Maggie
“You sent me these,” I say, standing on his front porch and holding up the photos.
Carter stares at me for a moment, sweetly confused.
“I did,” he says finally. “But the post office said they weren’t supposed to make it to your house until after I . . .” He’s
so adorably flustered.
“Well, they showed up today,” I say. “My mom recognized your handwriting and figured it might be urgent. So she opened it.
And told me. I came home a day early. Because I love them. The photos.”
“Oh.” Carter smiles. “Really?”
“Really,” I say. Love is an understatement. The photos are gorgeous. The ones at the wedding, the ones of us in his room. As I sat on the couch
with Mom looking at them, I couldn’t stop crying. “And I never love pictures of myself.”
“I felt like you should see them,” he says, shivering a little in his blue sweater. “To have something to remember me. I had
copies developed for myself too. So when I loop, Future Me will know who you are. Through my eyes.”
I nod. This is every bit as painful as I thought it would be.
“Do you want to come inside?” Carter asks.
I want to say yes. I desperately do.
“Probably best if I don’t,” I say, wrenching the words from my own mouth.
“Yeah, no,” Carter says. “I totally understand.” He steps out from the doorway onto the porch and closes the door behind him. He’s in just socks. They have little tacos all over them. It’s easier to look down there than into those green eyes.
“You look really grown-up,” he says.
“I think it’s just this new jacket.”
Dad took me to the outlet stores on Black Friday and got me this light brown trench coat. I’m still not sure if I can pull
it off.
“Oh yeah,” Carter says. “I dig it. You’re like a sexy detective.”
“Okay,” I say, laughing. “Not exactly what I’m going for, but I’ll take it . . . ?”
“You should. Sexy detective is the highest compliment I can give.”
A gust of wintry wind blows past us. This jacket definitely isn’t warm enough. Carter is stoic, but I see him shiver again
too.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” he says. “That I . . . stopped being around. After the wedding.”
“No, I get it. I’m sorry I lied to you. And put you in that position.”
“Nah,” he says. “I understand. It all got complicated.”
“Just a little.”
We’re silent for a moment, and I know I should leave. But once I do, I’ll never see this Carter again.
“I’m pretty scared about tomorrow,” he says, and I want to hold him. “I truly doubt I’ll age. Obviously the Layla apology
won’t do it. And I never really apologized to your sister.”
“I think that’s kind of beside the point,” I say. “Who knows what it would take to help you move forward? Maybe whatever it
is has already happened.”
Carter shrugs, and he looks like he might cry.
“Hey,” he says. “I know you never really wanted to, but . . . Since I’m . . . Can you tell me about our relationship? The
stuff from before this year?”
“Oh. If that’s what you want, then sure.”
“It is.”
So I do. I tell Carter about the first time I saw him, when I was eleven. The time he balanced a ketchup bottle on his finger,
and it careened into the Caesar salad. How thrown I was to be working with him at Scoops ’n’ Sprinkles years later and how
quickly I was charmed by him despite all my efforts not to be. Our first date, when we got the times wrong and ended up seeing
just the last half hour of some Glen Powell movie. The afternoon I was goofing around on a piano and sang something and Carter
was so blown away that it made me realize maybe I could start playing music for an actual audience.
There’s so much more I could say, but I remember his time is short, and I should probably stop.
“Thank you,” Carter says, almost inaudible.
“Sure.”
A car drives by. Then another.
“Do you think I could . . .”
“What?” I ask.
“Kiss you. One last time?”
And there goes my pounding heart.
“Yes,” I say.
Carter steps toward me, and I step toward him.
We kiss.
It is lovely and sad, and I don’t want it to end.
But it does.
“I’m really gonna miss you,” Carter says.
I nod, try to speak, but my face is wet and my words are jammed.
I put one hand on his stubbly cheek.
“Same,” I finally whisper.
If I stand here a second longer, I might crumble into dust.
I turn and walk toward Mom’s car, which I parked at the curb.
I’ve gone only ten steps when I turn back.
“Carter,” I say. Thank god he’s still standing there.
“Yeah?”
“Would you call me tomorrow? If you . . . You know.”
“Maggie,” he says. “If I turn seventeen, you will be the first person I call as soon as I open my eyes.”
I take in Carter’s smile. His shaggy hair. His crossed arms.
I won’t forget this.
“Thanks, Coco.”
“You got it, Maguel.”
I hold his photos tight as I walk away for real, refusing to entertain any of the five hundred voices in my head screaming
at me to turn back and look at him just one last time.