I sipped iced coffee tentatively, watching Jule shove spoon after spoon of ice cream into her mouth. Mindy fidgeted beside me, her own serving long ago extinguished.

I opened my mouth to say something but my voice died in my throat. What more could I say after explaining everything to Jule on our way here? Surprise, she didn't believe one word I said. The only reason I got her into the Creamery was because I promised I'll pay for the ice cream.

Does she love ice cream that much? I never knew.

"What is the lady doing with us?" Mindy asked, her wide eyes flicking between Jule and I.

I stole another glance at Jule who still had her face to the ice cream. She didn't appear to hear Mindy or me. "She's a friend," I replied flatly. "We're...I'm supposed to be explaining something to her."

"What is there to explain, Rom?" Mindy said, crumpling the wad of tissue I gave her to wipe her mouth with. "The lady isn't interested in you."

Mindy was six.

I shook my head. "No, no," I said. "It's not like that. I'm just...trying to, you know, umm..."

"How do you know my name, Rom?" Jule asked, her voice so cold I imagined ice seeping in my veins.

"I told you yesterday," I replied. "We're friends."

Jule turned her head side to side. "No, Porter and Nicola are my friends," she said. "We're supposed to be hanging out at the Arcade tonight. Now, I can't because I'm here with some stranger and his little kid. Are you a creep?"

I shoved my hand in my hair and groaned. "No, I'm not a creep and don't say that in front of Mindy," I said, casting a quick glance at my sister. She didn't appear to have heard it. "I mean, I'm just a friend asking you how in the world are you able to forget. What do I have to do to make you remember?"

Jule's eyes flicked to the window showing a live montage of cars driving through the setting sun. I've never seen them so empty and so...dark.

"You've been saying weird things all afternoon," she replied, scratching her spoon against the glass of her ice cream cup. "Are you sure you're not high? Should I call the police?"

"No, don't do that," I said a little too loud. A few customers seated in nearby tables whirled to us with bewildered looks on their faces. I ducked my head in supplication and faced Jule again. "They're not weird. You explained everything to me before."

Jule's dark brown eyes narrowed. She's scary. "Pretty sure I didn't," she said. "I don't even know you. Why do you insist on following me around?"

"I know you," I said, my voice suddenly quiet. "And you know me more than anyone."

Jule wagged her head. "No, I don't," she said, casting a glance at the Creamery's door. "Can I go now?"

"Don't you want to see the reset?" I blurted in desperation. "I'll show that I'm not crazy...or high."

Jule considered it for a moment then set her spoon down. "How long until the next 'reset'?" she asked. Leave it to Jule to always be exact with everything. "I still have to do my Arts homework."

I raised my eyebrow. "Stop stressing about it," I said. "You won't even make it to tomorrow. Not with the reset."

Jule knitted her eyebrows dangerously. She has never shown that face to anyone before. It made me want to bolt out of here.

"What do you mean?" she asked, her voice dropping into that of a low monotone. "What are these words you're saying? Tomorrow? Yesterday? They're a bunch of nonsense!"

"They're not nonsense," I snapped.

"Then what are they?" Jule challenged.

I bit my lip, recalling the very moment Jule said those words to me. I gulped, my throat achingly dry. "Yesterday is all the things that happened in our memory," I said. "Today is our reality. And tomorrow..."

I looked at Jule to find her staring right back at me. "Tomorrow is hope."

Jule snorted, a kind of reaction I didn't expect. "That doesn't make sense at all," she said. "That's bullcrap."

"Uh, it came from you."

Jule's smile died. "Oh."

Silence.

I don't ever recall my time with her being this quiet. Jule always had words stored somewhere in her mouth which she used for situations like this. Here I am, a guy who couldn't even carry out a conversation like she does.

What would Jule do?

Perhaps I should make that a mental game whenever I hit a block. I sighed. Even when I'm on a mission to bring back what I lost, I'm still having doubts. I'm still hesitating.

Jule will be better off without me.

But she won't be better off when she's like this, barely even living. She's stuck inside the loop and she didn't even know it. Before, she had a dream. Before I came to her life, she was human.

Now, I don't know what she was.

"You didn't answer my question," Jule said, making me raise my eyes to hers. She clicked her tongue at my apparent cluelessness. "I asked how much longer until the reset?"

I bit my lip. "It happens at night, when the last of the lights in the City is switched off," I said. "So, a few hours from now."

Jule sighed. "Well, what do you suppose we do until then?"

I smiled, giving myself a mental pat in the back for this stupid idea I had. "We go to the Lighthouse."

I dangled my legs out in the open, sitting on the Lighthouse's ledge. Jule was beside me, staring mutely at the stars in the night sky.

Earlier, I dropped Mindy at the house, yelled at Fisher to fix her up for bed, and dashed to meet Jule at the foot of the Lighthouse. I was prepared for the possibility that I won't find her there. My heart made a tiny skip when I spotted her brown hair and familiar gray hoodie loitering near the Lighthouse's entrance.

We ascended the stairs with silence thicker than the dark night sky. We found our old place along the ledge guarded by railings and sat side by side. We've been here since then. No one bothered saying anything. We're just here, breathing together. Existing together.

This was never enough. It would never be.

"Hey, is that beacon working?" Jule asked after some time. I looked back to the busted beacon inside the glass windows. Jule had told me that it hasn't been on since forever.

I edged away from the Lighthouse's ledge and picked myself up. "I don't know," I said, loitering by the glass windows. "Why does the City need a beacon anyway?"

"Maybe there are souls that need to go home," Jule said, sliding the windows open. How she even found the entrance was something I wouldn't want to comprehend. "That's what beacons are for, right?"

I knitted my eyebrows, following her to the space she cracked open. That sentence was the most Jule thing that I observed in a while. It's like catching a glimpse of a person I once knew in a stranger.

It's amazing and sad at the same time, knowing that the person you once knew wasn't the one in front of you.

Jule ducked inside. Dust blossomed in tiny clouds as she landed on the room with both feet. How dust even accumulated here with the reset happening was another thing I wouldn't care thinking about.

Jule coughed, waving her hands in front of her face like she always does. It's sort of her habit but I'm not so sure about that, not when I'm doing the same to avoid inhaling the dust that scattered in the air.

"Damn, it's so musty here," Jule complained.

"Hey, you're the one who got an idea to go up here," I said. "Don't complain."

Jule looked back at me, a surprised look etched in her face. "Oh, you're still here," she said, her voice carrying some form of disappointment and shock. "I thought you'd run back down. Do you know how to operate this?"

"Beats me," I said, rolling my eyes. "I was a mariner before."

"Really?"

"No."

Jule pouted. "Sucks," she said. "I guess I have to do everything on my own like I always do."

I nodded uncertainly as she crouched and patted the ground for something, muttering to herself about electrical wires and generators. How she knew those terms was also beyond me. Instead, I watched her work, her hands deftly working on the beacon's base. She knew what she was doing. Was she an electrician some time ago that I didn't know of? Did she forget to tell me about this hidden talent?

"Do you feel like you're doing things all on your own?" I asked instead, circling the beacon, careful of not disrupting any wires she had been pulling towards her.

Jule paused, a handful of wires in her grip. "Why?"

"Because you just said so," I pointed out. "You said you had to do stuff on your own like you used to. That implies that you have been on your own, right?"

I leaned against a slab of metal filled with different colored switches, levers, and dusty glass-plated screens that turned dark a long time ago.

Jule chuckled without humor. "Yeah, I do everything on my own," she said, busying herself with the beacon, no doubt to avoid looking at me. She seems to hate me seeing her vulnerable. "My parents are gone."

"I'm sorry about that," I said genuinely. I never knew she had no parents and she purposefully skirted around the topic whenever we came so close into discussing.

"No siblings either?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

Jule grinned at me, her teeth faintly white against the darkness in the Lighthouse. "The one and only."

I almost choked with my own saliva with that reply. Oh, God. It's the same reply as she did back then. That means...

That means the Jule I know was still in there. I have to bring her out, though I don't have an inkling how.

"How does that feel for you?" I asked, hoping I would get to make her think of her emotions. That's one step closer to being human, right? That's what she did to me.

Jule didn't reply for a while, grunting as she tugged at something from the inside of the beacon. Her arm vanished inside the beacon's body as she squished her face in concentration, rummaging around for something.

I was about to suggest another topic when she said quietly, "It feels lonely sometimes."

It's close to a whisper that I almost didn't catch it. Thank heavens I did. I swallowed against the dryness in my throat. "Don't you feel like life is all too predictable?" I asked, remembering every question Jule bothered to ask me. "Do you feel like you're inside a loop?"

Jule stood up with a sigh through her nose. "No, I don't even know how to predict lives," she said, facing me. "Besides, I won't know I'm on a loop unless I see the reset, right?"

"No, you won't realize you're in a loop unless you remember," I countered. "That's what I need you to do right now."

Jule pushed past me and trudged to the other side of the room where a lever sat undisturbed. She wrapped her hands around the handle. "What makes you think your life will be any easier if I start to remember?" she said. "Why are you even trying?"

"Because I need to know what you have to say to me," I said, even though my throat had been trying to eat my words out of my mouth. "I need to hear it because I didn't take the chance last time."

Jule smirked at me. "Well, no wonder you're desperate," she answered, her voice thick with Jule-like amusement. "You've been an ass to me before."

That felt like a punch in the gut but I nodded. "Yes, I've been an ass," I said. "And I want the Jule I know to forgive me."

"I am Jule," she replied. "What makes me any different?"

I opened my mouth to reply but stopped myself. This was exactly what Jule was crying about before. Back when I couldn't remember anything from the past, Jule met me every time and treated me like I was still the same. She never held it against me if I couldn't remember.

The only time she did was when I made a promise I couldn't keep. I guess she liked promises being kept. She didn't like being led on. Well, who would?

As far as I recall, she was breaking a promise right now too. She promised she would always come to me. She wasn't doing it especially with her like this.

I decided not to hold it against her. If this was anyone's fault, it's mine. I should have stayed. I should have heard her out instead of cutting her off and pushing my own hurt feelings.

Was that human of us as well? I don't know.

I raised my eyes to Jule still loitering by the lever. She wasn't saying anything nor did she look like she wanted to.

"I'm sorry," I blurted. "I'm so sorry for everything, Jule."

Jule regarded me in the darkness. Her eyes almost looked entirely black. I stepped closer so that I didn't have to shout all my mistakes.

"I'm sorry for not hearing you out that day," I continued in my normal voice. "I'm sorry for being an ass. I'm sorry for leaving you on your own. I'm sorry I didn't stay. I'm sorry you had to go through all that because of me."

Jule smiled as she pulled the lever. Light flooded the whole space, stinging my eyes. Even partially blind as my eyes adjusted, I found myself drawing closer to her, my legs seemingly having ideas of their own.

I paused when there's only a foot between us. She stared up at me, our difference in height glaring at me.

"I'm sorry you felt like you had to throw every memory of us together because of what I did," I finished. "I want you back, Jule. Maybe you can explain to me why it had to be this way."

Jule's eyes flicked to mine and I saw the same flecks that made her the Jule I knew. She's...

"You know, you have beautiful eyes," Jule whispered. "Did anybody tell you that?"

I shook my head even though my heart skipped and fluttered like crazy. "Stop changing the subject," I said, my voice clipped.

"I'm not changing the subject," Jule said, her voice dropping lower. "It's just that I know I'm not in any position to say anything to that apology because as you say, I'm not 'your' Jule."

"I know," I said, sighing. "But the Jule I know didn't treat me differently when I couldn't remember her. She knew well enough to keep trying, no matter how bleak the circumstances were. I'm just trying to imitate her, you know."

Jule smiled. She was searching my face for something she wanted to find. "I didn't know I could make such a difference," she said.

"You did," I said, stepping closer to her. I found myself wanting to reach out and hold her once more. "You changed my world like crazy, Jule."

Jule regarded the light. "What do you think?" she said. "As long as we don't kill this light, we'll be the last light to go off. Do you think the reset will happen?"

I laughed. "We couldn't change anything that great," I said, tears almost escaping my eyes at the sight of Jule being her adventurous self. Could I deceive myself into thinking that she's back? That she's herself again?

This time, Jule closed what little distance there was between us, startling the heavens out of me. My heart pounded in my ears. It's taking up everything in me to not bolt away, screaming. She stared up at me, her eyes reflecting the million stars winking at us from the vast sky outside.

What did Jule say to me about the stars? They remind her to dream. Well, I came up with my own definition of the stars just now.

Stars were like this beacon shining ahead of us. They guide me home. They always have.

I inhaled loudly just as Jule stepped closer, enough for our chests to touch. "It doesn't hurt to try, right?" she said, her voice really a whisper now.

I was confused for a second if she meant prolonging the time for the reset or something else entirely. I found myself saying, "Yeah, we won't lose anything by trying."

Jule's eyelids drooped. She smiled lazily. "We only gain something," she whispered.

All control left my body and I felt myself tilting my head and bringing it closer to Jule's. I felt her breath on my lips, her warmth in my bones. The only thing left to do now was to let myself go.

The light of the beacon shining throughout the City burned through my eyelids. My eyes flew open. I stared up at the familiar blue ceiling.