The clock stopped at 3:17 p.m.
At first, Mara didn’t notice. The café still smelled of burnt espresso and rain-soaked coats. The barista’s hand hovered mid-pour, a ribbon of coffee frozen in the air like a dark silk thread. Outside the window, a pigeon hung above the sidewalk, wings spread in an impossible stillness.
Time had locked itself in place.
Only the clock had moved—its second hand jerking once, then stalling. The old brass wall clock had been there forever, its face cracked like a spiderweb. Mara had always found it comforting. Reliable. Until now.
A minute, she would later learn. One minute of stopped time.
One minute of regret.
Her breath came out too loud in the silence. She stood, chair scraping against nothing, heart pounding as if it could push the world back into motion by force alone.
“What’s happening?” she whispered.
The clock answered.
Not with sound, but with memory.
The café dissolved.
She was seventeen again, standing in a hospital hallway that smelled of antiseptic and fear. The fluorescent lights flickered overhead. Her phone buzzed in her hand—five missed calls, all from Dad.
She had ignored them then, too angry to answer. Too sure she had time.
The memory sharpened painfully, more vivid than any dream.
Her father sat alone in a plastic chair, hands clasped, shoulders folded inward as though trying to disappear. When he looked up and saw her, relief flooded his face—then something broke.
“You’re late,” he said softly.
“I didn’t think it mattered,” Mara snapped, words sharp with teenage certainty. “You said it was just a test.”
He nodded, eyes wet. “I wanted you here anyway.”
She remembered rolling her eyes. Remembered checking the time. Remembered thinking I’ll make it up to him later.
Later never came.
The doctor’s voice followed—measured, careful, devastating. One hour later, her father was gone. A stroke. Sudden. No warning. No goodbye.
No forgiveness.
The memory had followed her for years, surfacing in quiet moments, in dreams she woke from gasping. But she had never allowed herself to stay with it. Never allowed herself to feel the full weight of what she had done.
Until now.
The clock appeared again, hovering in the air between moments. Its cracked face gleamed. The second hand trembled, as if impatient.
A whisper filled the space.
You still carry this.
Mara’s knees buckled. “I know,” she said, tears spilling freely now. “I know I was wrong.”
The world around her shifted again.
Now she stood in her apartment, months earlier. Her phone lay on the table, lighting up with a name she hadn’t answered in years.
LENA
Her younger sister.
They had stopped speaking after the funeral. Blame had moved like a poison between them—unspoken, heavy. Lena had accused her of not caring enough. Mara had accused Lena of not understanding.
Neither had ever apologized.
The phone stopped ringing.
Mara reached for it now, though she knew this was only memory. “I should have answered,” she whispered. “I was afraid. If I talked to her, I’d have to admit I failed him.”
The clock pulsed.
Regret is not punishment, the whisper said. It is a door.
The second hand ticked.
Once.
Mara gasped. “Please,” she said. “I don’t want to be this person anymore.”
The truth surfaced then—not as pain, but as clarity.
She hadn’t avoided Lena because of anger.
She had avoided her because forgiving herself felt impossible.
The clock’s face began to fracture further, light spilling through the cracks.
What will you do with what you know?
The café rushed back in all at once.
Sound crashed over her—cups clinking, voices overlapping, the barista swearing as coffee splashed onto the counter. Outside, the pigeon completed its descent, pecking the ground as if nothing strange had happened.
The clock ticked.
3:18 p.m.
Mara stood shaking, tears streaking her face. No one seemed to notice. To the world, nothing had changed.
But everything had.
Her hands moved before fear could stop them. She pulled out her phone and scrolled, heart hammering, until she found the number she hadn’t deleted but never dared to use.
Lena.
She pressed Call.
It rang once.
Twice.
“Mara?” Lena’s voice was cautious, fragile.
“I’m sorry,” Mara said, the words breaking open her chest. “I should have been there. I should have answered. I miss you. I miss him.”
Silence.
Then a shaky breath. “I miss him too.”
Mara closed her eyes, grief and relief twisting together. For the first time, the weight she carried felt shared.
Outside, the rain began again—soft, steady, alive.
The clock on the wall kept ticking, imperfect but moving forward.
And so did she.
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