Who~ In the world~ Is~ TIFFANY SAN DIEGO

Like a VCR player rewinding it's tape backward, so too did the scene before you rewind back to where you asked it to.

You patiently waited as months of your life get reversed in front of your eyes, getting driven to school, waking up to eat breakfast, sleeping at night, watching TV, getting home from school, eating lunch at the cafeteria- so on and so forth over and over again. It reminded you how painfully boring and robotic your life has been in the past few years, to the point where you almost thought your brain got on the fritz and was replaying the same day like a broken record.

"I definitely need to get more hobbies." You muttered depressingly.

It took a while before you eventually were able to reach the part of your life where you supposedly met Tiffany for the first time.

You were in your lunch period back in middle school. Younger you had already sat down in his seat, curling through a random history book since he had already been bored out of his mind. You happened to be alone during this day, which was why you found your younger self sitting alone at your old lunch table.

You really need to stop referring to this memory of you as Younger You all the time. It was starting to get confusing. What about... Past John? Yeah, that's probably easier to differentiate from yourself.

Past John looked like he didn't have a care in the world as he perused his history book. Whether it was to study for something, or just trying to pass the time, he looked like he was wishing for something- anything- exciting to happen to spice up his life.

It was a feeling that you know all too well throughout your life. Strange how things could simply change all of a sudden and leave you in a whirlwind of messes and problems to deal with.

You looked around the memory for a bit, waiting to see when Tiffany decided to show up. You knew that this was the day you and her first "met" after all. Once you see Tiffany, then you can begin scouring through your memories to see when your "actual" first meeting took place.

Tiffany definitely wasn't lying when she said that both you and her were friends back in middle school, you know that now. How you managed to forget something like that despite her being your crush, and why she seemed so adamant to make sure you stay that way- they're both another topic entirely.

"Hey, Tiffany! There you are!"

You perked up, hearing the voice of a random girl calling out to Tiffany.

Past John raised an eyebrow in curiosity, looking away from his book to hear where the noise was coming from.

Just a few tables away, that was when Past John first laid eyes on the girl.

You remembered this moment well. You remembered how cute this girl looked, and how lost and clueless she seemed when she first stepped into your school life. Something about her pulled you in like a magnet, and you couldn't look away even if you wanted to. You had never seen this girl before, and there didn't seem to be any girl out there like her. This beautiful brunette girl with short messy hair, who you'd never expect would end up turning out so different in the future, nothing like the blonde hair-dyed cheerleader captain that you knew today.

Tiffany looked nervous as she was being tugged away by her friend towards a different table. You could see her open her mouth to talk back to her friend, but from this distance, you couldn't hear what she had to say. She seemed to have been put in a complicated situation, before ultimately sighing and giving in to her friend's demands as she followed after her to the table filled with the popular clique.

You looked back at Past John to see how his reaction was. Surprising no one, the damn kid was already smitten the moment he laid eyes on her.

Like a fly glued to a UV-light trap, Past John's eyes never looked away from Tiffany as he continued watching her from afar. It was almost embarrassing to watch, seeing him look at her with such creepy stalker eyes.

"C'mon man, at least be more subtle about it!" You couldn't help but yell and slap your past self in the head.

Predictably, your hand just phases through him as he ignored you, lost in his own world.

You continued to sit by and watch for the next fifteen minutes until the bell rang to signify the end of the lunch period. Everyone in the cafeteria got ready to throw their lunch trays away as they hazardly and chaotically left the room.

Past John lost sight of Tiffany during the madness, and he sighed as he had **** but to get ready to go to his next period as well.

Not once did either of them interact or even talk to each other.

With a wave of your hand, time grinded to a halt as you were left with your thoughts.

You hummed to yourself, rummaging over the past fifteen minutes of your first meeting.

So obviously, this day wasn't the day where you and Tiffany became friends. But in that case, which day was it?

Clearly, you couldn't remember when the two of you became friends. If you did, you wouldn't be here in the first place.

So... what? Do you just keep following after Past John and see how he interacted with Tiffany throughout the next few years of his life until you finally find the correct moment when you two got to know each other?

That would take forever! As much as you wished the opposite, you did not have all the time in the world to solve this damn mystery between you and Tiffany. You only have until the moment you wake up for school tomorrow to be able to find out the relationship you and Tiffany had back in middle school.

You'd rather be able to figure this out now so that you could get rid of Tiffany's Inner Demons. The sooner, the better. Who knows how that thing has been affecting her head all these years? She clearly wasn't happy with herself or her fake personality, and sooner or later, it was going to end up biting her in the ass if you don't solve it while you still can.

No one else would be able to do it. Not even Tiffany, not without your guidance.

So how are you going to go about this, John? How are you going to speed things along so that you could somehow solve Tiffany's mystery before you wake up?

Think... Think think think- Think back to any hints that might be able to help you out here...

...

Wait a minute, you just remembered something.

"You keep avoiding me like the plague ever since I started dating Zeke! It was like you didn't even know me anymore..."

That was what she said to you back in your first dream with her, didn't she? Maybe that could be a clue.

Could it be that you and Tiffany had somehow gotten to know each other during the brief time she was still single back in middle school? Before Zeke ended up asking her out?

Despite the fact that you had no memories of such a thing happening, it seemed to be your only lead so far. Better yet, it was a good enough lead that shortened the timespan you needed to study in order to find out when you and Tiffany became friends. What was once potentially years of memories to swift through had now been shortened to only just a few months.

There was no way you could have gotten to know Tiffany after she began dating Zeke, so that left out a big chunk to only leave behind two important points in time.

The starting point, where you saw Tiffany for the first time and gained a crush on her.

The ending point, when two months later, you became heartbroken when you found out she was in a relationship with Zeke.

Somewhere between the two points in your memories lies the answer to the mystery of when and how you two became friends. As long as you carefully followed around Past John during the moments when Tiffany appeared in his life, you couldn't possibly miss anything important.

With that game plan in mind, you slapped yourself in the face and got your game face ready.

"Let's get dangerous." You nodded resolutely to yourself, quoting your favorite line from an old cartoon series you used to watch as a kid.

Waving your hand out, you willed the remote control to come flying back to your hand, like a Jedi using the **** to bring back his lightsaber. Once it reaches your hand, you proceeded to imagine creating a custom timeline for yourself, as if you were editing video footage together.

Memory starts when you saw Tiffany for the first time.

Memory stops when Tiffany gets a boyfriend.

Satisfied with how you set up your metaphorical boundaries, you flipped the remote control in the air and caught it before pressing fast forward to skip to the next instance of seeing Tiffany again.

No matter how long it takes, you gotta figure this out today while you still can.

---

Memory number one-

Fast-forwarding to the next memory, you meticulously studied the moment in time as you watched Past John sneak glances from across the hall at his locker.

Ever since seeing her for the first time in the cafeteria, you’ve started paying more attention to your surroundings more as you attempted to see if you could get any other chances to find Tiffany throughout your schedule.

Lo and behold, there she was a few dozen feet away from you. She was in the middle of a conversation with her newfound friends as she stuffed her pink backpack in her locker and pulled out her school supplies.

“Cute backpack. It fits her.” Past John murmured to himself as he continued to stalk his crush like a creeper.

Does it? You looked at the backpack she had to see what your past self meant.

Sparkly, girly, had fake rubies stitched on the back to spell out the words Princess of Popstars.

“I mean, I guess? To be honest, it seems pretty generic.” You murmured back with a shrug, “I’m pretty sure about five other girls in this school had the same backpack- but hey, whatever floats your lovesick boat.”

Of course, Past John didn’t respond, as he was only a memory of what you did in the past and not an actual person able to hold conversations with you.

At this point, it seemed more like a **** of habit to talk to yourself after all this time hanging out with your subconscious in the Labyrinth.

“So you’re seriously just going to sit there for the next five minutes, doing absolutely nothing except stare at her?” You asked rhetorically to the braindead idiot.

Of course, he doesn’t respond, continuing to stare at Tiffany without her even knowing.

You rub your face in second-hand embarrassment, “Christ, how in the world did Tiffany manage to look past your creepy exterior in order to become friends with you?”

The next few minutes bore absolutely no fruit, as nothing between the two of them happened before the bell rang for classes.

Tiffany hurriedly closed her locker to leave for her homeroom, and Past John slowly walked away while still staring at her until she was out of his view.

“I seriously need to find out more about her.” Past John declared to himself.

“Yeah. You and me both, kiddo.” You muttered, pulling out your remote to skip to the next memory.

---

Memory number five-

“God, when are you going to get off of your ass and just talk to her already?!” You groaned out loud.

You’ve seen this scene about five times already, you’re pretty sure. Even though each memory portrays you and Tiffany in different clothing, and whether or not you were alone at the time, it always showed the same exact scene.

Past John sitting still and staring at Tiffany, while she barely acknowledged his existence.

“Christ, when am I going to get to the part where they both meet each other and become friends?” You asked tiredly to yourself, before glaring at your younger self, “You know that admiring someone from afar only works in movies and romance novels, right? No matter how much you stare lasers into the back of her head, she ain’t going to know who you are until you stand up and just introduce yourself to her!”

You realize that this was the pot calling the kettle black, but you just wanted to let out your frustrations at how stupid you were back in middle school. Hindsight always seemed to be 20/20 vision for you.

Seeing as how nothing has changed so far, you pulled out your handy dandy remote control, “Welp, if you’re not going to do anything different this time around, I’ll just go move on and look for it somewhere else. Enjoy being a creeper, ya nerd.”

You pressed fast forward to skip to the next memory.

---

Memory number fourteen-

You watched with a raised eyebrow at Past John as he opened up Facebook on his computer.

You were currently lazing about on your bed as you continued to study Past John’s various interactions related to Tiffany. Apparently, your memory took you back to your room for some reason, which was unlikely to have Tiffany to show up.

Unless this was going to be the day where Past John and Tiffany finally became friends? Was that it? Was the reason why you didn’t remember anything was because Past John only became friends with Tiffany online instead of the real world?

It seemed like a long shot, but at this point, you couldn’t rule anything out.

Past John nervously looked around his room, as if he was afraid that someone might have been spying on him, before going back to the website. With a deep breath, he proceeded to type in “Tiffany Brian, Siesta Middle School.”

“Oh, please don’t tell me…” You groaned, finally remembering what he was about to do.

Past John opened up Tiffany’s profile before clicking on her photo library. In it, there was a whole slew of recent pictures of her in her swimming suit during a school trip to a water-park.

You had no memory of such a water-park, but only because you didn’t bother to participate in joining, opting to stay at home to laze about and watch TV. When you remembered the off chance that Tiffany might have decided to go though, your depraved mind lead one thought to another, before you finally went online to her Facebook to check if there was a chance.

And sure enough, there it was.

Past John was mesmerized as he kept scrolling through her recent photo collection, perving on her in her swimsuit like the creep that he was.

“I can’t even watch this right now.” You groaned again, deciding to face away from your idiot self in order to put the depravity out of view.

You sighed to yourself, knowing that you’ve hit another bust. Looks like your friendship with Tiffany didn’t start here either.

Behind you, you heard the sound of someone’s pants unzipping, before you recoiled in disgust and shouted, “OH COME ON! SHE’S UNDERAGED, YOU DISGUSTING FREAK! JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE THE SAME AGE AS HER DOESN’T MAKE THIS OKAY!”

Fuck this shit.

Skipping forward to the next memory.

---

Memory number twenty-seven-

“I don’t get it, man.” Conner said with his mouth full of food, “If you like her so much, why don’t you just go ask her out or something?”

“YES! THANK YOU, CONNER!” You screamed, slamming your face down on the table before sitting up to yell at your past self, “Listen to your friend, John! He’s actually SMART compared to you!”

See, this was why you always liked and hung out with Conner.

Conner always had a charisma that you were always jealous of, but never held against him for it. He was the kind of guy to make life follow the beat to his own rhythm, never stopping for anything. He was someone that you could see starring in his own action movie that he directed himself, turning into a blockbuster success, and then quitting that career to become a world-renowned chef within the next month. Why a guy like him was hanging out with you, you had no idea, but he was cool like that.

You haven't seen him since you all graduated middle school. You forgot what his last name was, so you never bothered to look him up to see if he has any social media pages. You always wondered where he was and what he was up to though. Hope the guy makes it big someday.

Past John turned back with an incredulous look, “You’re joking, right? You really think I’m the kind of kid that could pull something like that off?”

“Uh… Yeah?” Conner scoffed humorously, “It’s not like you were ever the shy type, man. A bit of an anti-social, maybe, but not the shy kind. I could definitely see you pulling it off if you had more confidence in yourself.”

“Dude. Look at her.” Past John gestured to Tiffany’s direction, pointing out the girl as she sucked on a chocolate strawberry, “Do you see what I’m currently seeing? Are your eyes functioning the same as mine?”

“Clearly, I’m not.” Conner deadpanned, “Elaborate to me why this stops you from functioning like a normal human being around her?”

“She’s completely out of my league!” Past John insisted, “There’s no way I could just go up to her and say, ‘Hey Tiffany, wanna hang out sometimes?’ She’d never say yes.”

“FUUUUCK YOUUU-” You growled, jumping at him and trying to **** the life out of your past self. To no avail, of course, what with the ghost hands and all that.

“Oh please, it wasn’t that long ago that she used to be plain and normal like the rest of us.” Conner scoffed dismissively.

“Yeah, maybe back in elementary school- BUT LOOK AT HER THE WAY SHE IS NOW!” Past John pointed towards the oblivious girl, “Everything about her was just so cute and amazing and wonderful! How could I possibly compare to that?!”

“Whatever, man.” Conner waved away, before resuming his lunch, “I’m gonna sit and wait here until you finally get over this stupid lovesick phase soon so that things can go back to being normal.”

“I just don’t see why you don’t like her. I mean, what’s so bad about her?” Past John asked curiously to his cranky friend.

“I already told you why I didn’t like Tiffany anymore.” Conner bluntly explained, “And since I know me repeating it would only just go in one ear and out the other, I’m not gonna bother explaining it again. Go back to staring at her like a creepo and call me when you’re done.”

“Well, that’s rude.” Past John harrumphed lightheartedly, before resuming his job to longingly stare at Tiffany from afar.

You, meanwhile, sat up straight as a board as you noticed something Conner said in the middle of their conversation together.

“Wait, did you say that you didn’t like Tiffany anymore? What does that mean?” You couldn’t help but murmur out loud.

The ‘anymore’ part was what stood out to you. It almost seemed to suggest that Conner used to like her at some point for some reason. But what exactly does that mean? Did Conner get to know Tiffany on a personal level at some point before things went sour? Or did they just have some sort of argument?

You knew that Conner had the same science period as Tiffany back in middle school, meaning that there was a possible chance that they could have interacted with each other during those times. You didn’t realize that there might have been a personal relationship between the two of them though, however small and inconsequential the relationship might be.

You had no idea whether this might be related to how you and Tiffany became friends without you remembering. Conner never mentioned you being friends with Tiffany during the whole time you had a crush on her, so this might be very unlikely.

Still, something about this didn’t really sit right with you… You felt like you were grasping for straws at this point, but you couldn’t help but feel like this might lead to some interesting developments.

Conjuring up a notepad, you wrote down ‘Revisit Conner in case shit doesn’t work out’ as a personal note, before tearing it off and pocketing it.

Seeing as how the two boys didn’t seem to be talking anymore, you figured nothing else interesting will happen for the rest of this memory.

Pulling out a magic wand, you waved it around majestically and chanted out, “Hocus pocus, the next memory to study and focus!”

Yeah, obviously you were starting to get bored from all this. Sue me.

---

Memory number forty-five-

“C’mon Tiffany, hurry!” You heard someone call out.

“I know, I know, I’m coming!” Tiffany gasped out, rushing out the school doors.

You watched on with intrigued curiosity as Past John and Tiffany accidentally bumped into each other right outside the front of the school doors.

Well, bumped into each other may have been an understatement. It was more like a full on collision, resulting in both of you dropping your backpacks on the ground.

Like the careless idiot that you were, Past John hadn’t zipped up his backpack properly, which meant the collision caused all of his folders and homework to fly out into a scattered mess.

Past John was dazed and disoriented as he tried to sit up off the ground, but Tiffany had already recovered much faster than him as she stood up and reached a hand out, “Sorry about that! I didn’t watch where I was going!”

“It… it’s fine- I think.” Past John mumbled out, unaware that girl in front of him was his crush.

“Do you need any help picking up your stuff?” Tiffany asked considerately, feeling embarrassed for rushing headlong into Past John’s body.

Wait, was this finally it? Was this the moment you’ve been searching for? Was this exact moment the start of when you and Tiffany finally became friends for the first time?

“That’s so weird… I don’t remember any of this happening…” You muttered to yourself in confusion. How could you possibly forget a moment like to have happened? Especially when this was during the time when you had a hard crush on the girl?

When it took him a quick moment to clear his head, Past John went to reply that he was fine, only to freeze up in place when he finally realized who he was talking to.

“Uuuuuhhh…” He stammered out like a brain-dead idiot.

“Here, let me do this for you.” Tiffany didn’t bother to wait for a response, already picking up and organizing everything back to where it belonged before stuffing it into Past John’s backpack and handing it back to him. “Sorry about that, John!”

Both you and your past self were completely dumbfounded to find out that Tiffany seemingly knew your name somehow, despite the fact that you had NEVER physically interacted with her before.

And trust me, you have checked THOROUGHLY to make sure that was the truth.

“I’m in a rush, soooo-” Tiffany excused herself, waving a friendly goodbye as she hurried back to her friends.

Past John could only stand there in disbelief at what just happened.

You, on the other hand, became more confused than you ever had before in your entire life.

“WHAT THE FUCK?! HOW DID SHE KNOW MY NAME?!” You shouted out in pure shock and confusion.

You have checked through your memory the whole time you were here. Not once did you ever come across a moment where you and Tiffany even interacted with each other before this moment, let alone had the chance to exchange names!

How was this even possible? You knew for a fact that you didn’t miss a spot or make a mistake somewhere along the road.

Did you get careless? Did you leave a memory too early or arrived at a memory too late?

Holding a hand up to your head to quell an incoming headache, you couldn’t help but groan to yourself, “I am so lost…”

What the hell does all of this mean? Have you actually been wasting your time for nothing? Did you even have any memories of ever being friends with Tiffany in the first place? Is it possible that Tiffany just thought you were someone else, some other kind of John Doe, and she was actually friends with that guy instead?

What the fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck……

Without another word, you pulled out your remote and carefully studied it in your hand again.

Despite the new questions raising in your head about how Tiffany knew your name in the first place, you didn’t have any other choice. The only way left is to keep going forward to see what else had happened.

There shouldn’t be too many memories left. There was a couple more to go before you would reach the last and final memory, leading up to when you eventually discovered the heartbreaking news about Tiffany getting a boyfriend.

You could only keep going.

That’s all you could do at this point.

Taking one last look at your younger self, you had this urge to kick him in the head really really hard for making your current life so damn difficult and confusing.

“You and your fucking shitty ass memory!”

As usual, your kick did nothing but phase through his head.

Calming down, you took a deep breath before moving on to the next memory.

You pressed the fast forward button and kept moving.