"Are you okay?"

I raise my head to pulsing music and green once more. Amy stares at me, her eyebrows raised as she waits for a response.

"Why does everybody keep asking that?" I grumble. Her last words to me have settled like bricks in my stomach. Love is a trap. It hurts. It's just another name for melancholy, sadness, betrayal, and hopelessness all rolled into one and packaged with a nice bow. But that doesn't make it any prettier.

Amy nods. "Rough night already?"

"Something like that." I heave a giant sigh. "You know those scary-ass sinks with the thing in the drain that can chop your fingers off?"

"The ones that have a light switch over the counter that you always use to try to turn on the lights, but instead you have to go change your pants because the drain is louder than your worst nightmare?"

"Yeah." I grimace. "I'm in the drain. Like not just the fingers. The whole way."

"So, something strong then," she translates.

"Um, maybe not," I stop her halfway. "That didn't work so well for me last time."

"Well," she says with a rueful smile, "at least you're learning something."

I eye her as she heads back down the bar. Why did she say that like I'm supposed to be learning something from all this? Like it's all some big plot and the climax is taking way too long to reach?

Every time, I wake up at the bar. Live roughly half a day, transport to the future to live half of another day, and then pass out at the bar.

Pass out at the bar.

Wake up at the bar.

I crane my neck to look up at the ceiling, like it might hold answers. What if this place is some kind of space-time anomaly? Like maybe it's sitting on the edge of a wormhole and if you get drunk enough to pass out, you might accidentally fall through?

Or what if Amy keeps sending me back? Maybe she's a witch. Maybe she's the one who can time travel. Maybe she's a superhero.

Why does that outrageous possibility make me so depressed all of a sudden?

The superhero never gets the girl.

I blink.

Amy comes back around. "Do you want anything?" she asks, a dimple forming as one corner of her mouth pulls up. "I wouldn't even give you a hard time about asking for water on St. Patty's Day."

"That would be new," I comment, remembering her judgment the first time I'd asked for just that.

"Are you saying I'm judgmental?" She's frowning now, but the tiny crinkles forming by her upturned eyes give her away.

"Maybe," I hedge. I want to smile, but after everything I just can't fight the gravity anymore. I've ruined Nessa's perfect day four times now. I've made everyone want to kill me at some point. I chained Cam to this town for the rest of his life with a kid that wasn't his and a wife he didn't love. I gave Connor a ten-ton secret to carry on his shoulders for every day of his married life, and I know he would've kept that secret for the same reason I would have. We both love Nessa. Too much.

And with that, I remember what Amy said last night. Today? Last cycle? Right before I fell asleep at her bar the last time.

"Love is a prison."

I don't realize I've said the words out loud until Amy's eyebrows shoot up past her hairline. "Who told you that?" she asks with heavy skepticism.

"It's a long story," I sigh.

She props one elbow on the bar and rests her chin on her fist. "I've got all the time in the world."

I narrow my eyes. That's a funny way to phrase it. Is it supposed to have a double meaning? Is she dropping hints that she's been the one torturing me this whole time?

"Are you—?"

"Can a man not get good service these days?" someone shouts from the other end of the bar.

Amy rolls her eyes and slips away.

And then someone speaks up behind me. "Excuse me, is this seat taken?"

Well, that's predictable. I'm never going to get through this night without talking to Connor, am I?

Although this time, I'm not dreading it because I hate him. I'm just so exhausted. I'm done. I'm tired of making decisions, because somehow or other they always seem to mess up everyone's lives.

I just shrug, my energy spent from fighting the inevitable for so long.

"Let me guess," I say tonelessly as he sits down beside me. "You got stood up, so you came over to the only single girl in the room in hopes of salvaging your night."

"Well, you get one point for the 'stood up' part," he allows, "but I actually came over because you were eyeing the bartender and I wanted to tell you that your armpits are a little gross?"

I glance at the graying fabric before his words really penetrate my skull. When they do, my head snaps up. "I'm not eyeing her," I defend myself.

Against what?

Connor seems to have the same opinion. "I didn't mean it like a bad thing." He shakes his head. "Well the armpits I meant kind of like a bad thing, but not the part about checking out the bartender."

I slowly sit back, carefully looking anywhere but at either of them. I know it's not a bad thing. Given my single-minded obsession with his wife, it might even be a good thing. But it still feels like a betrayal to Nessa somehow. Like the years of love and the special place that she has in my heart mean nothing. And if it means nothing to her, it can never mean anything to anyone.

"It's not fair to her," I finally mutter.

"What?" he says, leaning closer.

"It's just...." A tiny seed of jealousy tickles my heart, reminding me who my conversation partner is. I still love Nessa. He still stole her heart. But maybe that makes him the perfect person to understand, because she stole his, too.

"There's this girl," I venture, walking on verbal eggshells. "But she keeps...going back to the same guy."

He frowns, but it's somehow encouraging, and I continue.

"I've tried everything, but he always ends up taking her."

"Sounds like a douche."

I laugh so loudly that a few of the other patrons turn to stare. "You have no idea," I tell him dryly, but the words lack the bite I would usually put behind them.

He sobers, biting softly at his lip. "Is he bad for her?"

I stare at him, at his earnest attentiveness. He's not pushy at all. He came here for a date, and I'm sure he had certain expectations, but he doesn't seem bothered by spending the night listening to girl problems instead.

"No," I finally say. "But he's not...."

"He's not you."

I bow my head, embarrassed. "It's so selfish when you put it like that."

"No," he says quickly. "It's not selfish, nothing about love is selfish. It's so complicated and uniquely painful that if we were really selfish, I think we'd choose not to feel it at all."

I look up from under my eyelashes, wary.

"If we had a choice," he adds, then straightens. "Tell me about her."

"Well." I take a deep breath; where do I even begin? "She has hair like fire. And it's really unruly. Sometimes when she gets up in the morning, it kind of looks like a lion had an accident with a blowdryer, but she's really self-conscious about it so I tell her she looks great. Which is the truth, I'm not lying."

Connor smiles.

"And she cares. A lot. Maybe too much, sometimes. But if you're her friend and you need her, you're the most important person in the world to her."

"She sounds amazing," he comments with a small smile.

I frown at his reaction. The "no" that snaps across my mind is a knee-jerk reaction. He's not allowed to even go there.

"I mean, she's okay," I fudge, downplaying it.

He has the nerve to laugh, and for a second I see exactly what she does in him: That dimple, the smile lines around his eyes, the seemingly effortless grace of the curve in his lips. Damn these conventionally attractive dudes with just-crooked-enough smiles.

I suppose there is a reason we slept together, after all.

"She sounds better than okay," he says.

"Okay, well let's forget about that, because this story isn't about you and her, it's about me and her," I assert.

"It sounds like the story is just about you."

My eyes widen. "Excuse me?"

"Well...." He pauses, squinting at the wall of liquor behind the bar. Amy gives us the side-eye as she polishes an already-clean glass. "How well does she really know you?"

"What do you mean?!" I exclaim. "We're best friends! We've met each other's parents, she knows I eat jelly beans late at night even though I get sugar overload and can't sleep, she knows I get drunk after like one shot—"

"Okay," he interrupts calmly. "Does she even know you're—"

He pinches his mouth shut, watching me glare at him. For the first time, I see trepidation in his eyes, and I almost feel bad.

"—not straight?" he finally finishes.

My jaw falls open, and in the short silence I hear a soft cough from behind the bar. "I don't see how that's any of your business!"

He blinks. "You just made it my business with that story," he points out. "Or were you not asking for advice? I'm just saying, if in five years she marries some douchebag...who are you going to blame?"

He has a point. I hate it, but he does.

"Look, I'm not going to pretend I know what kind of confidence it takes to go up to someone and tell them something like that, not knowing how they're gonna react. And I'm not trying to say you should've done anything differently, but if it's really that special, it should be easier than that, right?"

"That's starting to sound dangerously close to soulmates," I comment.

He squints at me. "You don't believe in soulmates?"

My eyes cut to Amy, who is keeping herself busy with other customers. "No."

He seems to accept my answer, even if he doesn't agree. Then he shrugs. "You know the ending doesn't have to look like what you imagined to be a happy one, right?"

I try to smile, but my mouth is made of stone. Connor stands up.

"Anyway," he says, glancing around at the partygoers like a foreigner away from home for the first time. "I don't want to take up your whole night, just wanted to say you're not the only lonely soul in here." He gives Amy a goodbye nod and turns his eyes back to me. "Good luck."

Amy leans against the bar across from me. "So, a girl, huh?"

I glance at her. She doesn't look surprised. Once again, suspicion narrows my eyes. She's just a little too at ease, a little too detached, a little too different than the previous iterations. It doesn't matter whether time is contiguous or not, every time I see her we seem a little bit closer. She should still be a stranger. Tonight should be like starting all over again, just like it was with Connor. But it doesn't feel that way.

"What are you doing to me?" I ask.

She raises her eyebrows. "I wasn't aware I was doing anything to you. Do you want me to?"

I stand up abruptly. I can't answer that question. It's more loaded than the baked potatoes at the local steakhouse.

If I say yes, where does that leave Nessa? All those feelings, just gone? Worthless? For years I've thought I'd never feel for anyone what I felt for her, and proving otherwise just proves the fleeting quality of any love.

And if it doesn't erase those things, if it's just a distraction, then that makes Amy just another meaningless night of fun.

That doesn't seem right, either.

"I'm sorry," I stammer. "I have to go."

And then I bolt, just like I bolted out of Nessa's wedding.