Chapter 9
If I didn’t know the way to the Cattle Club, I might worry that Max was going to kill me. “It’s not far,” Max says as he takes heavy steps next to me.
I wonder if I’ve ever walked anywhere with Max.
There is only one other time I can remember.
The hallway from the emergency room to surgery in the hospital is lit with bright fluorescent lights that make the maze of beige-colored walls look almost a sickly green.
Max reaches up and touches the bandage at his temple, and I can feel the ache in my shoulder, even though the doctor told me it was just a strain.
Our clothes are stiff from the water that has air-dried against our skin.
But all of that is nothing compared to the tightening in my chest that feels like it’s going to stop my breathing.
“Max.” I look up at him. “He’s going to be okay, right?”
His jaw tenses and his shoulders pull tight as he keeps his gaze forward.
Max never answers.
Now Max walks next to me, still tense, but a different kind. His hand flexes and relaxes and his mouth opens like he’s trying to say something, but the air around us stays empty.
“Did you get a Shakespeare play?” I ask. “Or do TAs not have to do it?”
“No, I wanted to try for an individual,” he tells me with his eyes focused forward. “For a submission.”
He doesn’t even have to change his tone to make the words sound accusatory. They just are. Time should be happy that this hasn’t changed. Max Emerson still hates me simply because of my DNA.
The Cattle Club diner and bar sits at the end of a row of commercial buildings. Next to a coffee shop that’s only open till three in the afternoon, an insurance office, and a small hardware store that somehow has miraculously survived against the giant ones.
At the far end is an ice-cream shop that also makes over a hundred different kinds of milkshakes. Benji has a job there … Had a job? Everything is jumbling in my mind.
Windows surround the building, lit up with people sitting at old-school diner booths and counters. A half-walled patio is attached to the side where people form a crowd of smokers at outdoor tables.
My cousin and her friends sit at a tall table against the back window, and I almost let out a cry.
It’s not a cozy booth or a secluded spot that makes us feel like we own the place.
It’s a table among a dozen others, where the music is loud and there’s a draft from the AC unit above and one of the chairs always seems to wobble.
We can stay late and eat snacks while we pretend to study or just avoid going back to our dorms. It was ours.
It is ours.
I’m not sure why, but this familiar table feels like a victory.
Benji sits, leaning against the window, listening to something that Linden is saying to him, and Carter is talking to a girl who holds a trayful of Jell-O shots that are marked $3.
A guy I recognize from the Inheritance Committee walks up to him and completely cuts off the shot girl, but Carter doesn’t seem to notice.
I forget how much I hated Carter, the president. How every person on the committee was a person he couldn’t say no to. How they stole so much of his time and energy from me. But mostly, I hated how much he loved it.
When Benji notices Max, his face lights up and he points at us.
Linden turns to look at me. “Finally!” she says, standing. When I’m close enough, she wraps her arms around my neck. “What took you so long?”
“I had some work to catch up on.”
Linden is almost instantly distracted by something at the bar, and I’m left with the boys.
“Hi. I’m Benji.”
“Nieve. Linden’s cousin.”
“A Monroe who missed the Inheritance Committee meeting.” He says it like it’s scandalous.
Well, get ready to be scandalized, because I plan on attending exactly zero of those ever again.
Benji pushes a basket of fries in front of Max, who is already reaching across the table to pick at them. “You missed the meeting. An important one,” Benji tells Max.
Max shrugs, and I try to ignore the guilt in my stomach at being the reason he was absent. “I assume Carter was voted president.”
Benji nods and smiles. “And congrats on becoming VP!”
Max leans back and sighs as his head tilts to the ceiling. “Goddammit.” He mumbles it under his breath.
Benji’s eyes shoot to mine. “He doesn’t mean that. We love the Inheritance Committee.”
I just shrug because I don’t care what he says or thinks about it.
My aunt, Linden’s mother, started it in her first year.
She disappeared when Linden was a baby, almost twenty years ago.
It’s always been her legacy and treated with such reverence.
From everyone but Grandee, who would complain about the way people talked about her daughter as if she were a martyr and say, “She’s not missing. She knows exactly where she is.”
“I don’t love it.” Max eats another fry. “It’s elitist bullshit.”
He’s not wrong, but he’s also rude.
“Then why are you the vice president?” I ask.
His eyes move over to Carter, who is smiling at two girls who’ve come up to him with drinks. Max tips his head in that direction. “Because Carter wants to do it.”
“And you do everything your friend does?”
He tilts his head to the side, curious. Again. Ugh. “You don’t ever do something just because your friend asks?”
I run through a thousand different things I did because Carter wanted me to. Places I went to because Linden did. Dinners with Benji because he wanted to try a new restaurant.
Before I can respond, Linden sets a drink in front of me. A green monstrosity with salt around the rim.
“Looks like you’ve all met Nieve.” She points her finger between her friends and me. “Benji, Carter, and you know Max.”
“Yes,” Carter says, turning his attention fully on me and leaning across the table so he’s closer. “We met, too.”
At this distance, it’s even worse. I search for ways he looks the same, or different, or … not mine.
“Flower, right?” Carter is smiling at me.
“Nieve,” I tell him a little too confidently. The thought of this nickname growing familiar roots into my heart and burying itself there is the last thing I want. It’s so cheesy.
“Nieve,” he repeats. “Linden’s cousin.”
“An off-limits cousin,” Linden says to Carter, who just smiles back at her.
He completely misses it, his face never changing.
Linden’s hand lands on my knee. “How was art? Everything okay?”
She doesn’t mean the class; she means my mental breakdown. God, even in this timeline, Linden is taking care of me.
“Yeah.” My voice is quiet when I respond. “Everything was good.” I take a sip of the drink in front of me and almost choke. It’s alcohol. Before, she never let me sneak alcohol into my drinks here.
Linden frowns. “Did you not want that? I thought you would like it. Tequila.”
She says it like it’s obvious that I love tequila. Do I? “No, it’s great.” I smile, but it feels tight on my face.
“Everyone freaks out when they start school,” Benji says, leaning over to me. “It’s completely normal.”
He’s being kind, and I hate it. I recognize the feeling in my chest as embarrassment. Not because I missed school but because there is so much to misinterpret in my action. I didn’t leave school because I couldn’t handle it. I left because … none of this is right.
“Thanks.” I’m not actually thankful, but it’s what I’m supposed to say. “I just feel like I have so much catching up to do. I was assigned Romeo and Juliet for the collaborative project.”
“You’re doing a collab?” Linden asks. The shock on her face is clear.
I nod. “I’m hoping it won’t be too hard since everyone already knows the play.”
“If you had to pick, what Shakespeare play would you want?” Carter asks as he sets Jell-O shots in front of us all.
I answer almost instantly. “Hamlet.” Even though it’s an incredibly predictable answer.
“That’s a good one.” Benji nods in approval. “It’s Max’s favorite, too.”
Max takes his Jell-O shot and says, “It’s fine for Shakespeare.”
“For Shakespeare,” I repeat.
I’m not a Shakespeare apologist, but I bite my tongue to stop myself from launching into my just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s bad TED Talk.
“Crazy or not crazy?” Carter asks. When no one answers, he clarifies. “Hamlet. Do you think he was insane or brilliant?”
The word Grandee hates. I almost correct him before Max speaks.
“I don’t think that’s the point of Hamlet.”
Max is wrong. “I think that is absolutely the point of Hamlet,” I tell him.
He looks up at me but doesn’t ask me to keep going. I don’t need his permission anyway.
“Literally everything else hinges on that. How he treats his mother, if he really sees his dad, how he treats Ophelia.”
Max leans forward. “His actions aren’t the point, or even if he’s insane or a mastermind. It’s if you believe him.”
I shift in my seat and the sleeves of my shirt pull back on my forearms. Max’s eyes move down to the cords of yarn tied around my wrists. For a second, I consider hiding them. I’m so used to protecting this part of my life, but then I remember I don’t care what Max thinks.
Max, who thinks Hamlet is just okay. For Shakespeare.
“If I believe what? Like if he’s insane?”
“Sanity is relative to each person’s reality.
” Max looks at me like I’m the one who’s just said something ridiculous.
“Understanding that someone’s sanity can differ from yours has nothing to do with your truth and everything to do with accepting that someone else can have a reality other than your own.
It’s about believing people when they say something, even if you don’t understand. ”
What he’s just said about Hamlet feels personal. Not just because Hamlet feels insane but because, more than that, I don’t know if I believe myself.
“Okay!” Carter claps his hands together. “Max is ranting, so that’s our sign that we need to feed our big boy.” Carter rubs Max’s shoulder in a way that looks like it could be brotherly or … maybe even something more?
Linden nods and rolls her eyes. “Max is Carter’s boyfriend.”
Was Grandee’s warning right? Had I changed something so severe that Max and Carter are dating now?
Carter laughs. “Best friend. Max won’t let me have my way with him. My crush is unrequited.” It’s a joke, and it feels like it, but it’s also something else. Carter is telling me that Max is his person.
I knew Carter was Max’s person, but was Max ever Carter’s?
I was Carter’s person. Wasn’t I? I remember a story about how a girl had tried to date Max and Carter at the same time.
They ended up inviting her to a restaurant where they broke up with her and then ate dinner like they were on the date, because no one ever comes between them.
They vowed never to date someone the other liked again.
No wonder Max hated me.
He’s laughing at something Benji’s just said, and I catch the dimple in his right cheek and—
“So the first day was good? You’re happy with it?” Linden asks.
I clear my throat, hoping she didn’t catch me staring at Max. “Yeah. It was.”
She looks at me seriously. “I’m sorry you didn’t get an individual piece. I know you wanted it. But just tell me if something happens again.”
Just tell her about how I’ve already lived this life before? Tell her that the boy she’s sitting next to was my boyfriend and he died?
I rub at my neck, hoping to get rid of the tension there. “Yeah, I will. Sorry.”
She nods. “I’m here for you.”
Except that’s not what she really means. Linden doesn’t want to know that I’m going insane. She wants me to be okay.
“Everyone is so serious.” Carter throws back his Jell-O shot. “I know what we need. A night swim.”
“Oh god, not this shit again,” Max complains.
“Night swimming is a tradition.” Carter looks at me and winks. “You’re gonna love it.”
But suddenly, their voices are drowned out by the hum in my ears.
The river roars as the black water moves downstream and around a bend. The parking lot that is at the end of a narrow trail is empty, and the streetlight has long since burned out. Carter takes my hand in his.
“You’re gonna love it.”
“Dying?” I ask, joking.
“Almost dying,” he corrects. “Night swimming in the river is a tradition. Besides, it’s good for your heart.”
“Is that based on science?” Max calls out from below. He’s already in up to his knees.
“I don’t know about your heart, but it will clear out your bowels,” Benji gripes next to Carter.
“Ignore them. The first person to make it to the other side is the winner.”
Carter strips off his shirt and plunges into the water.
“I’m not feeling well.” At first, I don’t know who I say it to. But then I look over at Linden, who pinches her brows at me.
“Ah, come on,” Carter tells me. “You just got here.”
“I should rest,” I tell him, and I feel myself frown.
Carter looks taken aback, mostly because Carter—every version of him—isn’t used to hearing no. “Listen, Flower—”
“That’s not my name.”
“I don’t want to tell you how to live, but there are certain things you need to do so that you get the full college experience.
” He holds up his three fingers and folds them down as he lists them off.
“One. Go to class hungover. Two. Invent a family tragedy to get an extension on a paper. And three. Break into the school’s swimming pool just to feel alive. ”
The way he says it, his smile on full display and his attention bright on me, makes the heart in my chest pound. I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from crying here. Carter feels like a memory come to life.
“I think I’ll have a college experience another night.”
“You sure?” Linden asks. Her face is concerned, probably because she can tell I’m on the edge of crying.
“Yeah.”
Now Benji is frowning. “You don’t have to swim; just come with us. The pool has been closed to students for, like, ten years, but the staff use it. It’s cool.”
My hands feel clammy, and I make them into fists as if I could squeeze the feelings from them. Max eyes me warily, like he’s still deciding on me. Like he doesn’t hate me yet.
“I’ll go back with you,” Linden offers.
Suddenly, I know what this is. A test to make sure I’m not having another breakdown.
And I’m failing.
I don’t remember a pool from before. This isn’t the river, and Carter drowned at the river, so this could be different, right? He’ll be fine.
I open my mouth to tell them no, but I say, “Okay.”