Chapter 28
When I wake up the next morning, I realize two things.
It is quite possible that I had too much to drink and sexually harassed Max Emerson.
And it’s also quite possible that I imagined the whole thing. I am hoping for the latter.
Lying in bed has me searching the black spots in my memory, hoping for even a glimmer of light to tell me what happened after I kissed him, but nothing comes to me. I get out of bed and get dressed, and on my way to breakfast, I make my calls.
Hello, Grandee, how are you? Everything still the same? What are the names of the sheep?
Hi, Mom, do you have a husband? How about a career in art that you hate?
Linden, still at Suttleton College? Still dating Carter?
Everything is exactly the same, which leads me to believe that I did not, in fact, kiss Max. Because if I had … that would have been a big ripple.
Just like last time.
I should be at art history class, so instead I head to the library for something else to do, mostly because it’s quiet.
The spot next to the windows, the one where our group of friends used to study and draw together, is almost always empty now.
Except for today. Max sits in the alcove, with his sketchbook on the table that obscures the lower half of his body.
His sleeves are pushed up on his forearms, and his dark hair falls in front of his face as he looks down at his work.
Before, it wouldn’t have been weird to see him here, but now it feels as if I’m interrupting. And I can’t help but relive the way he looked at me last night.
Imagined or not.
It takes me less than a second to decide that I will pretend to be normal. I will just do what normal girls do. Hello, fellow student. How is your academic day proceeding? And I will not think about kissing him. Or him pushing me away. Totally normal.
I walk up to the table slowly and look over his shoulder to see what he’s working on. As if sensing someone else, he glances up, just as I notice who the picture is of.
Me.
We speak at the same time.
“Max.”
“Nieve.”
Max’s arm goes over the drawing to hide it. Not too far from us, a couple of freshmen are working on laptops. They shoot annoyed looks in our direction.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
Max takes a deep breath. “Our assignment.” There’s something broken about the way he says it.
Guilt claws its way in between my ribs painfully. Max deserves better, something I could never have imagined thinking, let alone believing, before. “I’m sorry. I should have…”
“What?” He gives me a playful smile, and my stomach tightens. “Returned my phone calls?”
I shift on my feet.
“Not drank so much?”
My throat feels like it needs to be cleared. “The first part. And the second.” I sit down across from him. “Can we do it now?”
What I didn’t tell Doc when he said we would need to find times to sit for each other was that I didn’t need help drawing Max. I have his face memorized.
His lips, which are pulled into a frown, still feel like a ghost on my own.
And Max, for his part, doesn’t look like he needs me to sit, either.
“All right.” He leans back in his seat as I pull out my sketchbook.
We fall into silence, the sounds of pencil on paper and the rustle of pages our soundtrack. Max mostly stares at me as I try to remember that I can draw faces.
“Having a hard time?” he asks.
“No.” I’m being defensive again.
“You’ve just been drawing circles.”
“Faces are made up of circles,” I quip back. “I’m just trying to figure out what your face says.”
The side of his mouth lifts in an almost smile. “I can help you if you—”
“No. No talking about art. New subject.” I say the first thing that comes to mind. “What do you think about time travel?” I ask.
His hand stills on the paper before moving again. “Are you trying to fast-forward it so you can skip this?”
“No.” What I say next just comes out. “Like what if you could go back and redo things in your life?”
I realize how close this is to honesty. Almost. I wait for him to tell me that I’m weird and this is bonkers.
Instead, he says, “That’s not time travel. That’s like … a time loop or something.” Max looks up at me. “Is this about last night?”
My body goes cold. Did I already tell him about how things changed? Did I confess about Carter? Or … him and me?
Now he smiles. “Is there something you want to redo? Like not kissing me?”
“Oh god.” I lay my head on the table, oddly relieved that kissing Max actually happened and he remembers it, but humiliated that this is how we are talking about it.
“Sorry. It was a stupid thing for me to do.” But I can’t tell if I’m actually sorry or just embarrassed that he didn’t want to kiss me back.
He nods and returns to sketching. “Was it?”
I try to focus on the sound of pencil across paper, but I can’t seem to get his voice out of my head. I want to ask, if he thinks really hard, can he remember the before? A time when he hated me and I was a different person?
That girl who loved Carter like he was the sun, and I was only the moon reflecting his light. That girl who was someone different from the person I want to be now.
I’m glad this Max never knew her.
“I am sorry,” I tell him. “About the kiss.”
Silence fills the space between us, and I wait for him to say something. To acknowledge what I’ve just said. My heart twists and rends.
“Move your head to the side again?” he asks.
And I do.
The pencil scratches across the page, but he doesn’t say anything else, and I feel like I’ve done the wrong thing by apologizing. Again.
When I was little, I struggled with feeling sad. Grandee told me to think about the last time I was happy. I couldn’t always remember. I try to do that now. I try to think about the last time something made my chest feel light.
I think back to a life with Carter. One where he was with me. His hands in mine. His eyes on me. His lips whispering my name.
I close my eyes and try to imagine the way it made me feel. Nieve. But it’s not Carter that I hear. It’s Max.
Max’s hand in mine. Max’s eyes on me. Max. Max. Max.
Have I replaced all my memories of Carter with Max?
I think about Max’s hands on me without warning, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t remember what Carter’s felt like. Carter is disappearing.
The Carter I knew.
The one who sang silly songs to me while he made me breakfast or left sticky notes around my dorm labeling inanimate objects with names, like Wentworth, the forgotten hair tie, or a toothpaste cap dubbed Charlie.
I miss Carter, but I can’t see his face in any of these memories.
But more than that, I don’t know if anything I’m doing is working. I’m still going to end up at the river.
And Carter will still die.