Chapter 25 #2
A loud buzzing noise shatters the moment. My eyes fly open, and I stumble back. Percy does the same, shifting to face away from me so I can’t see his face. Back stiff, he fumbles his phone from his pocket and taps the screen. Whatever he reads there makes his back stiffen further.
“Your dad?” I ask as he types out a response. We’ve spent enough time together these past Saturdays that I’ve got a pretty good guess what would make him close up like that.
“Yeah,” he sighs, lowering the phone and rubbing his eyes.
He shoves his phone in his pocket, opens the car door, and retreats into the back.
I watch him for a moment, deliberating. My eyes flick from the car to the gas station.
No sign of Quinn yet. Before I fully register what I’m doing, I reach up and press a hand lightly to the spot where Percy’s had been mere moments before.
I can still feel the heat of his touch seared into my skin.
Dropping my hand, I open my door and climb into the passenger seat. Rather than buckling my seatbelt, I spin around, prop myself on the center console, and poke my head through the gap between seats.
Percy looks up, startled.
“You don’t have to read or respond to his texts if you don’t want to,” I say.
He frowns. “I can’t just ignore him. He’s my dad.”
“So? My parents call every afternoon like clockwork, and that hasn’t stopped me from ignoring them each and every time.” All except that original Saturday, which had been more than enough. Why put up with their shit when I don’t have to?
“We’ve been over this,” he retorts. “I can’t do that to him. This trip meant a lot to him. Mackinac Island was a huge part of all our lives, but especially his and my mom’s.”
“Then he should’ve come himself,” I scoff.
Percy fixes me with a glare. “He wanted to, but he couldn’t. We talked about coming here all last year, but when the time came, it was too hard for him to be here without her. So, he sent me a list of all the places he wanted me to visit in his stead. Places that were important to them.”
“Like that rock in the woods,” I guess, a few things clicking into place.
He nods and swallows hard, averting his eyes. “It’s the least I can do. A way to honor my mom’s memory and show her how much I loved her.”
A pause stretches while I consider his words.
“That’s bullshit,” I say at last, unable to hold back my ire any longer.
Percy sucks in a breath, too shocked by my response for anger.
I take advantage of his surprise to continue.
“It’s not fair to put all that on you. To make you face a painful past he’s too much of a coward to confront himself. ”
There’s the anger I’d been expecting. “My dad’s not a coward!”
I shrug. “Maybe not.” I lean forward, waiting until he meets my eyes with his furious gaze. “But this trip should be about you, not him. You deserve closure as much as he does. You’ve gotta find your own way to honor your mom—your own way to live your life.”
Percy stares at me for a long moment, and I hold my breath. I’ve seriously overstepped. This is where he tells me how much he regrets getting stuck here with me. How he wants me to avoid talking to him every iteration from now on.
Instead, something in his face gradually loosens, the tension seeping out of him.
“Maybe you’re right,” he says quietly. “Maybe it is time to start living for me.” He takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders as if steeling himself for what he’s about to say.
“I was with my mom the night before she passed. She made me promise that I…”
His voice cracks, and he pauses, swallowing. I want to comfort him, but I don’t dare interrupt. I can tell how hard it is for him to get the words out. Instead, I give him a small smile, hoping he gleans the silent support I’m trying to convey.
After taking a moment to gather himself, he continues, his words increasingly unsteady.
“She made me promise that I’d be okay—that I’d be happy.
And I want to live up to that promise more than anything, but she had this whole vision in her head of my future with a wife and kids, and I know I should’ve told her the truth, but I chickened out, and then she died, and I… I…”
His breath hitches, and without thinking, I reach past the seats to squeeze his hand, my mind reeling.
Jesus. Percy had already been nervous about coming out before we left for winter break.
I can only imagine how much worse his anxiety became after finding out about his mom’s diagnosis.
Add in the strain of his fear of rejection, plus his guilt over not confiding in her before she passed, and, wow, yeah—I totally get how that would fuck with his head.
“It’s not your fault, Perce,” I whisper, trying to catch his gaze. “You didn’t do anything wrong, and knowing your sexuality wouldn’t have changed how your mother felt about you. You said it yourself—all she wanted was for you to be happy.”
I can see on his face that he doesn’t believe me, no matter how desperately he wants to.
If only I knew the magic words to make everything better—to convince him that he deserves to be loved.
But I don’t. We stare into each other’s eyes for a long, fraught moment, his bright blue orbs threatening to draw me in until I sink and drown in their sorrowful depths.
When he clears his throat, I startle at the sudden sound. “Chris…” It’s like that fraught moment outside the car again, his voice choked with emotion. His jaw trembles as he presses his lips tightly together.
I swallow, both terrified and infinitely curious to hear what he’s about to say. “Yeah?”
“It matters.” His azure eyes blaze, and I’m powerless to look away as he continues, his words imprinting themselves onto my soul.
“Everything that’s happened to us is real to me.
And I don’t regret a single second of it.
I would happily repeat the same day a thousand times if I got to spend them with you. ”
I open and close my mouth, utterly speechless. What the hell am I supposed to say to that?
Before I can form a coherent response, the driver’s door thumps open. Leather squeaks as Quinn slides into her seat. “All right, boys, you two ready to go? We’ve still got plenty of hours to kill before nightfall.”
Percy holds my gaze a moment longer before settling back in his seat and giving Quinn a fragile smile. “Let’s go.”
I nod mutely in agreement, slowly tugging my seatbelt into place. Quinn keeps sneaking glances at me as she pulls onto the expressway, but I hardly notice. All I can think about is that look in Percy’s eyes. That brief touch to my cheek. Those words he’d uttered like a quiet, fervent prayer.
I don’t regret a single second of it.
I close my eyes and lean my head back against the headrest. I hadn’t realized how much I’d needed to hear that until now.
Neither do I, I think, my heart in my throat. Neither do I…
We continue down the expressway, putting more miles between us and Mackinac Island, but I can’t shake the feeling that something has shifted between Percy and me.
Perhaps it’s been shifting all along, and his quiet confession was simply the final catalyst needed to complete the process.
The tension that’s been lying thick between us ebbs away, replaced by something else entirely.
I find myself looking at him more often than before and catch him doing the same, our eyes lingering each time they meet as if neither of us can stand letting the other out of their sight for more than a few heartbeats.
Within an hour, Quinn has us both guffawing over one of our many late-night adventures on campus.
Percy looks freer and more open than I’ve ever seen him.
It’s as if all his worries have been swept away, a mask I hadn’t even realized he’d been wearing stripped off and discarded.
As the hours drag on, the afternoon fading into twilight and then into darkness, he doesn’t check his phone even once.
Maybe he listened to my advice and put it on silent.
If so, good for him. Whatever the reason for the transformation, it lifts my heart to see him so at ease.
In the end, our plan fails. We’re still driving down the darkened expressway when suddenly, I’m blinking awake to my alarm at the Royal Lilac.
Either distance has no effect on the temporal anomaly, or we need to drive further than the Tennessee border to escape Mackinac Island’s pull. My money’s on the former.
Our most recent failure, however, does little to dampen my mood as I get ready for the day and head down to meet Percy at our usual spot. Something changed between us yesterday—something important. And for once, I’m looking forward to whatever this latest cycle has in store.
By the wide smile Percy gives me when he walks into the cafe, he’s feeling at least some of what I am.
I pass him his usual chai latte and muffin.
I tend to order for us most days so he can avoid interacting with Owen.
That kid is gruff with everyone, but he seems downright hostile to Percy.
Something about their shared childhoods, I guess, though Percy had seemed about as clueless as me when I’d asked him about it.
“One-fifteen AM,” Percy says in lieu of a greeting.
It takes me a second to process what he said. “You’re sure?”
He nods and sips his drink. “I made it a point to keep an eye on the time, and I’m certain I didn’t fall asleep.”
He’d gotten a similar result a couple of cycles earlier, and this seemed to confirm it. Our time loop resets at the same point each night—1:15 AM.
“But…why?” I shake my head. “What’s so special about that particular time?”
Percy shrugs. Of course, he has no answer.
Neither of us does, and we’ve been over it enough times that the thought of rehashing it again doesn’t sound appealing.
It could correspond to a significant event somewhere on the island…
or it could be nothing but chance, chosen at random when this all began.
We eat our food in silence for a while before Percy ventures, “Yesterday was a good test. We need to try more things like that.”
I snort. “You mean crazy ideas with little to no chance of success?”
He unleashes a full grin on me, and I fight a blush at the way my pulse quickens. “Exactly. Nothing else has panned out so far. I think it’s that sort of out-of-the-box thinking we need to figure out how to free ourselves.”
Ignoring my usual confused pang at the prospect of escaping the loop, I say, “I’ve got a couple ideas that could fit the bill.”
Percy takes another bite of his muffin. God, he even looks adorable chewing. “Do tell.”
“Well, the time loop seems to have singled the two of us out. What if it needs both of us in order to run its course?”
“We’ve already determined that distance doesn’t matter. At least, not what we can drive in a single day. I guess we could take a flight—”
“I mean, yeah, we could try that, too. But I’m talking about something a bit more…
extreme. What if one of us isn’t around anymore?
” He blinks, still looking confused, so I sigh and roll my eyes.
“You know…if one of us exits the time loop prematurely.” I slice a finger across my neck, and Percy’s eyes bulge with horror.
“No!” he shouts, chair skidding across the tile as he surges to his feet. I stare open-mouthed at his reaction, as do the other customers in the cafe. Owen glowers from behind the counter, but what else is new?
“Geez, chill,” I mutter. “It was just a suggestion.”
“Well, it’s a stupid one!” Percy retorts, his eyes blazing. “What if it actually worked? Whoever did that wouldn’t come back. There’d be no reset.”
I force a nonchalance I don’t feel and shrug. “That’s a risk I’d be willing to take for science.” I avert my eyes. “Besides, it’s not like it would be some great loss.”
Percy steps around the table in a few quick strides. I instinctively shrink back as he looms over me. “That’s not funny,” he snarls.
He grabs my shoulders, tugging me close and forcing me to meet his gaze. Despite his obvious anger, his touch remains gentle. I could easily break out of it if I wanted to. Instead, I stay still.
“Don’t even joke about that,” he continues, a note of pleading entering his voice. “Whatever else happens, however desperate we get, that is not an option. Because, no matter what you think, I would care. Okay?”
I nod mutely, stunned by the strength of his reaction. His fingers tighten around my upper arms like he’s clinging to me for dear life. “Promise me?” he demands.
“Okay,” I manage, my voice hoarse. I clear my throat and say more strongly, “I promise.”
He nods and takes a deep breath before releasing me and stepping back. I watch him warily as he circles around to his own seat and gulps his latte.
“Got any other ideas?” he asks reluctantly, setting aside his cup. “Ones that don’t suck?”
I try for a mock glare, but my heart’s not in it. I’m still reeling from his outburst. He still cares. Maybe it’s my unbalanced state that makes me say what I do next. Or maybe it’s the memory of yesterday and that car ride—of his unabashed laughter and that quiet, intimate moment we’d shared.
I would happily repeat the same day a thousand times if I got to spend them with you.
Whatever momentary lapse it is that seizes me, the words tumble past my lips before I can stop them. “Maybe we should try going on a date.”