Chapter 6
Carter is exactly how I remember him.
His hair is a little bit shorter than before.
The bracelet around his wrist that says CHAD III is where it’s supposed to be.
The faint white scar right under his bottom lip from when he fell out of a tree winks back at me as his mouth turns into a cautious smile.
And his T-shirt is the same stupid dark blue one from summer camp when he was a counselor.
Except Carter doesn’t have that shirt anymore.
That shirt met an unfortunate end at Inheritance Committee Volunteer Day when he broke up a fight and his shirt ripped from top to bottom. We made a whole joke about how he could just use it as a cardigan.
When I met him before, he was in a green hoodie, so I know this must be a dream.
My hand is lifted in the air, and I almost reach out to touch him, but his smile has turned to a look of confusion.
“Hey.” I decide on a wave and even wiggle my fingers.
Like a psychopath.
“Hey.” He shifts on his feet and steps backward. “I’m Carter.”
It takes me a long moment to realize he’s just introduced himself to me.
Carter Henry Adams Delaney III, whom I have seen puke into a public garbage can because he got sick at dinner eating discount sushi. The boy I had seen cry at the end of Saving Private Ryan. Carter, who had laid his head next to mine on countless pillows and whispered his hopes and dreams.
That person just told me his name, like I didn’t already know his very soul.
“I…”
He leans in a little closer, like maybe he recognizes me, like maybe something in him remembers me even in this dream about our pasts.
“She’s Linden’s cousin.”
Finally, I pull my eyes from Carter. Max is standing next to us, his thumb hooked under the strap on his backpack and the other hand in his pocket.
“I … Yeah.” Those are facts. About me. “I’m Linden’s cousin.” How did Max know?
“You’re looking for me?” Carter asks.
Max stares at me, waiting. I need to say something, anything, and yet I’m stuck in this weird in-between of having so many things to say and having nothing to say.
My mind spins. I hear a whirring noise, and there is a shaking under my feet that makes everything seem off-center. I can feel myself start to sway, so I hold out a hand, but one hand becomes two.
“Shit.”
I don’t say it. I don’t know who does. But as the world gets fuzzy around the edges, an arm comes under mine.
“She’s gonna pass out. Help me.”
The voice is too deep and distorted to be natural, and I watch the way everything tangles around me in and out of inkblots that spread across my vision.
Another arm is under mine, and I’m guided to a chair where someone tells me to breathe.
“Water?”
“Yeah, good idea.”
I’m still not speaking.
Seconds later, a metal cylinder is in my hand. As I come back to myself, I recognize Carter’s water bottle. The one he left at a gas station on a ski trip. This stupid bottle. One I never thought I would see again. Like his shirt.
And him.
I’m crying, and I can’t help it. It feels like all these things are here to be cruel.
And at any moment, they’ll be ripped from my grasp.
Carter looks down at me. His beautiful blue eyes that are spotted with gold.
That make me feel like the world could be like that.
More than one shade of something. Each beat of my heart hurts against my ribs.
Carter looks over at Max with a question, and I watch Max shake his head.
“Hey. Come on, Flower. Freshman year is hard on everyone.”
Freshman year? He thinks I’m crying because of my freshman year? The insanity of that. I loved my freshman year. Every second. Even when I was freaking out about grades or not getting into the right classes or not choosing the right projects.
I loved it. I loved him.
I clear my throat. “Flower?” Carter never called me that.
He smiles and points down at my pants. “Flower, ’cause I don’t know your name.”
The flower pajama pants Grandee gave me as a gift last Christmas stare back at me from my legs. I really didn’t bother with what I was wearing.
“Listen, I have to go to class, but Max will make sure you get to yours.”
Max gives Carter a look that communicates exactly how much he does not love that idea.
“Wait.” I reach out my hand to stop him, but Carter looks at his watch. A fancy gold thing Max and I used to tease him about.
“Does it even tell time?”
“That’s not the point of a Rolex.”
“Shit.” Carter looks at Max and motions between us. Like I’m something Max needs to take care of.
I try to stand, but the world is still wobbly.
“Wait.” Carter puts his hands under my arms to steady me before helping me sit back down, and my heart beats faster and faster. “Max will help you.”
I don’t want Max. Max hates me, and when I turn to look at him, I can see he doesn’t really like me in this dream sequence either. The look on his face is filled with frustration and apathy. And a little shock.
I, too, am shocked, Maximillian. I assumed Carter would see me, remember me, and know. I assumed he would feel our instant connection.
“I don’t like this dream.”
Max’s brows pull together. “Dream?”
I’m surprised, because for some reason, Max makes the thudding in my heart feel softer.
“I’m not calling you Flower.”
Of course he wouldn’t. Flower is cute, and he’s still full of the same amount of annoying judgmental attitude as he was before.
I’m still not talking, because all the words are stuck inside my throat, so Max asks, “Do girls really like that shit? Flower?”
I’m ready to say yes, to defend Carter and his cringeworthy behavior, but Max … he looks like he’s really asking.
“Typically, no.” I take a drink of water. “But he says it so … confidently.”
“Yeah,” Max says with a sigh. He sits down next to me. “That is the perfect definition of Carter. Saying things confidently, even though they’re nonsense.”
Max doesn’t even look like he’s upset, only like he’s just stated a fact. As if this is normal.
“I’m Nieve. It’s Irish, but I spell it the American way,” I say almost automatically.
“You said.” He runs a hand across the back of his neck as if he can pull the tension from there. “Earlier.”
Did I?
Sitting here with him, I can feel my pulse slow and the erratic beating of my heart return to normal.
This wasn’t how our first meeting was supposed to go.
I don’t remember everything about my first day of school, which now seems ridiculous. I spent so much time worrying about what I would wear, what my hair would look like, what shoes would be the easiest to walk in.
Instead, what I remember is walking into the student lounge and knowing that my life was going to change. The way Carter looked at me like he already knew me.
The way Max did, too.
I remember the way I felt like a flower, bending toward Carter as if he were the sun. He even looked like sunlight. Blond hair streaked with pieces of platinum and skin that looked golden against his dark shirt. Staring at Carter for too long felt like it was going to hurt.
Max is looking at me, his green eyes darkening, when his name is called, so he just shrugs as he stands, wiping his palms on his pants. “You gonna be okay to get to class?”
He seems to be genuinely concerned, which is … odd.
I look down at myself. Going to class looking like this would be insane. “No, yeah. I’ll be good.”
“Okay. Take care of yourself, Irish Nieve.”
“I’m not…” But he’s already walking away.
My fingers move around the edges of the stickers stuck to the water bottle, feeling the smooth surface of each one and the absence of others that haven’t made it onto the bottle yet. The bigfoot sticker I got for him isn’t there.
This dream is weird.
It’s not what happened. It’s something completely different. And in dreams, things move fast or slow or fuzzy. But right now … time feels normal. Like it’s marching on despite my subconscious.
And why is it starting here?
If my mind really knew what was good for it, I would have never even met Carter. He would move on, and I would go back home to Grandee’s and become the world’s best sheep farmer. Or I would move in with my mother and have a high ponytail and frown when I talked about art.
Because if Carter never met me, he wouldn’t go to the river, and if he didn’t go to the river, I couldn’t get caught in a current and he would’ve never jumped in and—
Open your eyes, Nieve.
I take a deep breath.
But the first thing I did was go and find Carter. Because I’m selfish and I miss him so much that I would watch him die again if it meant I got to be with him.
“Did you need to be seen?” asks a tired-looking woman with thick-rimmed glasses.
I open my mouth to say yes, but I haven’t even checked my email. Quickly, I click it open on my phone and see the message that I’ve been dropped from Art History.
I should say yes and get my spot in the class fixed, but …
But.
That’s what I did last time.
I stayed at school. I got into all the classes I needed to, worked hard to enter the showcase, and by October, I was completely in love with Carter.
“Yes, please,” I tell her.
And then I make a completely life-altering decision.