Chapter 5 - Love on Autopilot

Chapter 5: Love on Autopilot

By the sixth rewind, Julian didn’t need to think anymore.

He knew which joke would make her laugh. Which drink to order for her before she arrived. When to pause in the song for her favorite line. He could time her glance down to the second.

It had all become choreography.

And he was nailing the routine.

The bartender called him a romantic. The regulars noticed her coming back more often. Even Siena herself said, one evening over a shared dessert, “It feels like we’re finding our rhythm again.”

But Julian didn’t feel it.

Because rhythm is not the same as connection.

He smiled when she expected him to. Laughed when it wouldn’t seem out of place. Tilted his head just enough to seem curious, but not too much—he’d once overdone it and she’d looked away.

He’d learned to correct for everything.

But beneath the perfect delivery was an unbearable silence.

There was a moment—brief, almost imperceptible—where she leaned in during a conversation and placed her hand on his. It should’ve sparked something. A flicker. A rush.

Julian looked down at their hands, watched the gentle press of her fingers over his.

He was still.

Inside, though, a thought echoed loud as thunder: I planned this.

He had rehearsed the angle of his smile. Practiced the softness in his eyes. Rehearsed how he’d squeeze her fingers just once, like reassurance.

So he did.

And it landed.

She smiled.

But the smile struck him like a stone in his chest. Not because it was wrong—but because it was real. Because she believed in this version of him. The curated version. The one he wasn’t sure he believed in anymore.

He turned away slightly, pretending to sip his drink. His throat was dry. The glass trembled in his hand, but not enough for her to notice.

He didn’t want her to notice.

He began to forget.

Little things, at first. The specific words they’d fought over the night she walked out. The color of the scarf she wore the morning after they made up. What song he’d played when she fell asleep on the couch with her head on his shoulder.

He wasn’t losing memory—he was drowning in it.

Versions blurred. Timelines bled into each other. Scenes repeated with different lighting, different laughter. He no longer knew what was theirs and what was his alone.

He opened the notebook. Pages were missing. Others smeared, ink bleeding from rain or time. Some entries overlapped. Handwriting that looked like his—but rushed, fragmented. Whole chunks of himself committed to paper he no longer remembered writing.

Julian wasn’t building a future.

He was looping a highlight reel of the past. And he was starting to hate how well he knew the cuts.

One night, Siena looked at him with a kind of softness that used to undo him.

“You’re not chasing anymore,” she said. “You’re just… here.”

Julian nodded, lips curving slightly.

But inside, something cracked.

Because the chase had ended.

And so had he.

There was no fire anymore. No urgency. Just repetition. The act of showing up and being the man he thought she wanted. The man she used to need. But even that felt faded, like playing a role after the script had been rewritten too many times.

He no longer knew what he wanted—her, or the feeling of undoing regret. Of rewriting pain.

Maybe it had never been about her at all.

Maybe he just wanted to win.

The next morning, he stood in front of the mirror again.

No tears. No revelations. Just a stillness.

He studied his face like a stranger’s.

There was no fire in the eyes. No hunger. Just the hollow awareness of someone who had given too many yesterdays to a dream he could no longer feel.

The smile he practiced returned to him reflexively.

But it didn’t reach his eyes.

And for the first time, the reflection looked like someone he didn’t want to keep becoming.

One rewind left.