It takes her a while to realise it, honestly.
Sure, she thought the protest against naming the school goldfish Sushi had been going on for longer than usual, and that it was kind of strange when Karma kept on kissing her in the same spot on her cheek each day, but she didn't question it when everyone kept repeating the same jokes over and over again. High school's try hard like that. Eventually, she figures it out when she realises that she doesn't have the same classes that many days in a row, and that Karma rarely keeps the same greeting for more than two days at a time.
Of course, when she said she felt like high school would never end, she never meant it literally.
The thing is that, when she's with Karma, it doesn't feel like any time has passed at all.
Amy's day goes something like this:
She wakes up at 7.30 each morning, her alarm sounding steadily, even when she takes out the batteries the night before. Her mother cooks her waffles which are too dry and get stuck at the back of her throat, the too sweet maple syrup dripping from her fork onto her fingers, which she'll taste again when Karma kisses her good morning, mixed with Karma's strawberry lip gloss. All throughout breakfast, Lauren glares at her from across the table, arms folded. Amy gave up glaring back on the second day, anyway.
At school, she and Karma hold hands while Shane shoots her sympathetic looks down the corridor and Liam broods somewhere in the shadows, though she's pleased to see that Karma ignores him (mostly, that is. She may glance at him quickly as they walk away. Amy, of course, is too busy looking at Karma to tell). School itself is as monotonous and boring as it always is, though for once Amy is actually aware of what's going on and understands what is being taught. She's not sure she likes that.
At the end of the day, Karma presses a kiss to her cheek, and Amy can never remember to open her eyes to see if there's anyone looking.
It doesn't take her long to ask Shane for help. She drags him back to her house after school and sits him down in front of a TV which is already playing Groundhog Day. He grins at her.
"Oh, I had no idea that you were a classics girl. This will be fun," Shane says. Suddenly, his face scrunches up in disgust. "Oh, would you look at that leftover 80s fashion? The early 90s truly were a tragic time for all of us."
"Just watch the damn movie," Amy mutters, rolling her eyes.
Eventually, when they've finished the film and Shane has stopped sniffing ("What? It's not my fault I'm a sucker for white picket fence houses. It's the dream."), Amy turns to him slowly, takes a deep breath and says,
"You know everything that just happened in that film? Yeah, that's happening to me. Right now." Shane's eyes widen.
"Oh my god, you've finally cracked," he says. Quickly, he takes Amy's hand between his. "Look, honey, I know that the tunnel of unrequited love can seem endless, but you won't actually have to live through it for an eternity. If worse comes to worse we can always take you to a club, you'll bang a stranger, it will all be fi -"
"No, listen to me," Amy says, digging her nails into his hand until he lets go. "I am literally living through the same day over and over again. It's why I know that today in your economics class, Mr Williams broke his chair when he sat down on it, and that a verb goes at the end of a sentence when you're writing Latin, and that every Wednesday you go to a thrift shop to get discounted clothes." Shane gasps.
"You spied on me? Ok, in the words of our lord and saviour, Macklemore, I look incredible. You, on the other hand," he says, gesturing to Amy. "You could not pull thrift shop clothes off. But seriously, you sat in on a Latin class? You really had nothing better to do?"
"Of course I spied on you, I've spied on everyone. I got bored, ok?" Amy replies. "Hell, yesterday, which is today, which was also today - look, you get the point - I even sat in on a calculus class."
"Oh my god, this is serious."
"You need to help me!" Amy snaps, hitting Shane's arm. "I've had to eat cafeteria meat loaf every day so far."
"Fine, fine, for the sake of this argument, let's say I believe you," Shane says. "How long have you been doing this for? Oh my god, are you up to your suicide stage?"
"I don't know," answers Amy. "It just felt like a normal school day the first few times, so I didn't pick up on it, but then that kid kept on dropping all of his pot plants at lunch so I started to realise what was happening."
"That happened today. You didn't help," Shane comments. Amy shrugs.
"I like this top," she says. "I didn't want it to get dirty."
"Well, the good news is that I think I found the reason for your cosmic entrapment. It's because you're an awful person," Shane concludes. "To fix this, we'll need to give you a complete make over, because honestly I wouldn't be surprised if the universe was punishing you for your fashion transgressions. I mean, I understand that you're kind of butch but even so, would some none pastel colours hurt?"
"Great, I get to spend the rest of my unchanging life looking like Lady Gaga," says Amy.
"Aha, cynicism and sarcasm - that's another strike right there," says Shane.
"Since when did you become God?" asks Amy.
"Stupid question, we all know that as a devoted follower of Meryl Streep, I get at least 2% of her powers," Shane replies. "But, you're right, this may not be divine intervention. Rather, I think it could be karmic forces." He smirks at her. "Do you get it? It's a double entendre because -"
"I got it."
"Ok, good," he says. "All I'm saying is that this is probably a sign from the universe, who is probably just as sick as seeing you pine for your best friend as I am, by the way, that now is the time to tell her. And you've got forever to get it right."
"I'm pretty sure the universe has better things to do than focus on my non-existent love life," Amy says.
"And two hours ago I thought that there was nothing better to do than my Geography homework," says Shane. "But now that you've told me that we are literally living in an endless time loop, I realise that the best use of my time would be to go clubbing and hit on football players. On that note, I look forward to seeing you tomorrow when you confess to Karma that you are in love with her. Let me know if you need any help planning: I know a guy, he could get you a discount on a flower arch. Good night." With that, he kisses her cheek and walks out, leaving her alone with her thoughts.
She does try to do it. Honestly.
At first, she tries to get it out of the way. Karma kisses her good morning and she tries to mumble something of the lines 'we need to talk', but her lips are still tingling and they can't wrap themselves around the words she's trying to say. Karma walks away before she can even make a sound, and she spends the rest of the day in silent embarrassment, not quite catching anyone's eye.
The second and third time Amy tries to do it results in her getting distracted by the way the sunlight falls on Karma's face, or how bright her eyes are, or how happy she looks, and, for a moment, she's content with the fact that she's able to take the time to notice these things about Karma; all the things she'd forgotten she knew despite the amount of time she's been with her. The days don't change, but it's on those nights that she can sleep just a little easier.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth times result in her saying, "I love your hair," and, "I think we should do something more: we should change our relationship statuses on Facebook," and, "I'd like to date your slice of pizza," though technically the third one is true. All attempts result in the same slightly confused looking Karma, who shrugs and smiles and says ok.
Her seventh attempt involves a crappy $2 bouquet of flowers from the shop next to the cafe she goes to on the way to school, and a poem that reads:
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I'm stuck in a time loop,
I want to date you.
(For real.)
Both the flowers and the poem are crumpled in her hand by the time she gets to school, and she throws the poem in the bin before anyone else can see it. She does, however, give the bouquet to Shane, who at least seems flattered by it.
"Ugh, did you really have to bring your black rain cloud home with you?" Lauren asks, leaning against Amy's doorway. "It doesn't go without my outfit."
"I like your outfit," says Amy. "It looks as bland as I feel."
"I don't know what crawled into your arse and died, but it's really bumming out my whole area, ok?" says Lauren. "So sort things out with your fake girlfriend, because we both know that's what this is about, or else I'm going to intervene."
"Thanks for showing your concern for me. I really appreciate it. Bye now."
"What, this is the thanks I get for trying to help?" Lauren asks. "I was only trying to give you some advice."
"Oh, taking relationship from you, that will make me feel better," says Amy. "So what are your suggestions? Should I give Amy a blow job?"
"Your condescension has been noted and will be remembered," Lauren replies. "All I was going to say is, remember: communication is key."
"I'll call you if I ever want to say it with a croquembouche."
"Karma, we need to talk," Amy says, grabbing onto Karma's wrist.
"Oh, morning, sweetheart," Karma replies, grinning and leaning up to kiss her. Amy leans out of the way, ignoring the way Karma pouts slightly as she does so, and starts to drag her towards the library, steadfastly refusing to answer her questions as she does so.
"Is something wrong?" Karma asks when they stop. "Is Lauren blackmailing you again? Did she kick you out of the wedding?"
"No, no it's all fine," Amy answers. "I just - I have something to tell you."
"Ok," Karma says, smiling expectantly. "I'm listening."
"I-I'm not so sure, about this, anymore," she says, gesturing between them.
"You want us to...fake break up?" Karma says. "Did something happen? I mean, I'm not saying no, it's just, if we could fix it then -"
"No, it's not like that," Amy replies, taking a deep breath. "What I mean is, I'm not sure if I'm faking it. Anymore. I think I may actually like you."
"Oh," Karma says, averting her gaze. "Um."
"It's fine if you don't feel the same way," Amy says quickly. "I just wanted to tell you. I thought you deserved to know and, hey, you know me, I like to get things over with. If you want to tell me anything, you can tell me tomorrow, ok?" With that, Amy walks away, half waiting to see if Karma would follow her and half hoping that she wouldn't. Despite herself, she still feels the weight of disappointment settling in her stomach when she makes it to first period without a word or text from Karma.
The hours pass until it's lunch time, and still she hasn't heard anything from Karma, or even seen her in the hallway.
Eventually, Karma walks into the cafeteria and all Amy can do is watch silently, torn between waving her over to the seat beside her and letting her choose for herself. It's when Karma reaches for a lunch tray that she notices the paint on Karma's hands, smudges of blue and yellow and dots of red.
Amy doesn't bother to say goodbye before she leaves.
She doesn't cry, but she doesn't reply to her mother when she's asked why she came home from school early. Instead, she just lies in bed and tries not to glance at her phone too much, resenting its silence.
For once, the idea of a new day pleases her.
The next morning, she skips breakfast and practically runs to school. When she finds Karma, she swallows her instinct to run away from her, instead straightening her shoulders and approaching her.
"Hey, Karma, ab -"
"Oh, morning sweetheart," Karma says, leaning up to kiss her. Amy ducks away quickly, her eyes widening in surprise. "Is something wrong?"
"No," says Amy, still surprised. "Does this mean you're fine with what I told you yesterday?"
"What do you mean?" asks Karma. "You mean that thing you said about not believing in horoscopes? Because, that's fine, I really don't care. Maybe don't mention it in front of my parents though."
"No, what? I mean what I said -" she stops abruptly, surveying Karma. "Karma, are you wearing the same outfit as yesterday?"
"Sorry, how long have you known me for?" Karma says, looking at her with disbelief. "When I have ever worn the same outfit two days in a row?" Amy smiles and nods.
"Right," she says. "That's what I thought. Would you please excuse me?" Turning away on her heel, Amy starts to walk away, not looking back at Karma when she starts to follow her, questioning her well being. Eventually, Amy gets to an open space, where she turns to look up at the sky.
"What do you want me to do?" Amy asks, spreading her arms out. "Why are you doing this to me?"
"Amy,are you ok?" Karma says beside her. "Should I get a nurse or something?"
"No, I'm fine," says Amy, waving her away before turning her attention to the sky again. "Do you want me to make her fall in love with me? Is that it? Because I'm not going to do that, ok. You can't make someone all in love with you in a day!"
"Amy, what the hell are you doing? What are you talking about?" says Karma, trying to grab a hold of Amy's arm. Amy turns back to her then runs a hand through her hair and sighs. Shrugging, she says,
"I like you. For real. Not in the fake relationship way. I genuinely, actually like you. Did you hear that God?" Amy yells at the sky. "Karma and I are in a fake lesbian relationship and I like her."
"Amy, what the hell," says Karma.
"Karma and I are faking being lesbians," Amy continues, grabbing onto a passerby then moving onto the next. "We did it for popularity. Lauren was right! We faked being lesbians and I liked it."
"Amy, Amy wait," Karma yells, trying to catch up to her but being caught in the gathering crowd. "We need to talk about this!"
"If you're all going to kill me, wait until tomorrow," Amy calls out. With a last survey of the chaos she's created, she shrugs and smirks before walking away.
She is admittedly somewhat pleased when the day starts over once again. She eats her waffles with a smile on her face and replies with, "I'm just happy it's a new day," when her mother asks her the reason behind it. Lauren glares at her from across the table and Amy grins back.
At school, she spends most of her time either making paper planes or watching TV shows during class and rolling her eyes whenever a teacher asks her a "challenging" question that she immediately knows the answer too (and she really can't help but wish that this had happened a week or two before her exams). At lunch, Karma nudges her with her shoulder and asks,
"What's up with you today? You seem particularly apathetic."
Amy shrugs and says, "I'm just bored. We do the same things everyday, with the same people, over and over. I can't wait to leave high school. "
"I know, I know," Karma says. "You're in one of your moods where you want to go to Montreal and live on a train or whatever, it's cool, I get it. And I know we can't do that yet, but what we can do is plan something super fun and exciting for tomorrow."
"Like what?" Amy says, laughing slightly.
"I don't know," Karma says. "Raid the art supplies and give your sister's locker a makeover, have a dance party in the cafeteria? I don't know, something totally un-you that you will still do because you love me."
"Ok," Amy agrees. "Tomorrow sounds good."
Ultimately, she stops going to school. Instead, she lies in bed in her pyjamas and has continuous Netflix marathons, answering Karma's frantic texts during the ads. She gets grounded four days in a row, but she also manages to watch both Twin Peaks and The Wire, which she thinks is an achievement.
Amy does sneak into school once. She doesn't bother to go to class or even find Karma. All she finds is Oliver's surveillance room, which inadvertently leads to her to a very surprised Oliver.
"Uh hi -" he starts.
"Mind if I join you?" Amy asks. "Thanks," she says before he can answer, sitting down in one of the seats. "So, has anything interesting happened yet?"
"I - interest - no, no, nothing yet," Oliver stutters, glancing from Amy to the multiple television screens. "A janitor actually looked like he was about to fix the broken clock in the hallway but, as always, he then just kept on walking. You know, I haven't seen you around today. At all."
"Oh? Yeah, I didn't feel great this morning but mum wanted me out of the house," Amy replies distractedly. "Did you say broken clock?"
"Yeah, but, it's been like that for months," Oliver says.
"Oh. Ok." They stay in silence for a while, watching the monitors. By now, most of the scenes are familiar to her: the kid who orders pizza in the middle of English class, the row of people asleep in Modern History, the broken noses from dodgeball during sport. Idly,her eyes start to wander to the hallway where she knows Karma's classroom is, before sighing and dropping her gaze to the floor.
"Do you understand people yet?" Amy asks eventually.
"I wouldn't be here if I did, would I?" he answers after a pause. Not quite managing to look Amy in the eye, he instead glances down at his watch, before standing up and walking towards the door. Turning back to look at her, he says, "It's lunchtime now so, I'm going to go but, stay here for as long as you want."
Nodding her thanks, she turns back to look at the screens, watching the hallways fill up. Her eyes always seem the find the same people over and over again; Karma, Shane, Lauren, Liam, Karma. Karma.
Sometimes, she thinks about all the other days she could have been stuck in. There was that day in fifth grade when they went on a school excursion to the aquarium and she and Karma were somehow separated from the group; how they spent the rest of the day making faces at the fishes and laughing at each other's sense of direction. Another time, at Christmas, they went shopping and shared so much junk food that they felt sick afterwards, their fingers covered in sugar and lips smeared with chocolate. Or the day when Karma made her laugh so hard that her cheeks ached and her stomach hurt, gasping for air.
Why today, she thinks. Why now?
(See, the thing is, there's nothing special about this particular day.
Occasionally, at the end of the day, she thinks that maybe she's dead. That maybe she's in a coma and she's been given one day to get everything right. Other nights, she thinks that maybe she already died and this is her punishment. After all, she always said hell was high school.
Rarely, a voice strangely like Shane's tells her that of course today is ordinary. That's the point.)
"Morning sweetheart," Karma says. Amy turns her head so that Karma kisses her cheek, ignoring her pout and instead grabbing onto Karma's hand. She grins at her.
"Come on," Amy says. "Let's go." With a tug of her hand, she starts to lead Karma towards the gate, pulling her out of the school and onto the street. She doesn't stop until they're at least a block away, and she still doesn't let go of Karma's hand.
"Will you please tell me what we're doing here?" Karma asks, slightly out of breath. "And why you made me run?"
"I thought we could have some fun," Amy replies. "Nothing's on today, so I thought now would be a good time."
"Well, can't fault that logic," Karma says after considering it. "Where should we go next?"
They end up spending most of their day in coffee shops and clothing outlets, making fun of the designs and poor colour coding. They get ice-cream in the afternoon, sitting down to look up at the sky as it starts to paint itself; the white clouds turning purple, the horizon's edges smudging yellow.
"It's beautiful," Karma says breathlessly.
"Yeah, almost as pretty as my copy of Geographic Magazine," Amy teases. Karma sticks her tongue out at her, before licking her ice cream cone. For a moment, it feels the same as it was even a year or two ago; just them, together.
"I had a really good day today," Karma says after a while.
"Yeah?" replies Amy. Karma nods enthusiastically. "Good, me too."
"I like that idea," says Karma. She looks up at the sky again then sighs contentedly and rests her head on Amy's shoulder, who wraps her arm around Karma in return. "I need to go soon. Mum wants me to do a "spring cleansing" in the house. Says I can finally get to use her special crystals or something." Amy smiles and presses her lips to the top of Karma's head.
"You can go when you need to," she says.
"I know, but I don't want to go," Karma retorts. "I like spending time with you. We should do this, all of this, again sometime." Amy hums non-commitedly still resting her head on Karma's. Eventually, they find each other's hands, holding them loosely.
The sun has almost set by the time Karma leaves.
She comes into school late the next day with a plastic bag containing batteries and the key to the janitor's storage in her back pocket courtesy of Oliver. The screech of the ladder across the hallways was loud, but she didn't actually expect to draw anyone's attention, which is why she's surprised to Karma in front of her, arms folded.
"What are you doing?"
"An act of charity," Amy says, starting to climb up the ladder. Behind her, Karma sighs and walks around to hold the edge of the ladder, watching with concern as Amy reaches up to take down the clock and undoing the back, stumbling slightly when she reaches for the batteries in her pocket.
"Why is it that whenever you try to do something nice you nearly get yourself killed?" groans Karma, pressing more firmly on the ladder when Amy rises on her toes to put the clock back. "I don't even know if this counts as being nice, it seems kind of pointless." Amy doesn't reply and starts to make her way back down, but only gets as far as sitting on the top rung of the ladder, facing Karma.
"At least the janitor will thank me," she says. Karma sighs and rests her head on Karma's leg, Amy rubbing her hair affectionately when she does so. Her hand hovers in mid air for a moment, then returns to stroke the hair away from Karma's face so that she can look at her. "Do you ever think that there could be - an us?"
"There is an 'us'," Karma replies, confused. "It's been us for the past ten years."
"There are so many different versions of us," says Amy. Karma lifts her head to look at her, still slightly confused. "Best friends, practically family, fake girlfriends. Do you think there could ever be an actual, real us?"
"You mean lik -"
"Yeah."
Karma drops her gaze to look at the floor, scuffing her shoe against the ground. Amy raises a hand to touch her should, barely aware she's even doing it, before she quickly drops it and mirrors Karma's actions, looking down at her lap. Finally, she sighs and says,
"You don't have to say anything, I just wanted to tell you."
"Sometimes I think maybe we could," Karma interrupts, and Amy doesn't think Karma heard a word she said. "I mean, the fact that I was willing to go along with this whole thing so willingly and that I like holding your hand and kissing you probably means something, right?" She laughs slightly, her face dropping when she sees Amy raise her eyebrows. "Look, I don't know ok? But sometimes it feels like we could, that there were days when we did and we just forgot. Does that sound too weird?"
"No, well, yes," Amy replies hurriedly. "But I mean, that's ok, I understand, or at least I think I do. So...now what do we do? We don't have to do anything if you don't want to. I mean, I can't make you feel the same way." Karma smiles at Amy, but it's not her usual smile. For once, Karma actually looks nervous.
"You may not have to," she says quietly. "The world will be here tomorrow, you and I will be here tomorrow, let's just see what happens, ok?" Around them, people start to file out of classrooms and into the hallway, making their way to their next class. Amy can't help but feel alarmed, already feeling the day slip away from her, only to start again soon. She looks at Karma, expecting to find her already gone, but instead sees her lean up to kiss Amy on the cheek goodbye, giving her a small smile when she leaves.
She wakes up to the sound of rain and the smell of burning waffles.
Her mother is flustered when she comes downstairs, complaining about how the rain is going to continue for the rest of the week which has really messed up her weekend plans with Lauren, because after all, can you really expect women to go clothes shopping when there's torrential rain outside? The clothes would be ruined and it's unthinkable to make women walk so far in high heels when the streets are so wet.
"I'm sorry, girls," Farrah says, placing the plates down on the tables. "I guess I was just so preoccupied with the weather that I forgot about your breakfast, so this will have to do. It shouldn't be too bad, you did get one good batch yesterday." Amy grins down at her plate, before leaning up to hug her mother.
"Thanks, mum," she says. "These are perfect."
By the time she gets to school, she's damp in most places and drenched in other, her hair sticking to her face. Hurriedly, she looks around for Karma, struggling to find her as everyone desperately tries to get undercover of the school. Eventually, she finds her on the steps, only half dry, waiting for her with the same half-nervous, half-smile on her face as yesterday.
"It's tomorrow," Amy says breathlessly, barely unable to contain her exaltation. "Karma, I don't care whether you love me, whether you want to date me, whether you don't, I'm just really happy for now. And that you're here with me." She sees Karma relax in front of her, her face softening into a small but genuine smile.
"That's great to hear, and I'm glad but, I don't think it will be necessary," she replies. Slowly, she reaches for Amy's hand, entwining their hands and running her thumb over the back of her hand. "I-I'm not sure how I feel, or even what I'm doing, but I think I want to try it. This."
"We're on the same page then," Amy says. Suddenly, she laughs, looking around her. "We picked a great day for this. Super romantic." At that, Karma starts to laugh as well, trying to shake the rain out of her hair, before she presses her forehead to Amy's, still grinning up at her.
"Should we kiss in the rain?" she asks.
"We're not that cliche," Amy answers. "At least not yet, anyway." Karma scrunches up her nose.
"You're right, you're right," she says. "We're going to be late for class, anyway. Come on," she adds, tugging on Amy's hand. "We've got time, anyway. And I canwa't wait to spend it all with you." Giving a last glance towards the sky, Amy smiles, before walking into the school (and if she gives a slight nod to the clock on the wall, nobody notices. At least not Karma, anyway).