"So, do we really need to climb up here?" Rom asked, the wind shuffling his hair off his face. "Not gonna lie, this is stunning, but why do we even need to climb those stairs? My legs feel like jelly."

I leaned on the trellis surrounding the deck of the Lighthouse, making it creak. "I just like the view," I said. "It makes me feel...free."

We were currently at the top of the Lighthouse, overlooking the whole of the City. I sometimes go up here when I'm down. The fresh air always helps me clear my head. I could see my house from here.

The Lighthouse was only a few block's walk from the Campus. It's a bit far and the stairs were killer, but it's all worth it.

The Lighthouse was a vertical tower that didn't work. I've never seen it light up during the night, or maybe that's just because the loop won't even let it. It's just sort of here, alone among the low-lying structures around it. The only thing that probably rivaled it was the Condominium that stood a distance due north-east.

Coming here made me feel like I was in control, like the world couldn't do anything to me. Seeing things from a different perspective had put me in a place where I could freely say that anything was possible and I could make the impossible possible. Seeing things from the top gave me the strength to push forward and go on with my life.

The roof deck didn't look like much, just a ledge fitted with a trellis and went around the tower's body. It's accessible through the window. Further inside the window was a beacon that remained dark. Why the City even needed a beacon was a reason beyond me.

Rom joined me on the trellis, his flannel flying backwards, revealing more of his maroon undershirt. "So continuing where we left off?" he said, turning to me with those warm eyes of his.

I nodded, glad that I wore the hoodie and not the dress so it's not another thing to be uncomfortable about. "Like I said before," I replied. "We are living in a loop. As soon as the lights turn off, everything resets. A new day begins and everything that happened yesterday would happen again, unless I do something about it."

"Alright, alright," Rom said, waving his hands in a time-out gesture. "Assuming I'm supposed to humor you and go along with it, you're saying that you're special and somehow you can change how a day goes?"

"I'm already changing how yours goes," I said. "Of course, those that are supposed to see you today will wonder where you were. Everyone you interact with today, their lives will all change because I pulled you out of it. Their lives will change other people's lives. Other people's lives will change because of other people. It's a string of events."

I faced Rom, grateful for my hat for keeping my hair off my face and for my glasses for giving me some sort of shield from Rom's scrutinizing gaze. "And all of that," I said. "All those changes get reset as soon as the lights around here go out."

"So what does a normal day look like?" Rom asked.

I knitted my eyebrows. "That's...a very valid question," I said, thinking about it.

Yeah, what does a normal day look like? Was it when I'm not interacting with anybody? Was I supposed to not interact at all? Every move I make changes something, making the day already different from yesterday. So does that make me...an errant?

"I don't know the answer to that question, honestly," I admitted. "But the main reason I want to talk to you is because of another fact."

"Which is?"

"No one remembers anything that happened yesterday," I said. "Any change I do, any interactions I make during the day gets erased from everyone's memories. Like you. I've talked to you hundreds of times yet even now, you don't remember me."

Rom scratched his temple. "Humor me on this one," he said. "How can I know that you've talked to me before?"

I sighed. "You have a sister named Mindy. She goes to that Primary School over there," I said, pointing in the direction of my house and ultimately, the Primary School. "Your brothers, Chris and Fisher, don't want to see you anywhere near their school. You love ice cream. You think you can't raise children on your own. You love that stupid game Travis plays."

"Travis?" Rom said. "Hey, Fortress and Strife isn't that bad."

"Trust me, it is," I said, rolling my eyes. "Or it will be after a hundred days of having the same quests and the same method of deaths."

Rom hung up his hands. "Alright, I concede," he said. "So, you're saying I should just believe you?"

"To help me figure out how to get out of the loop, yes," I said, bracing one hand on the trellis as I faced Rom fully. "I'm gonna have to ask you to remember."

"Remember?" Rom asked.

"It has something to do with memory," I said. "And before you ask me, a memory is something from your past that you still know until now."

Rom sighed. "This is too much information but I want to know more," he said. "Is that normal?"

A smile played at the corner of my lips. "No," I replied. "Shall we go on?"

"So what's yesterday? Do you know more of those terms you keep saying?" Rom said.

"You drive a hard bargain, I'll tell you that," I said, winking.

I turned to lean against the trellis again, the metal beam digging against my chest. My eyes scanned the haze of building roofs and the small patches of green plants. "Yesterday is all the things that happened in our memory. Today is our reality. And tomorrow..."

I looked at Rom again to find him staring right back at me. "Tomorrow is hope."

We stared at each other for quite some time. Then Rom broke into a laugh. "You are quite the poet," he said. "It doesn't explain much but somehow, I want to know what it feels like."

I cracked a smile. "You can feel reality right now," I said, gesturing over the landscape of the City. "That's why I brought you here. This is a nice change of perspective, no?"

"Yeah," Rom sighed. "Do you often go up here?"

My grin didn't fade from my lips. "How'd you know?" I asked. "Lucky guess?"

Rom shook his head. "It must be lonely, right?" he asked. "There's nothing really new going on around here for you."

"Yes, it's lonely at times," I said, turning my face away from his gaze. I don't want him to see me like this. It's...not good.

"Is that why you need me?" Rom asked.

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Why me?"

The question struck my heart like a stick hitting a triangle. Not only a stringent note escaped my chest, the reverberations sent chills down my arms. It's not because I was surprised at the question itself, but because I never expected it to come out of Rom himself.

Now that I think about it, the same question leaped out at me.

Why him?

I glanced at him from my periphery, keeping my stance with the trellis. "It's the same thing as asking why I was the only one who remembers," I said. "Why you? Why me?"

I tensed when I felt Rom sidling closer to me along the trellis. Soon, I found myself standing shoulder to shoulder with him, with only a hairbreadth distance between.

Rom had his hands folded with each other as he used his elbows to lean against the trellis. I still had mine tucked by my chest. The last of my statement escaped my lips as a whisper.

"Why us?"

Rom smiled, sending my heart fluttering inside my chest for some unknown reasons. It seemed to do that whenever I saw him smile. "I admit, this is better than sitting through a Physics lecture."

I snorted. "Now you say that?" I said, my voice thick with amusement. "Earlier today you don't even want to go with me."

"That's because I didn't know you before," Rom said.

I raised an eyebrow. "And you know me now?"

Rom inclined his head at me. "I do," he said, his eyes growing soft..

My heart did that flip again that it's becoming annoying. "Look down," I said. "What do you feel?"

I dipped my head down, leaning all my weight on the trellis. It groaned, the rust coating some parts gaping at me like my doom.

The ground had never felt so far from here. By God, it's a long drop. If I were to plummet to my death, I would probably slam into the hard concrete near the Lighthouse's entrance. I dipped myself further, laughing at how my knees began shaking.

"Damn, that's scary," Rom said, edging away from the ledge and pressing himself against the glass windows behind us. "Stop that. You might fall."

I leaned away from the trellis and faced Rom. "But it's fun, right? Falling is fun."

"But once you slam into the bottom, it's not," Rom replied.

I smiled as I relaxed my back on the trellis, using my ankles to anchor my body. "Would you rather fall with me?"

Rom grinned. "No," he said. "I'd rather live."

I laughed. He joined not long after.

"That's not even a joke," I spat out, my laugh anything but gentle. "Why are we laughing?"

I sank to the floor, my laughs racking my chest and my shoulders. I couldn't breathe. Oh, it felt good to just laugh like this. For a brief moment, I forgot about the world, the loop, the reset. I forgot that one misstep and I would fall to the ground.

"I don't know," Rom answered, his own voice muffled by laughter.

At this moment, I could only think of myself, laughing like no one's business at something that's not even remotely funny and Rom, laughing along with me. We calmed down just enough to look at each other's eyes only to burst out laughing again.

Soon, my stomach hurt from laughing, my jaw felt like it's about to fall off. I wiped tears that sprang from my eyes and sniffed. I haven't felt like this for so long. It's like someone removed a great weight off my shoulders.

I hope Rom felt the same way.

Through my blurry vision, I tried peering at Rom. He was sitting with his back against the glass window, one of his legs lying straight out, the other folded to his chest. He mussed his hair, shielding my view of his eyes. Did something change?

"God, what was that?" Rom breathed, resting his head against the glass. Hints of amusement still thick in his voice.

"You tell me, you're the one laughing with all your might," I said, tucking a few loose strands of hair behind my ear.

Rom looked at me mockingly. "Last I checked, it's you."

I waved my hand in front of my face. "Whatever," I said, grunting.

"So you concede?" Rom asked.

"Why do I need to concede?" I asked, knitting my eyebrows before shaking my head. "We were equally laughing like crazy. Happy now?"

Rom shrugged. "Forget it," he said before taking it back. "I mean, not literally."

I snorted again. "Who knows? You'll forget about this eventually," I said, twirling a finger by my ear. "Reset, remember?"

"Is there some way?" Rom asked.

I rested my head against the rails of the trellis. "A way to what?"

"To remember."

I chuckled softly. "If I knew it, I would have done it to everyone I meet," I said. "It wouldn't be this bad if I knew how to make someone remember or if I knew how to make memories with someone."

"Isn't this a memory already?" Rom said, gesturing vaguely at his surroundings.

I shrugged. "That entirely depends on you," I said, matter-of-factly. "It all depends on whether you can remember it after the reset and carry it towards tomorrow."

"Will you come and find me tomorrow?" Rom said. "In case I forget again?"

I smiled at him. "I'll always come and find you," I said. "I need you, right?"

Rom cocked his head to one side. "Yeah, how could I forget? It's not even the time for the reset yet."

"You learn fast," I noted.

"There, you just learned one more thing about me," Rom chuckled. "I'm starving. Care for some lunch?"

I hauled myself up, slapping the trellis in an off-beat pattern. "Hell yeah."

We exited the Lighthouse with my heart feeling like it's going to burst. After days of trying in vain to get this moment to happen, now that it's finally happening, it somehow felt...unreal. Was this a dream that I'll wake up from eventually? Was this just a wishful desire?

What if I jump into this and fall completely only to realize there's no one to catch me at the end? What then?

"When you're up there," Rom suddenly said, our footsteps synchronizing as we tackled the streets leading to the Restaurant. "Do you feel fear?"

"No. What is fear?" I said, jokingly.

Rom shrugged. "It's the feeling of anxiety and as if you're in danger," he said. "Isn't it?"

My mouth flapped open and closed. I whirled to him, my eyes wide. Did he just...?

I swallowed my surprise to avoid it from showing in my face. Instead, I wrinkled my nose and chuckled. "Yeah, pretty much," I said. "All I felt in that Lighthouse is freedom. How about you? Did you feel fear?"

Rom looked at me. "Yes," he said, making me choke on my saliva, quietly, of course. "I felt like my heart's going to come out of my mouth. My knees shook like crazy and I wasn't even afraid of heights."

I cleared my throat. "That must have felt shocking, right?"

Rom didn't reply. We reached the Restaurant that smelled like the Lawsons' evening lasagna and went inside. Without a word, we ate our lunch.

In the midst of silence between Rom and I, my mind whirled with more questions that I never dared try to find answers to.

Rom just admitted that he felt something when days ago he didn't even know what love was. I raised my fork to my mouth, biting on the juicy steak stuck in it. What did I do to warrant this change? What should I continue doing?

What in the world would this encounter teach me?