about those things. Soon enough some of the others would hear our conversation and join us, and there'd often be a whole crowd of us slacking off on a slow day, gossiping and exclaiming and rolling our eyes at silly jokes.

It felt strange, talking to them. I had seen those conversations before, heard them, or heard of them, so many years ago on so many standards. Emily would talk about all those things, with all her friends, and I would try so desperately to join in, to add something, to be a part of the group. I didn't notice how their words would drop from the air like falling stones just as my own went flying haphazardly like a bird that had recently hit a window.

And neither did Avis notice when I shied away from her, wilted away from her attempts at conversation, silently willed her to take a hint and walk away.

Emily wasn't supposed to be like that. She liked just about everyone. She didn't have a mean bone in her body. But every time I saw Avis, every time she walked up to me unprompted, every time she joined in where she wasn't wanted without a clue, every time her incessantly annoying voice piped up to make a common remark that seemed to have been said already a thousand times, I couldn't help but think,

I hate her.

And I wondered, is this what Emily felt when she looked at me? Did she feel this annoyance, this irritation, this hatred that I feel for Avis? Was this the same hatred that I'd always deserved, as much as I tried to convince myself otherwise?

I hated her. I hated everything about her. Her voice. Her laugh. Her presence. Everything about her was a mocking reminder of who I was, who I really was, under and before the names of Emily and Io and all the ones before them as well. She reminded me of that person I'd tried so hard to kill over the years, and she reminded me of the fact that she was still there.

I hated her. I hated her because it was the right thing to do, because she deserved it. I knew that was what was right. Anyone that annoying deserved to be hated. Even if it hurt, it was what needed to be said, right? It was for the best, wasn't it? Hasn't it always been?

She was afraid of tight spaces. Got nervous every time she'd have to go in the back room for supplies. She'd stall, wander, ask the others if they could get whatever it was she needed for her. They always did. They were understanding. They didn't care.

But I did.

We were the only ones working that day. An expected slow shift. An empty day, a day that never mattered. Or at least, it shouldn't have.

She followed me around like a lost puppy, getting in my way and pulling me out of my head. Talking and talking, asking about my work, asking about my days. I had just managed to shoo her off into the kitchen to get some work done, when she returned not a third minute later with a sheepish smile on her face.

"Can you... help me with something?" She asked, and I could hear the nerves behind her voice. I knew what she was referring to, and shook my head.

"Get it yourself." I said, turning back to the register.

It was quiet for a few seconds, I'd thought she left, but then, in a quieter voice this time, she said to me, "I can't."

And I hated that. It was another one of those things I knew deserved to be hated.

"Just get over it." I said and heard. "You're being embarrassing." It felt strange to be saying those words aloud.

"But... I..."

"Stop wasting my time. Just stop already." Angry now. I think I missed some bits. Was this where the anger came in? Or the line before?

"Huh? I'm sorry, I didn't think... I'm just a bit anxious about it, since..."

"Nobody cares how scary it is. You're overreacting."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bother, I just, I just can't,"

"Just do it already! I don't want to have to deal with your problems! With you! Either you get over it, or just leave me the hell alone!"

And with that she ducked back into the kitchen, leaving me alone with my words stabbing in my gut.

My words. They were my words now. I was Emily now.

I'd heard those words already a thousand times. They followed me, haunted me, day and night and noon and quarter. I'd thought I'd grown used to them. Accepted them. Taken away the strength from their blows.

But that was the first time I heard it in my own voice instead of hers. And it still didn't feel right.

It just hurt again. It still hurts. Would it always? Would I never be able to make it stop? No matter what I did, no matter how much I tried to be like Emily, will I never be able to get rid of this nagging feeling that I'm doing everything wrong?

I know It's right. I have to know that, I can't let myself be that naive, oblivious girl I was then, I can't go back to being like that, but why does it still feel like I don't accept it? Why is there a part of me that still doesn't understand?

What is wrong with me? How can I still not get it? Have I never learned anything? Have I never grown at all?

I hated those words I said to Avis. I hated those words with every part of me that has ever deserved to hear them. Why, why do I hate them? Why can't I just accept that they are the truth? The reality of how things are? How long can I live in this state of denial, this false hope that maybe somehow, someway, they were words I never deserved?

Is this going to be the entirety of my life? No matter what I do, what I turn myself into, what I force myself to believe, will this be the only life for me?

The hate for those words? The belief in their truth? The fight between the two that isn't ever going to end, or fade away, or stop hurting? I know what's right. I know it. So why does it still hurt? Why can't I make it stop?

Oh. I guess I know why.

Because I can't. I just can't. I can't do anything, can I?

I know that now.

And I...

...

...

I don't want to live like this.