Carter
“You seem agitated,” Soren says.
It’s the day after the concert. Friday. I freaked out at Bodhi as I drove him home last night. I asked him why he never told
me that Maggie and I had dated. He said he was really sorry but Maggie had asked him not to mention it. I said that sucked.
He agreed. Then he pulled a bag of Takis out of his coat pocket and asked me if I wanted one. I did.
Today in school I aggressively ignored Maggie the two times I passed her in the hall. That’ll show her.
And now I’m at my 4:00 p.m. therapy session with Soren. Very well-timed, actually.
“I am agitated,” I say, sitting forward in the red cushiony chair in his office, holding the random-ass rooster-wearing-glasses
tchotchke that is always sitting on the small table next to me. “Turns out Maggie and I dated last loop. Did you know that?”
“I did,” Soren says, nodding with his eyes closed, which, when combined with his glasses and annoying hipster mustache, makes
him look smug as hell.
“And you didn’t think that might be valuable information for me to take in?”
“I’m sorry, Carter,” Soren says, not seeming to mean it at all. “We’ve gone over my approach before. I won’t bring up anything
from a past loop until you do. Otherwise, it—”
“Gets too confusing for me, yeah, yeah. But I did bring up Maggie! I said she seemed to be avoiding me, but I had the feeling we’d had some kind of relationship.”
“That’s right. And we discussed that.”
“But you didn’t say”—I hold up the rooster as a stand-in for Soren—“‘Uh, yes, Carter, you’re absolutely right. She was your
girlfriend.’”
“You didn’t explicitly ask,” Soren says.
“Ohmigod, dude!” I put the rooster down and slide it all the way to the edge of the table. “Do you understand that not telling
me shit like this is also very confusing?”
“I do, Carter, and again, I’m sorry. Would you like to ask me questions now?”
“I WOULD.”
He offers another smug nod.
“What did I tell you last loop about Maggie?” I ask. “When did we start dating? Did I really like her?”
“You first told me about her in the fall, September I think, but I believe you’d started dating in June. You said you didn’t
want to mention it at first because it didn’t even seem like a big deal. But then you did. Mention it.”
“So I must have really liked her.”
“I think so.”
“Did I say that?”
“More or less.”
“Well, did I or didn’t I?”
Soren clasps his fingers together. “Something I’ve learned about you, Carter, is that, understandably, you have a hard time letting people in. Maybe because you know you’re going to forget them. Which is incredibly difficult.”
“That’s . . . I let people in all the time! I mean, I’m not even two months into this, and I’ve got close friends like Bodhi
and Amir and Robbie. And so many kids in school know me. I hang with, like, everyone.”
“Of course. Yes. That’s admirable. It’s just my observation that it’s hard for you to let people into the most vulnerable
parts of yourself. You’re not alone in that. It’s hard for lots of folks, even those without your condition.”
“Yeah,” I say, gnawing at one of my fingernails. “How did Maggie and I meet? School?”
“As I recall, you worked at the same ice cream place. Scoops and . . .”
“Scoops ’n’ Sprinkles? I worked there?”
“Apparently.”
“That’s rad. I bet I got a lot of free ice cream.”
“Probably.”
We sit in silence for a few moments as I imagine making myself a big-ass sundae with as many toppings as I want.
“I can be vulnerable, you know,” I say. “You should have seen me at the concert last night.”
“Oh?”
“After the show, I went right up to Maggie and told her that I could tell one of her songs was about me.”
“Oh wow. Was it?”
“Yeah, it totally was.”
“Good for you.”
“Then she said that we did date but she couldn’t be in my life again.”
“That must have been hard to hear.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. At first I was just glad to be right about the dating thing. Like, my instincts are good, you know?
Even if my memory isn’t.”
“Absolutely.”
“But then, yeah. Kind of a bummer. I mean, what do I do now?”
“Well.” Soren shifts his crossed right leg down to the ground and crosses the left one over his knee instead. “I think you
listen to her. If she says she can’t do it, then you need to respect that.”
“Yeah. Of course. Totally.”
“How does that feel?”
“Bad!”
“Good. I’m glad to hear you being honest about that.”
“Am I not always honest about my feelings?”
“In the past, not always, no. For the reasons outlined earlier.”
“Hmm.” I stare down at the Soren Rooster and resist the urge to flick it off the table. “Hey, have I ever mentioned Layla
Banerjee?”
“No, I don’t believe so,” Soren says.
“Maggie said the night before I started looping, I broke up with this girl Layla. She said I love you, and I didn’t say it
back.”
“Ah, yes. I knew you’d broken up with someone the night before the condition started, but I didn’t know that was her name.”
“Okay, yeah! So I’ve been thinking. Like, you’re saying I have trouble being vulnerable, so maybe I have to reach out to Layla
and apologize. Maybe that’s part of my healing or whatever.”
Soren gives me a pleased nod, this time with eyes open, which makes it a little less smug. “I think that’s a great idea.”