16 Forever

Maggie #2

my sister, so the word crush didn’t even really occur to me. I just liked when he was around.

“You look pretty,” I told Vivian as I sat in her room one late afternoon in December watching her put on sparkly lip gloss.

“Are you going to a party?”

“No, just to Carter’s,” she said.

“Oh.”

“It’s his birthday tomorrow, so we’re starting the celebration tonight.”

“Fun.”

“Do you like him, Mags?”

She asked it in this pointed way that made me self-conscious.

“Carter?” I said. “Yeah, what do you mean? Of course I like Carter.”

“Okay, good.” Vivian took out the dangly earrings she had in, exchanged them for hoops. “You always seem kind of bummed when

I mention him.”

I felt a hot blast of embarrassment. I hadn’t realized Vivian was picking up on that.

“I’m not— I mean— Well, yeah,” I said. “I just . . . miss you. These months with just me and Mom have kind of sucked.”

“Oh, Mags.” Vivian wrapped me up in a hug. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ve gotten kind of swept up in it. And then with Dad living

somewhere else . . . It’s tough. I know it is. I didn’t mean to abandon you.”

“It’s okay.”

Vivian pulled back from the hug and looked at me. I couldn’t take my eyes off her glittery mouth. She looked so grown-up.

I couldn’t imagine how I’d ever get to be like that. “I love you so much, sis.”

“I love you too.”

Vivian nodded and tapped my nose, like she was putting a period at the end of that topic of discussion. “Do you want to hear

something weird?”

“Sure.”

“I think I might say those words to Carter tonight.”

“What words?”

“Well, that sentence that has an L-word in the middle of it.”

It took me a long moment to decode what the hell she was saying.

Once I did, I just kind of blankly nodded.

I knew from movies and TV that it was supposed to be a big deal for people to say that in a romantic way.

But it didn’t seem that surprising to me—I’d kinda thought they were already saying it.

“You think I shouldn’t say it?” Vivian asked, a rare and surprisingly satisfying moment of insecurity.

“No, I think you should totally say it.” I tried to take on a tone of expertise, as if all those episodes of Fuller House had prepared me for exactly this moment. “If you feel it, you should say it.”

“I feel it,” Vivian said. “I’ve felt it for a while.”

Hours later, I was in my usual spot on the couch (for the sake of my own dignity, let’s pretend I was watching something this

time that wasn’t Fuller House, something British), when I heard Vivian come in and head straight upstairs to her room, slamming the door behind her. It

was only a little after eight, earlier than she’d usually come home from a Carter hang. Mom looked up from her laptop at the

kitchen table, and we shrugged at each other.

When my episode ended, my sister had yet to emerge.

“Vivvy?” I said, knocking on her door. “You okay?”

“Not now, Mags,” she said, her voice strained and wobbly in this scary way I’d never heard before.

“Ohmigod, are you hurt?”

“No,” Vivian said. “I mean, not physically.”

“Can I just come in? Please let me come in.”

There was a seven-second pause, and then: “Fine.”

Walking into my sister’s room that night was every bit as shocking as when I’d first seen her and Carter together at Scoops

’n’ Sprinkles. Vivian was a mess, curled up sideways on her bed, her face red and raw, her chest heaving, her breath uncatchable.

“Vivvy.” I sat next to her. I rubbed her back.

“I shouldn’t have said it,” Vivian said. “It was a mistake.”

“What happened?”

“I told—” She was seized by a fresh cascade of sobs. “I told Carter I loved him, and he . . . He said . . .”

“What? What did he say?”

“He was such an asshole.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘That’s really awkward because I actually want to brayyyyyyuhuhuh.’”

“Um . . .”

“brEAK UP!” Vivian violently wiped the tears off her face. “He said he wants to break up, Mags! He dumped me.”

“What?” It seemed impossible. As inconvenient as their relationship was for my life, I knew how happy it made Vivian, and

I’d gotten so used to it. And I liked Carter being around! How could it just end all of a sudden?

“His reason was so stupid too,” Vivian said. “He said now that he was almost seventeen, he’d been thinking about life and

stuff, how he wanted to be with a lot of different people while he was still young. Screw that. So immature.”

“Yeah,” I said, even though I wondered if maybe Carter had just stopped liking her. That’s what had happened with me and Ryan

Fischer from camp. One day in October his DMs started to seem annoying instead of cute. And he way overused the tongue-smile

emoji. “What a stupid farthead.”

“He is a stupid farthead,” Vivian said, plopping onto her back. “I hate him. I hate him so much.”

“Maybe he made a mistake,” I suggested. “Maybe he’ll change his mind.”

“I doubt it. That’s not Carter’s style. And even if he did, I don’t date stupid fartheads.”

“True.”

We sat there talking for at least another hour, and then Vivian asked if I could sleep in her bed with her. It was the best

night I’d had in a long time.

The next morning, Vivian felt nauseated by the idea of going to school and seeing Carter, and she was right to, because when

he passed her in the hallway after biology, he didn’t even acknowledge her existence.

So Vivian was single again. Single and heartbroken. Mom was appropriately sympathetic but also strangely delighted to hop

on the Carter Hate Train, loving the idea that she and her daughter could bond over their respective breakups. I found myself

experiencing yet another jarring family shift, another sudden rearrange that left me on the outside. I tried to get in on

it by invoking my situation with Ryan Fischer—“Men are ridiculous. Look at these emojis!”—but we all knew it wasn’t the same.

Even when Vivian returned to school in January after winter break and learned that Carter had been stricken by some mysterious

condition that left him unable to remember the past year, she and Mom still referred to him as The Jerk.

“I don’t want to say it,” Mom said at one point, shrugging, “but maybe it serves him right.”

“I think that’s too mean, Mom,” Vivian said. “I feel really bad for him.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I take it back.”

But I knew Mom really meant it. Her anger at Dad seemed to have gotten intertwined with her anger at Carter.

Cut to three years later, and I was now in Carter’s grade, both of us sophomores. Like Vivian, I felt bad for the guy, but

I also knew I wanted nothing to do with him. We had no classes together, so that was easy enough to accomplish. I went the

rest of sophomore year and most of junior year with minimal Carter Cohen contact (MCCC).

But then, that June, I started working at Scoops ’n’ Sprinkles. Just like Vivian had.

And everything changed.

Look, considering the history, did some part of me understand that getting a job there might mean an encounter with Carter?

Possibly! But I’d gone there so many times the previous summer, and he was definitively not an employee. And it always seemed

like such a fun place to work!

During my second shift, a sunny Tuesday after school, Carter walked in five minutes after me. I froze like a gallon of moose

tracks.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi.” It was my first time talking to him since he’d asked if I thought he could balance a ketchup bottle on his finger, and

he looked exactly the same. Which meant, yes, he retained a goofy, distinctly adorable quality; even after my immersion in a yearslong anti-Carter propaganda

campaign, I could still see that.

But I didn’t want to say anything more to him than hi.

I really didn’t.

It felt too gross, like I was betraying Vivian.

It was just the two of us working, though—other than our supervisor Lloyd, who spent most of his time in the back on his phone—so how could I not speak to him? If only as a coworker?

“Have we ever met?” Carter asked, once he’d officially punched in on the iPad.

I didn’t have a response to that.

“I only ask because I’ve worked here in past years, though not last year, I don’t think, but I have this weird condition where—”

“Yeah. I know,” I said. “About your condition.”

“Right, yeah.” He grinned, but there was more sadness than joy in it. “I guess most people do.”

“But, uh . . .” Of course I’ve met you! I wanted to say. My sister loved you. We’ve spent literal hours talking about you and analyzing you and cursing your name and calling you a stupid farthead!

“I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Okay. Cool.”

I didn’t feel great about the lie, but I also didn’t think I owed this heartbreaker anything. In a way, I was protecting Vivian.

That’s what I told myself.

But, as Carter and I talked the rest of that shift, I was betraying Vivian too.

He just didn’t seem like such a villain to me, though. I liked talking to him. I liked his jokes. I liked the way he playfully

nudged me with his elbow.

And, let’s face it: I liked that I had somehow become Vivian behind the ice cream counter in that scene engraved in my brain

from when I was eleven. Now the floodlight of Carter’s affection was directed at me.

It felt amazing.

So what was the harm in making a joke back?

Or in talking about how annoying my mom had been that morning?

Or in hanging out with Carter after a shift sometimes?

The first time Carter tried to kiss me was in his car on the first day of July. I dodged his lips and made up a reason why

I had to go.

I’d let things get out of hand, and I felt horrible.

But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed silly to run from whatever this was. Vivian was with Carter five years ago. She was so far past that now, in college living her best life, hooking up with all sorts of people. And Mom was a year into

her relationship with Ron, still, somewhat sickeningly, reminding me of Vivian when she was first dating Carter: always in

an incredible mood, her mind constantly on Ron even when he wasn’t around.

So, really, screw them. Carter was pursuing me. And chances were, he wouldn’t remember any of what had happened with us five months from then anyway.

So, a week later, I kissed him.

We kissed a lot after that.

And, for the first time in my life, I got to see what it was like to be the one in the relationship.

The one who couldn’t get someone out of their head.

The one in the incredibly good mood.

And I was. I really was.

Carter was funny. And hot. And charming.

And he liked me.

Not Vivian.

Me.

I told Mom about it in September. She was pissed. Do you not remember what he did to your sister? But I told her how happy I was, how I’d never felt this way before about anyone. Mom sighed and hugged me. We agreed that

Vivian shouldn’t know unless it got more serious.

Soon after, it occurred to me:

What if Carter was stuck in this loop because he dumped my sister?

And what if I could do what Vivian couldn’t—get Carter to say I love you back?

I knew I was probably kidding myself to think it was that simple, but I couldn’t shake the idea from my head. Especially because

I felt like maybe I did love Carter, a thought that filled me with elation and shame and terror.

And so:

On that last night together, I told him I loved him. And he said it back. He actually said it.

But it didn’t matter. It didn’t work.

So I was done.

At least Vivian never had to find out.

And yet.

And yet and yet and yet.

There was Carter with Tatiana, and all I could think was:

He should be with ME, dammit.

But of course he shouldn’t. That’s over. And I’m with Chord.

There is, however, this Layla Banerjee problem.

I knew from Vivian that, before her, Carter had briefly dated—or hooked up, or something—with Layla, which was why I used her name as a decoy in the car that night. Very smooth.

And then That Carter told This Carter about Layla’s existence, so now he’s going to apologize to the wrong person, and it’s my stupid fault.

Which means I’m the one who should be worrying about making things right. I need to tell Carter the truth before he humiliates himself on

that call.

And then I say goodbye to him forever.

I sit up in bed—Shana dropped me at home after the game—and, since I don’t want to text him and reveal my phone number, find

Carter’s profile on Instagram.

There’s just one photo on his grid, a selfie he took of him and Bodhi, with the caption: Walking around a random neighborhood like creepers bc we’re too early to a party. We are cool I swear. Must be from the night of Shana’s party.

It would’ve been easier if he hadn’t been there.

I open up a blank message field and type the words quickly, like I’m ripping off a Band-Aid.

Hey when are you talking with Layla?

I hover my finger over the purple Send button and close my eyes tight.

I hear Carter in my head: “It can’t hurt to try and make things right. Right?”

I tap the button.