Holy FUCK did I hate my job. 

I was roasting in the indoor heat of a city summer, and my manager was off doing God knows what. He was high off his ass even when he was in the store anyways, leaving me literally the only employee around again, which is just typical since I didn’t have a key to the register. That can’t be legal. But despite me working there for three summers straight he never thought to trust me with one, so if the store got held up, fuck me I guess. I got shit from both managers and customers if I ever sat down so I had to stand behind the register my entire shift, and the tile floor was so noticeably uneven that I had to put more of my weight on my left foot than my right. That, combined with the two(?) hours of sleep I had gotten meant I said fuck it to formalities and started leaning my elbows on the counter top to give my joints some reprieve. Not like Grant was there to see it. If some Karen wanted to come in and critique my posture while somehow acting snobby about buying a 30 cent packet of gum then fuckin fine with me I guess. 

It had been literally an hour and fifteen minutes (I counted) since I had seen another living breathing human when a woman stumbled through the door desperately. It took a moment for me to shake myself out of the stupor caused by spending extended periods of time in a place that somehow smelled like mud and Clorox simultaneously, but she didn’t even glance at me, instead dashing for the rickety newspaper rack in the corner. Fearing death by condescension, I pushed my arms back off the counter and stiffened my spine, adopting what my friend had started calling “retail parade rest.” 

When the woman tore a newspaper off the rack and stared at it with the intensity of a jury summons I had to admit I was slightly curious. Was she really saying “no no no no no” under her breath? Suddenly she blinked, and slowly raised her head from the paper, turning to look at me. 

There was something… off about her. No, that wasn’t right, it was the opposite if anything. What does that mean, James? God damn it you don’t make any sense. But it was true, she had an air of familiarity, which was ridiculous because I was sure I’d never seen her before. She wore black slacks and a semi-formal yellow-and-orange button up, and had a canvas bag slung over her shoulder. Her hair was cut short, just slightly longer than mine, and had that same strange not-quite-straight poof to it that mine did. But where mine would just stick up after a shower and look deranged no matter how much I combed it, she had trimmed hers in a more put-together way that had a defined undercut and swooped off to the left. It was cool. Maybe I could do something like that? 

No of course not, there’s no way I could look ever like her, I’m just some fucking guy and she’s rocking a whole butch as hell ensemble. She was amazing, way cooler than I could ever be. 

Wait, what am I even saying? Why would I even want to be like her? Like a woman? Stop it James. 

Her mouth was hanging open. I tilted my head infinitesimally to the right. 

“How can I help you?” I asked in my best customer service voice. 

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” she responded. 

I braced my teeth slightly and waited for her to elaborate. Yeah something was definitely off, the way she was staring at me. Did she recognize me for some reason? Why was she maintaining eye contact for this long? 

“No,” she suddenly said. “No, no, no, no.” She backed up and turned to the door. 

My eyes rolled back in my head. “Um excuse me but you have to pay for that.” I pointed at the newspaper nervously crushed between her fingers. 

She paused. “Hm?” There was a beat and she looked around, staring at the walls before noticing my still extended finger and following it to its target. “Oh! Yeah um…” She turned back to the counter, dropping the paper down and fumbling into her bag. I glanced at the front page, wondering if there was some disturbing news that could have made her act like this, but it was just advertising an exclusive interview with a candidate in the upcoming mayoral election. Hardly panic-inducing. 

She quickly fished out exact change, surprisingly, and I thanked her and made the sale. She swiped up the paper and started shoving it into her bag as she stepped out, tripping slightly over the doorframe. 

“Sorry,” she said turning away. 

“Ah, you’re fine,” I responded, leaning back onto my elbows. “That trim’s a bitch.” 

She seemed to chuckle slightly at that, and stepped the rest of the way out the building. As she turned back to close the door, we locked eyes again, and I was surprised to see pain there. She was wincing. “Sorry.” And with that she was gone. 

Wow James, way to fuck up that simple social interaction. I wonder what I must have done to make her look so uncomfortable. Maybe it was the way I was standing, was it too aggressive? Had my retail lingo been too robotic? But she was clearly distressed and had been when she entered the store, I just didn’t do enough to help. 

With a sigh I went back to the riveting pass time of shifting my legs back and forth so they wouldn’t fall asleep and examining the ceiling corners for any new spiderwebs. Only four more hours, I reminded myself. Today was a special day, though the thought did not fill me with confidence so much as existential dread. The door swung open again, and I jumped. I was surprised to notice that a part of myself was disappointed that the strange woman had not returned. 

 

---

 It was still far too hot outside by the time I got off my shift, though since it was only two or so hours until sundown I was holding out hope that things would get at least a little bit more manageable. 

My phone pinged as I arrived at the bus stop, and I scrambled to pull it out of my pocket. 

 

Deacon: u coming dude? 

 

Ash: We’re already at the diner 

 

I rolled my eyes and I texted back in the groupchat. 

 

Me: yeah, I told you I get off work now I literally just left 

 

Deacon: aight dont be anal, eta? 

 

Me: should be like 15, busses r bad tho you know

 

Deacon: watever just keep us updated

 

Me: will do

 

Sophie <3: Yayy! See you soon :) 

 

Oh. My mouth went dry. Sophie…  

The bus pulled up and I shook my head. As I fished out my pass I distinctly tried to think about something else, and I definitely didn’t stare at that one message the entire bus ride over. 

As a celebration for graduating a few weeks ago, Deac, Ash, Sophie, and I had started doing weekly dinners at this random local diner, as a sort of last hurrah to our weird little unofficial friend group before we all split off for college. I stepped off the bus and walked the few minutes to the downtown diner. Through the floor to ceiling windows I could see the three of them sitting at a booth, and I waved at them as I stepped through the door. Deacon and Ash sat next to each other, arguing over the menu. Deacon’s orange hair was as disorganized as his wardrobe, which today was the same jeans as always and some band t-shirt I didn’t recognize. Ash wore leggings under a pleated skirt and had applied heavier makeup than usual, which confused me because of how often she would whine about “having” to put on makeup for school. Wait. If those two were sitting next to each other, then… I looked at the one empty seat in the booth, which was on the other side of the table. Next to Sophie. 

She was wearing skinny jeans and a gray blouse, and had her hair pulled back in a baseball cap. As I walked in she was watching and waved while kicking her legs back and forth under the table. I felt my internal organs rearrange just a little bit. 

“Hey guys,” I said, focusing very hard on not tripping on my own feet as I walked over to sit down next to Sophie. 

“Hey asshole.” Deacon barely looked up from the menu he had partially wrestled out of Ash’s hands. “Help me out here, tell Ash that getting the potato wedges is a waste of money when the fries are two dollars less.” 

“Uhh,” I glanced at Sophie, who shrugged. 

Ash groaned and reached over in a renewed attempt to deprive Deacon of the menu, fingers scrambling all over Deacon’s front. “You. Get. More. Potato. How many times do I have to tell- OHMYGOD James he bit me???” 

The conflict seemed to be only escalating, so I awkwardly shifted on the weird plastic surface of the bench seat to turn to Sophie. “How are you?” 

She laughed and I felt completely normal and not at all liquid inside. “Fine, just been putting up with these idiots for a while now. How was work?” 

“Shit like normal. Grant was high the whole time.” 

“Ugh, I’m sorry.” 

I briefly considered mentioning the woman that came in, but, what would I even say? Nothing had really happened. Instead we kept laughing at my manager’s ineptitude while Deacon and Ash calmed down enough to not scare off the waiters and we were able to take our orders. 

“So James,” Deacon asked while trying to dip his chicken tender into the sauce cup that was far too narrow to accommodate- “when are you gonna quit that job? You do nothing but complain about it.” 

I sighed. “Look, if you have a surefire position at a better one lined up I’d be happy to take it. But I’m fucking off to college in two months anyway, trying to get another one is more trouble than it’s worth. I’m just trying to make a little money, I know it’s gonna be terrible.” 

Ash nodded. “Don’t you get an allowance?” 

“Barely. Why?” 

She shrugged. “Eh. Just askin’.” 

“We’re all gonna be working awful jobs sooner or later,” Sophie said. “You think I like the boutique? You think I like listening to middle aged women talk about leopard print for hours on end?” 

Deacon shrugged. “I’ll just wait till a job I actually like opens up. Then it won’t be shitty.” 

“What the fuck,” I laughed. 

“Dude that’s stupid,” Ash said. 

“Yeah Deac, that’s putting a lot of faith in capitalism.” 

“What? No I didn’t say that!” 

“Yeah, you kinda did,” Ash said. 

Sophie put a hand up. “Listen. I’m sure you’ll find a job that makes you happy, that you’re really into and all that. But that’s not gonna happen by just waiting for it to appear.” 

“Yeah,” I cut in. “And it’s certainly not going to happen right out of high school.” Sophie and Ash nodded sagely. “Or probably college, for that matter,” I added. “The statistics aren’t promising. So you gotta do something, even if it isn’t your dream life. Even if you don’t really know what you’re gonna do. Because that’s how this works, yeah? Like, you work a line of jobs of varying levels of shittiness one after another, and if that turns out well enough you can retire, and then you die.” I took a bite out of my sandwich. 

“Heh,” Deacon said, looking down at his food. 

An awkward quiet fell over the table. 

I spoke back up. “But it’s like… good.” 

“Yeah!” Sophie said. “There’s all the other stuff in between. The fun stuff, the good stuff.” 

Thank god, Sophie I could marry you. Wait, no, don’t be thinking that. 

“Yeah, there’s like, a point,” Ash said. Another moment of silence. “Right?” 

I swallowed. “Yeah.” 

Sophie screwed her nose up. “Totally, there’s the good bits. The worthwhile ones.” 

I turned and looked at her, and she met my eyes. Hers were so expressive, there was so much emotion contained in there. Fuck me, I am hopeless. “Yeah,” I choked out. 

 

---

I was back in time? Why was I back in time? There’s no way I wasn’t, I saw the date, and more importantly I saw myself. Little teenage pre-transition me, standing right there. 

I had stumbled into the nearest alleyway, and slid down the brick wall to come to a seat on the ground. In the shadow of the skyscrapers I suddenly felt quite dark, my feet nudged up against a trash can. I held the newspaper back up to my face. 

“June 9th, 2016,” it said, like an asshole. 

I didn’t even know where to start. It must have happened when I had tripped, because I was already in the past when I got to the building my interview should have been in. So did I just have a concussion, and this was all in my head? I felt completely lucid. 

Almost automatically, I pulled out my phone and pressed the “call” button next to Sophie’s contact. 

Network Not Found. 

“Fuck you,” I muttered, my voice breaking, and I dropped my head down. I felt tears in my closed eyes. 

I was not sure how much time passed while I sat there, trying and failing to make sense of what happened. I tried calling Sophie every once and a while, as though something had changed. Had… had the last six years just not happened? I blanched at the thought. The idea of being stuck here again, in the darkest moments of my life, was horrifying. But that didn’t make sense. I ran a hand through my hair, feeling the cut and part of it, then, just to be sure that they were there, I cupped a boob. This body was still mine, the one I had spent those six years getting used to and crafting, and it was still here. Besides, I wasn’t myself from six years ago, he was working in the bodega. He? She? I? How did that work? 

Okay. So I wasn’t in a time loop necessarily, but me and my body had been sent back in time. I tried to remember what Sophie had explained to me about time travel from watching Star Trek. Was I in the same timeline that I had come from? I had just seen myself and there hadn’t been any explosions or warps in reality, I had even given myself money from the future to pay for the newspaper. Hope that doesn’t cause any problems. If this was the same timeline, I (future me, gosh this is confusing) would remember everything that happened to past me. But if this was a different timeline that had split when I had traveled, I wouldn’t. 

I tried to think back to this specific date. It would have been a few weeks after graduation, and I wasn’t doing much that summer other than working and hanging out with… oh. The weekly dinners. June ninth. Was the day that… 

I bolted to my feet and stumbled out onto the street. The sun had noticeably lowered, casting skyscraper shadows across the city while filling the east-west streets with blinding orange sunset light. There was no way my bus pass would work, and if I was stranded here I would have to be careful what I spent money on, so I had to walk. I passed by an apartment building that had a “Clinton/Kaine” banner hanging out one window. Yep, definitely 2016. 

As I walked I only became more sure that I was right. The day that everything went from bad to worse. After work on June 9th, 2016, I had met up with Sophie, Deacon, and Ash for our weekly dinner. Afterwards, once the sun had set and Deacon and Ash had gone home, Sophie and I went for a walk in the park, where I confessed my crush on her. On Sophie, who was a lesbian, and me, who we both at the time thought was a boy. Her rejection, which was completely understandable, along with how the night had ruined our friendship for years, was one of the things that set off my downward spiral. And it was about to happen again. 

I picked up the pace, heading to the park, trying to do… something.