I'm Trapped in a Time Loop at My Sister's Wedding With the Arrogant Best Man

The alarm was the worst part. A cheerful, synthesized bird-chirping that felt like a personal attack. It was 6:00 AM. It was always 6:00 AM. For a moment, just before full consciousness took hold, there was a blissful, empty nothing. Then the chirping would start, and the full, crushing weight of the day would slam back into me. My sister’s wedding day. Again.

I slammed my hand down on the snooze button of the hotel clock radio, the plastic groaning in protest. It didn’t matter. In nine minutes, the birds would sing again. I never let them.

Swinging my legs out of bed, I didn't need to open my eyes to navigate the sterile, beige hotel room. Seven steps to the bathroom. The cheap carpet was rough under my bare feet. Three steps to the shower. I turned the handle exactly a quarter-turn to the left for the perfect temperature, the water pressure a familiar, weak spray. I went through the motions of washing, my mind a dull, flat-lined hum. There was no point in thinking, no point in feeling. I had done that for the first thirty or so loops. The panic, the despair, the frantic attempts to change things. Now, there was only the hollow ache of resignation.

Dressed in the lavender bridesmaid dress that did nothing for my complexion, I stared at my reflection. I looked tired. The kind of deep, soul-level tired that no amount of concealer could ever hide. I applied it anyway, blending it under my eyes with mechanical precision.

At 7:15 AM sharp, I left my room and walked down the hall to the bridal suite. I knocked once before letting myself in with the spare key card. Inside, chaos was just beginning to brew. My sister, radiant and oblivious, was having her hair pinned, while the other bridesmaids fluttered around like nervous birds.

“Clara! Thank God, I was just about to call you,” my mom said, her voice already strained.

I didn't answer, my eyes fixed on Jessica, the clumsy one. She was reaching for the carafe of coffee on the credenza. I moved across the room, my steps quick and silent. Just as her elbow knocked her mug, sending a spray of dark brown liquid arcing toward the pale silk of another bridesmaid’s dress, my hand shot out. I intercepted the mug, not a single drop spilling.

Jessica gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. “Oh my God, I almost…”

“Careful,” I said, my voice flat. I placed the mug firmly on the table.

Thirty minutes later, the next pre-ordained disaster struck. My nephew, the five-year-old ring bearer, came running into the room, his face streaked with tears. “Auntie Clara! I lost the rings!”

My sister’s face fell. My mother’s hands flew to her cheeks in a pantomime of horror. I just felt a wave of profound boredom. I walked over to the weeping boy, knelt down, and reached into the large ceramic pot holding a fake fern. My fingers brushed against the small, velvet box he’d hidden there. He thought it was a new hiding spot every time. It never was.

I held it out to him. “Found them.”

His tear-filled eyes went wide with shock, then relief. The room breathed a collective sigh. They all looked at me like I was a miracle worker. But I wasn't a miracle worker. I was just a prisoner, one who had memorized the layout of her cell down to the last miserable detail.

The reception was a blur of white tulle, clinking glasses, and the same four-piece band playing the same mediocre cover of "At Last." I stood near the back, nursing a glass of flat champagne I had no intention of drinking. The forced smiles, the drunken laughter from my uncle, the scent of wilting gardenias—it was all a script I knew by heart.

At 8:47 PM, the bandleader tapped his microphone. "And now, a few words from our best man, Elias!"

A polite ripple of applause. I turned my head, my gaze finding him as he pushed his chair back from the head table. Elias. The architect. He was undeniably handsome, with dark hair that fell over his brow and a jawline that could cut glass. He wore his tuxedo with an easy grace that contradicted the sheer panic in his eyes. Every single time, the same look of a man walking to his own execution.

He reached the microphone, his knuckles white as he gripped the stand. He fumbled with a set of notecards. "Hi, everyone," he began, his voice a little too loud, a little too tight. "I'm Elias. For those of you who don't know me, I… uh… I went to college with Mark."

I could have recited the speech from memory. The rambling anecdote about a sophomore-year prank that wasn't funny then and hadn't improved with repetition. The awkward pause where he’d lose his place on the cards. The weak attempt at a joke about marriage that would land with a thud.

I watched him, and the familiar, dull pity settled in my chest. It was the only genuine emotion the day could still wring out of me. He looked so trapped, not by the whole day, but by these specific five minutes of excruciating public failure. He was just as much a prisoner as I was, locked in his own personal, repeating hell of a terrible speech. His gaze flickered out over the crowd, lost and overwhelmed, and for a second, it felt like he looked right at me, though I knew he didn't see me. Not really.

He finally stumbled to his conclusion. "So, uh… raise your glasses. To Mark and Sarah."

A smattering of confused, sympathetic applause filled the silence. Elias retreated to his seat, his shoulders slumped in defeat. And then, right on schedule, the overhead lights began to flicker. Once. Twice. The band’s music warped into a low groan.

A collective gasp went through the room as the third flicker plunged the entire reception hall into absolute darkness. Screams and surprised shouts erupted. It was always the same. Chaos. But I didn't move. I just stood there in the dark, thinking of Elias, sitting at the head table, finally shrouded by a darkness that matched the misery on his face.

From my seat at the head table, the whole affair looked like a puppet show where I knew all the strings. I’d given up trying to change the big things around loop twenty. Around loop fifty, I’d stopped trying to fix my speech. Now, probably well past loop one-hundred-and-fifty, I just tried to amuse myself. The day Mark and Sarah got married was no longer a sacred event; it was my own personal playground, a universe with a reset button.

One time, I’d replaced the entire five-tier wedding cake with a painstakingly sculpted monument of instant mashed potatoes and buttercream-flavored lard. The look on Sarah’s face when the knife sank into fluffy spuds was a masterpiece I’d cherished for at least a dozen subsequent loops. Another time, I’d taught the ring bearer how to swear in fluent Russian. That one had been less subtle. Today, my disruption was small. I’d switched the salt and sugar shakers on every table. The first sips of coffee after dessert would be glorious.

“And now, a few words from our best man, Elias!”

Showtime. I pushed my chair back, the same knot of phantom anxiety tightening in my gut out of sheer muscle memory. I’d long since thrown the notecards away; I kept a fresh set in my pocket purely for the prop value. I walked to the microphone, the familiar sea of expectant faces blurring before me. I launched into the speech, my mouth forming the words without any input from my brain. The horrible anecdote. The joke that didn’t land. It was a comfortable sort of failure now.

As I droned on, my eyes scanned the room, landing on the maid of honor. Clara. I knew her name, her dress size, and the fact that she preferred her coffee with one cream and no sugar. I’d observed everyone. But I’d started noticing her more lately. She moved with an efficiency that was almost unnerving. Earlier, I’d seen her catch a falling coffee mug without even looking, her hand arriving at the exact point in space a fraction of a second before disaster. It was a move born of repetition. A move like mine.

Now, she watched me, but her expression wasn't pity or embarrassment. It was the flat, empty look of someone watching a rerun for the thousandth time. She was bored. Utterly, completely bored. My voice faltered for a real reason for the first time in months. She knew.

I finished the toast, the words tasting like ash. “To Mark and Sarah.”

The polite, strained applause started. I walked back to my seat, my eyes locked on her. I didn't sit. I just watched her. Then, right on cue, the lights flickered. Once. Twice. The music died.

The room plunged into blackness. A woman screamed. A baby started crying. People shouted in confusion. But Clara didn't move a muscle. She didn’t gasp. She didn’t even flinch. She just stood there in the sudden dark, a calm, still silhouette against the faint light from the emergency exit sign. Waiting. Just like I was. Waiting for the day to end.

A jolt went through me, sharp and electric, cutting through the thick fog of my apathy. It wasn’t a guess. It wasn’t a hope. It was a sudden, heart-stopping certainty. I wasn’t alone.