When he saw the relationship timer appear above Julie’s head, Cal almost started to cry. He’d really hoped she was the one. While he knew the concept of “the one” was a romantic fallacy created by pop culture, deep down, he’d still hoped.
Everything had seemed perfect. They both liked hiking. They were compatible, sexually. Even the way they met was a meet-cute. While at a Brooklyn coffee shop, they’d both ordered an oat milk latte, and Cal had accidentally grabbed Julie’s. When he realized his mistake, he noticed she was holding the same novella he had in his shoulder bag: This is How You Lose the Time War. Coffees forgotten; they spent the next hour raving about it.
Now, three months later, here was the timer counting down to the end of their relationship. For some reason, they only had 1 month, 3 days, 5 hours, and 27 seconds left. 26 seconds. 25. 24. 23.
Cal forced himself to stop counting.
“Something wrong?” Julie asked.
He shook his head.
Julie smiled. “You sure? You look like you just saw Hannibal Lecter pop by with a can of fava beans. Something you need to tell me?”
Floating a few inches above Julie’s head, the relationship timer emitted a fiery orange and white glow. Behind translucent glass, its clock face looked like a cat’s eye, the hands curved like claws. Beneath the clock were semi-transparent labels for months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds, counting down, always counting, counting, counting.
Only Cal could see it. He’d gotten quite good at pretending not to, over the years.
They were sitting in the same coffee shop where they’d met. Spoons and glasses clinked around them. The air smelled of ground beans and fresh pastries. Julie had been reading the latest issue of Vanity Fair, a half-eaten pain au chocolat on her plate. Cal had been sketching ideas for his new sculpting project while enjoying what Julie called a “basic-bitch special”—pumpkin-spiced latte with a glazed donut.
Vanity Fair forgotten, Julie watched him with concern.
“Sorry,” Cal said, “I was drawing concepts for my new commission. I’m trying to capture the idea of change—how all change, even decay, can be beautiful. Guess it reminded me of tough times.”
It was the first time he’d lied to her. It felt like shit.
“Your idea sounds interesting, at least,” Julie said. “One of these days, you’ll have to let me see your workshop.”
Cal’s workshop took up half his loft. He’d never let anyone see it; it felt too personal, like letting someone read your diary, even the gross bits.
“You okay?” Julie asked. “You look a million miles away.”
“Yeah,” Cal said. He forced a smile. “Just lost in old memories.”
She nodded and went back to her magazine. Above her head, the relationship timer continued to tick down, illuminating her in stripes of orange and white.
###
The first relationship timer appeared not long after his parents’ divorce. Cal had just started at NYU. He was still dating his high school sweetheart, Susan. They’d grown up together, tormenting each other in grade school, teasing one another in middle school, and giving in to the inevitable and hooking up in high school. In a new environment, his family blown apart, Cal became a little clingy.
When he saw the glowing stopwatch over Suz’s head, his first thought was that he needed get on meds. Cal had always lived between two worlds, the pretend and the real. With his art, he’d learned to thrive there. Yet no matter what he tried—drugs, drinking, even meditation—the timer stayed put, slowly ticking down.
Cal finally asked Suz if anything was wrong. He remembered how she smiled. Almost sadly, as if she already knew. But she said everything was fine, and he’d believed her.
“We need to talk.”
Those were her words a few weeks later, right at the 0:00 mark. The timer had appeared over four other women after that, always someone Cal had strong feelings for. Even if he’d wanted to prove the damn thing wrong, he wasn’t willing to break up with someone he loved.
Cal believed if he tried hard enough, he could make the relationship timer disappear. This just made it a self-fulfilling prophecy. He’d get too intense, and they’d pull away. Even if he switched back to acting normal, when it reached zero, it would be over. No matter how much he loved them, he could never run out the clock.
###
“I lied to my girlfriend for the first time yesterday.”
He had been talking to Dr. Alberts for a few months. The man knew about his relationship timers; he said Cal’s “hyperfocused predictive hallucinations” were fascinating.
“Most people lie a little,” Dr. Alberts said. “Out of kindness, if nothing else.”
“I used to lie all the time when I was a kid,” said Cal. “I’d get in so much trouble.”
“A lot of children go through that phase.”
“Yeah, well, it can’t be good, holding things back from her.”
Dr. Alberts stroked his beard; Cal thought of this as one of his therapist tells.
“We’ve discussed your tendency for black-and-white thinking. It can lead to you judging yourself pretty harshly.”
Cal hated the phrase “black-and-white thinking.” It brought up things from his childhood he tried not to dwell on. “This isn’t about being kind to myself. It’s about a glowing stopwatch that pounces whenever I start to feel happy.”
Dr. Alberts stroked his beard again. “It’s interesting to hear you describe it that way. For most, a stopwatch is just a way of tracking time. You seem to be giving it agency. Could you expand on that?”
“It feels like it’s hiding in the shadows. Like it could spring at any moment. Like a—”
<t***r>
No. Not that. Never that.
“—predator. Like it will tackle me soon as I walk through the front door.”
“So instead of protecting you, the timer is hunting you?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I mean, it’s not even real, right?”
Dr. Alberts stroked his beard twice before responding. “Whether it’s real or not is irrelevant from a practical standpoint.”
“The practical standpoint is that I get dumped.”
“Exactly. You’re a successful creative with a rich inner world, but from what you’ve told me, it’s hard to let others into that world. What do you think would happen if you told your girlfriend about the timer?”
“She’d probably dump me.”
“What if she didn’t? What if she listened to your concerns?”
Cal had always hoped someone would react that way, but he’d never been brave enough to test it out. “You think I could reset the timer?”
Dr. Alberts seemed taken by the metaphor.
“Yes! Tell her what’s happening. She might be more understanding than you think.”
###
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
The restaurant noises—the chatter, clinking glasses, and soft stereo music—all seemed to fade beneath Julie’s glare. Now, all Cal could hear was the blood pounding in his temples.
“I know it sounds crazy, but—”
“Is this some kind of tortured artist thing? Tell me it’s that.”
“No! I’m just trying to explain—”
“Trying to explain why you’re too chickenshit to dump me like a man? That you’d rather fake being nuts than have an adult conversation?”
Beneath the timer’s orange glow, Julie’s eyes gleamed like fire. This was Cal’s nightmare. Before dinner, he’d imagined her face softening as he told her everything. He’d even dared to hope the timer might disappear. Instead, she stared at him like he was a monster. And still, the numbers didn’t move any faster. 1 week, 2 days, 1 hour, 17 minutes.
3 seconds.
Cal knew whatever he said next didn’t matter. He could shout, giggle, even beg for forgiveness. He could say the most awful thing in the world, and Julie still wouldn’t break up with him tonight.
“You know what? I’m sorry. That was weird. Can we just forget I said anything?”
Julie’s face softened. She tentatively took his hand. Sound resumed in the restaurant. It felt like their fellow diners had returned from offstage. This had been a mistake.
All he could do was enjoy the time they had left.
###
Cal had gone all-out for their last date, grilling salmon with a honey glaze and baking asparagus in truffle oil, paring the meal with a bottle of Julie’s favorite chardonnay. When the timer hit zero and nothing happened, he felt a moment of giddy hope.
Then Julie looked up from her plate and said, “Hey, I think we should talk.”
The worst part was that it still hurt.
“I know you took back the crazy shit you said a week ago. I thought I could get past it, but if that’s the kind of man you are, maybe I don’t really know you.”
Cal didn’t try to talk her out of it. No amount of arguing had ever made a difference. A few minutes later, he watched from his loft window as Julie drove off. It was snowing, and she wasn’t the best driver in snow. He thought about texting to make sure she got home all right but realized he’d be doing it for the wrong reasons.
###
“Maybe I’m just destined to be alone,” Cal said to Dr. Alberts. It had been a week since Julie had dumped him.
His therapist paused for a moment, waiting to see if Cal wanted to go on.
“That’s not a very hopeful outlook, is it?”
“Maybe hope is a lie.”
Dr. Alberts steepled his fingers, a new move for him.
“I was wondering if you might be willing to try another approach?” his therapist said. “I’ll admit, your relationship timer is remarkably consistent. The real question is why.”
“You mean, why does it appear like an orange-and-white striped stopwatch?”
Dr. Alberts waved his hand. “It’s symbolic. Consciousness will do that. But that’s not the point. You keep testing the world, but maybe we should question the test.”
Cal found himself intrigued. “What do you mean?”
“There’s a type of therapy I think you in particular might excel at: internal family systems. IFS, for short. It’s where you imagine different aspects of your personality, give them names, appearances, and ask them to talk to you.”
“You want me to, like, Inside Out myself?”
Alberts chuckled. “You know, that movie was actually inspired by this technique. I was hoping you might try it out before our next session. Go on a walk, sit alone in a room, whatever feels right to you. Imagine parts of yourself and talk to them. You have a powerful imagination. I wonder what you’ll find out if you ask.”
Above them, the clock on the wall ticked like a tapping finger. Next to it hung a painting of a pelican staring out over a lake, its shadow rippling over the waves in harsh lines of black and white, almost like stripes. Cal shivered.
###
Winter had come early to Brooklyn that year, the fallen leaves buried beneath heaps of grit-peppered snow. Throughout his walk home, the brownstones and subway grates all vented steam, as if gasping at the sudden drop in temperature.
If Cal was going to try out Dr. Albert’s suggestion, there was only one place he could. Though it had no door, the boundary to Cal’s workshop was clearly marked. Using bungee rigs, he’d hung a wall of tapestries, fantastical creatures in stained glass, and photographs framed in iron. In one half of the loft, Cal was just a normal guy who played video games and read comics. Once he crossed the border, he became someone else.
Cal loved to cross over. He loved the way the light reflected off the glass, creating shifting lines, deep shadows, and paint flecks that glittered like gemstones. His workshop smelled of clay, dried paint, and chalk. It smelled like possibility.
Here, Cal crafted what hipster reviewers called “avant-garde gauche” and “Dalí meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” Here, with fiberglass, clay, wood, and wire, Cal took the stories he’d made up as a child and spun them out for the world to see. Here, perhaps, was the only place safe enough to try out the therapy Dr. Alberts had recommended.
Cal poured himself a bourbon and crossed over. Through the windows, soft afternoon light gleamed off paintbrushes and blocks of sealed clay. Golden dust motes hovered gently over wire rigs and piles of canvas. In the middle of it all, like a long table in mead hall, sat Cal’s oak worktable, covered in fabricating tools and sculpting blades.
He sat at the table, downed the bourbon, and closed his eyes, enjoying the burn. Keeping his eyes shut, Cal tried to picture his personality, what the various parts of him might look like. After a minute, all he saw were swirling shadows. Strange. He could imagine alien planets, haunted mansions, and ravenous monsters, but when it came to himself, he was crawling in the dark. Cal opened his eyes, disappointed. Staring at his tools, he started to wonder if this whole IFS thing had been a waste of time.
From a shaded corner of the workshop, slit-glass eyes gleamed like fire. Cal froze. For a moment, he thought he saw something move. A huge, hulking thing, stalking the shadows
Cal bolted back to the other side of his loft. He placed both hands on the cold metal countertop in his kitchen and took a deep breath. A minute later, his pulse finally slowed. His imagination had been playing tricks, that’s all. Had to be. Cal looked back toward the hanging border. He remembered how the shadow had moved. How it had looked so familiar. Like from when he was a kid, walking through the woods with…
No.
IFS was garbage. He controlled his imagination, not the other way around. If the timer wouldn’t go away, then Cal was done dating. He could live like a hermit if he had to. All he really needed was his art.
###
It was the opposite of meet cute. In fact, it was a common premise in pornography.
It started with a leaky faucet. When Cal tried to fix it, he nearly flooded his kitchen. A call to his agent put him in contact with a local plumber. Cal tried not to look surprised at having a woman knock on the door. Her smirk made him think she still noticed.
Sherinne had a nice smile, but was not his type. Skinny himself, Cal tended to go for what his friends called “waifish Ophelias.” Sherinne was not that. She was curvy and had arms and shoulders bigger than his. Her hair was dark and so thick it couldn’t be fully contained by the tie she used to pull it back. When she shook Cal’s hand, he noticed she had even more calluses than he did. He was a little surprised to be turned on by this.
Sherinne set her large toolbox down on the counter and asked Cal what had happened. Cal told her, ending with, “That’s when I learned that plumbing isn’t a DIY hobby.”
Sherinne guffawed and said, “Goddam right it isn’t.”
Her eyes were murky green and sparkled when she grinned. That was when Cal started to fall for her.
He was in his workshop, deep in the process of fashioning a kit for a new horror movie—a necklace made of wriggling spiders that the director had insisted not be CGI—when her voice brought him out of his reverie.
Shaking himself as if from a nap, Cal turned to her and said, “I’m sorry, what?”
Sherinne removed her mask and goggles. “Like I said, sorry to interrupt, but I’ve finished my inspection. I can fix it, but it’s going to take a week. I gotta demo the plaster. That OK?”
“Sounds like I don’t have much choice.”
She raised her eyebrow. “Listen, it’s not gonna be cheap. If you want to get a second opinion for the job, that’s cool.”
Cal closed his eyes and muttered, “Fuck.”
Then, realizing she was still in the room, he added, “Sorry.”
“I’d be swearing up a shitstorm.”
“Do what you have to,” Cal said. “I can pay.”
“Sounds good.” She surveyed his workshop. On his worktable were severed plastic limbs, fake weapons covered in fake blood, and monsters in various stages of construction.
“You’re not some kind of serial killer, right?”
It was then Cal realized he had a stranger in his workshop. Much to his surprise, he found himself wanting to give her a tour. “Believe it or not, this is my day job. “
“Waitaminute, you’re that guy.”
“That guy?”
“The sculpting dude. The city gives you commissions to do installations in Central Park every Halloween—it’s supposed to be PG-13, but you always go a little further. Your stuff is good. Like it could come alive at any moment.”
“You a horror fan?”
She shrugged. “A little. I’m more into trippy 80s shit like Excalibur or Krull.”
Cal nodded enthusiastically. “Honestly, I’d love to do pieces like that. It’s just… horror pays the bills. My agent calls it my brand.”
“Change your agent’s mind. Or change agents. You get to decide what your brand is.”
###
Everything about it was easy. That’s what shocked Cal the most. Usually, when Cal first met someone, he had to work hard to impress them. With Sherinne, there was none of that. He didn’t have to try to be cool or wow her with his knowledge of the Brooklyn scene. For a while, he almost forgot about the relationship timers.
They’d just finished a Ray Harryhausen marathon and stopped for a beer. Cal had been laughing at a joke Sherinne had cracked about Claymation skeletons moving better than white guys, but then he froze. For a moment, her hair seemed to glow like fire.
No relationship timer appeared. Cal blinked, looked again. He realized that a street-sweeper was slowly driving by outside, its flashing lights bathing Sherinne in orange and white.
“Earth to Cal? I made a joke, and you look like I stabbed you.”
He shook. “What? Oh, uh, sorry.”
“What’s up?” she asked.
He couldn’t lie to her.
“I thought I saw something that wasn’t there,” he said. “It happens sometimes.”
Sherinne nodded. “I bet being an artist opens you up to all kinds of influences.”
“You have no idea,” Cal said. “When I was a kid, I used to make up the craziest stuff. Shrinking rays, clone chambers, even time machines.”
“That’s a badass imagination.”
And that was it. They went back to talking about the movie and sipping beers. Yet those pulsing lights stayed in the back of Cal’s mind. He worried it was only a matter of time before they coalesced into a timer. Unless he could stop it somehow.
###
When he crossed over this time, the shadows beyond the hanging border seemed darker. His beloved tools looked strange and alien. The air inside the workshop felt unusually still, as if something lay in waiting. Since he’d been dating Sherinne, Cal’s output had picked up. He’d taken her into the workshop many times. They’d even made love on one of the tarps. Everything there felt normal; he felt normal—happy.
Now, sitting at his worktable felt like approaching a dragon’s den. No, not a dragon—a
<t**er>
—monster. A huge, hulking beast, larger than a bear, swifter than shadow. A killer with sabretooth fangs who could bring down a woolly mammoth in a single crippling bite.
Cal had poured himself two fingers of whiskey this time. Occasionally, he drank while working, but that was to loosen up. This was different. With the bourbon a burning echo in his throat, Cal pushed the other glass across the worktable toward the waiting shadows.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
This offering is better than tuna fish, at least.
Cal gasped. There was a phrase he’d once heard Dr. Alberts use: “Unlocking a core memory.” He remembered now. This thing had been his best friend. His protector.
“Are you really… him? From when I was a kid?”
There was no response. In his mind’s eye, a giant paw emerged from the shadows, took the whiskey glass, and pulled it into the darkness.
I was your friend, and you abandoned me.
“I had to grow up.”
The shadows parted. IFS had worked a little too well. It didn’t matter if Cal’s eyes were closed or open. The creature was here. In the years since they’d parted, his old friend had grown into a behemoth, with giant fangs gaping from its shadowy maw. Covered in jagged scars, fur fiery and glowing, its muzzle was stained dark red. Cal wondered what kind of prey it hunted.
You tried to forget about me. But I didn’t go away. I couldn’t. So I became something else. If I couldn’t be your playmate, I would be your protector. You need someone to watch out for you. Warn you when the heartbreak is coming.
“What if I don’t want your protection?”
The room seemed to rumble as the thing laughed. Some things are unchangeable.
“Sounds like you’re afraid.”
If I am afraid, so are you. I am you. A part of you, anyway. The gifted part.
“You always had a bit of an ego. Are you where all this”—Cal waved his hand about the workshop— “comes from?”
Pampered work-release visits from a cage of shadows. Like an old, crippled lion napping in a zoo. That’s not freedom. That’s a prisoner being let out to wander the yard. I am so much more than a muse.
“You seem to enjoy our work. I know I do.”
You were always good at visualization. Your inventions, your games. But you could never do what needed to be done. You need me. An inner predator, burning bright.
“Well, I don’t need that kind of protection anymore.”
You want me to go away?
The workshop seemed to grow darker.
“From what I’ve read about IFS, you’re what’s called an exile. Exiles can never be banished. I want you to use your gift for something else. If I release you, you release me.”
Release… you?
“You know what it’s like, to be kept in a cage.”
Because you caged me.
“I won’t do it again. But the timer… there’s more than one type of cage. So how about this? You can come out whenever you like, not just when we’re in the workshop. In return, no more relationship timers.”
We don’t have to listen to you. We have grown stronger. We could break the cage now, make you question whether anything you’re seeing is real.
We could devour you
Cal felt a shiver run down his spine.
“You could try,” he said, more calmly than he felt. “But you won’t.”
You seem very certain of this.
“You could probably induce some kind of psychotic break, but in the end, you’d just be hurting yourself. We are one, you and me. I can’t hurt you anymore than I can hurt myself, and vice versa. But there’s another reason.”
Oh, and what is that?
“You love me. You love me as much as I love you.”
There was a hiss of shocked silence.
You dare—
“Did you realize how lonely I was? How much it hurt? Even growing up…”
You created me after all. I protected, played with you, shared your secrets.
“Tackled me. Teased me.”
Toughened you up. Look at you now. You never would have come so far if not for me.
“Look at me now. Talking to my imaginary childhood friend about a psychic ability that sabotages any chance I have at meaningful human connection.”
A strange sound echoed in the dark corners of the workshop. The hiss of repressed tears. Cal was unsurprised to feel hot droplets trickle down his own cheeks.
“What if I could show you Sherinne was safe?” Cal paused to rub his eyes. “That she wouldn’t hurt us. That you… we were safe with her. Would you stop then?”
STOP TRYING TO MAKE ME LEAVE
Cal closed his eyes, waiting to be torn to shreds. If he attacked, what would the police find? Just his body, untouched, eyes shut in fear? Would they find anything at all?
He felt something sniff his hair. Felt warmth steaming off tendons that could bend steel. Felt the lightest tickle of a whisker as hot breath hissed on his forehead. The workshop reverberated with a roar. Then it was quiet. The quiet before a storm or a judge’s sentence.
If you can show me she is safe and grant me my freedom, I will leave her be.
Cal sensed he was alone in his workshop once more. He opened his eyes. The shadows in the workshop seemed smaller. On his worktable were two whiskey glasses.
Both were empty.
###
“Listen, I’m going to tell you something, but you’re going to think I’m crazy.”
They’d been sitting in his loft, eating spaghetti. Cal had tried to hide his nerves while they cooked, but he could tell Sherinne knew something was up. When they finally sat down to eat, he was so anxious that he was shaking.
“You’d be surprised,” Sherinne said. “I used to run a bio-hazard cleanup business back in Chicago. We had to come in and sterilize rooms after murders, suicides, all kinds of terrible crap. I’ve seen some shit.”
She’d told him a bit about her life before New York. Born and raised in Chicago, a hellion who’d started her own crime-scene cleanup business and sold it when the work got too political. Cal tried to remember that. Tried to tell himself that no matter what he was about to say, Sherinne had seen worse. “All right.”
Cal told her about the timers. He’d thought it would take hours, but he was done in a few minutes. He watched Sherinne closely, terrified she was going to yell at him, call him crazy, accuse him of trying to break up with her.
“You’re not fucking with me, are you?” Sherinne asked. “I’m shit at telling when people are fucking with me, especially if I’m in love with them.”
For a moment, Cal was tempted to say that, yes, he had been fucking with her. He could take it back, claim it was all a joke. Yet he had a promise to keep to an old friend.
“I am not fucking with you.”
She searched his face, then gave a nod and laughed a little.
“God, I’d love to have a power like that.”
For a moment, Cal was too shocked to say anything.
“You really wouldn’t,” he managed weakly.
“If you’re not crazy, you have the best superpower.”
“It’s not a superpower,” Cal muttered.
Sherinne giggled. “Are you kidding me? Everyone’s got relationships they wish they’d avoided. Exes where they learned things, good and bad, about themselves. Those shitty exes you wish you hadn’t poured so much time into. My sister calls them starter boyfriends.”
Cal couldn’t help but laugh.
“But to know ahead of time that’s the case? Oh my god, it’d make things so much easier. You could just enjoy the time you have with them and then move on.”
“I never thought of it that way,” said Cal, feeling oddly lightheaded.
Sherinne took his hand. “Listen, Professor X. People come into our lives for a reason. Everyone teaches us something—if you’re not crazy, and your little superpower is real, then all that means is you know how long the lesson is going to take. That’s wonderful.”
“How are you okay with this? I’m telling you about an active hallucination I’ve had for over a decade.”
For a moment, Sherinne looked worried. “You don’t see it over my head, do you?”
Cal shook his head almost violently. “No.”
“Then there’s nothing to worry about,” she said.
“You don’t think I’m crazy? You’re not going to leave?”
Cal hated himself a little for asking that.
She kissed him lightly. “I don’t think you’re any crazier than anyone else. I can’t promise I’ll never leave. I don’t know the future, and neither do you. But I can promise to always be open with you, to love you, and not to judge you. How’s that sound?”
Tears welled in Cal’s eyes. “Sounds OK to me.”
“All right then, let’s finish dinner.”
Like any secret, once it was out, it seemed smaller. Cal looked back to the shadows of his workshop. He wondered if his old friend was there; he wondered what he might be thinking.
As they were doing the dishes, Sherinne asked, “Hey, do your neighbors have a cat?
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“Oh nothing, thought I heard something; sounded like a big cat purring.”
Cal shrugged and returned to rinsing the glasses. As Sherinne started to dry them, he glanced toward his workshop, gave a slight nod, and smiled.
