Page 29 of 16 Forever

Lincoln

The Third Loop

Your fourth time being sixteen (the third time you looped back) was arguably the weirdest for me.

It was the year I became older than my older brother.

Only by a little, though: I had just turned sixteen in October, so it meant you and I were almost exactly the same age, some supremely twisted version of fraternal twins.

By then, Mom, Dad, and I had gotten somewhat used to how this went:

You woke up, psyched for your sixteenth birthday, completely unaware that you’d been that age for a while now and that the world had continued spinning and evolving even though you hadn’t.

We weren’t going to be caught off guard like the previous year, when it hadn’t even occurred to us that you might loop backa second time. No, this time we were prepared, even as we of course hoped that maybe the loopwasfinished, that it was a limited-time thing and you would triumphantly emerge from your bedroom crowing, “I’m seventeen! And I remember yesterday!”

That didn’t happen.

Instead, I lay under the covers staring at the ceiling, a hard knot of dread in my stomach as I heard you whistle your way to the bathroom and start the shower. I waited to take my turn until I heard you leave the bathroom and shut your bedroom door,like you were the horror movie ghoul I was desperately trying to avoid.

I wanted to put off the Moment of Realization, followed by our parents’ Faux-Calm Explanation, for as long as possible. I knew nothing could match the awfulness of that first loop day, when we had no idea what the hell was happening, but the previous year’s wasn’t really much better. Your birthday had quickly become my least favorite day of the year.

“Yo, Link,” you said upon my entrance to the kitchen, chunks of brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tart crumbing from your mouth onto the table.

“Happy birthday, CT.” My voice was actually shaking because I truly didn’t want to be doing this again. Mom and Dad weren’t even downstairs yet; they were obviously dreading it too.

“Did you... get a haircut or something?” you asked, your expressive eyebrows pressing downward.

“Um,” I said, listening for our parents’ footsteps on the stairs so I wouldn’t have to explain this on my own.

“You look, like... different.”

“Yeah,” I said, opening up the fridge, mainly as a way to hide. “I do look different.”

“Well, it looks good! Actually makes you look older.”

I wanted to crawl into the fridge, curl into a ball, and wedge myself between the orange juice and the milk. I could reemerge later that day. Or next week.

“Hey, bud,” Dad said, finally appearing in his assistant principal uniform—button-down, tie, and khakis—with Mom right behind him. “Happy b-day.”

“Whaddup, Dad!” you said. “Your firstborn is sixteen today!Glad you didn’t forget. That’s what happens in the movieSixteen Candles.It’s old. You probably haven’t even heard of it, Lincoln.”

You were technically right—I wouldn’t have heard of it, if you hadn’t said the exact same thing on your previous three birthdays.

Mom and Dad exchanged a look, which I knew meant,Okay, here we go.Mom gave me a nod. I nodded back. It was as if we were all about to get on a roller coaster. In a way, we’d been on one from the moment you first regressed, and here we were approaching another big drop. Another big loop.

“Carter,” Mom said, taking a seat at the round table. “There’s something we need to talk to you about.”

“Oh boy.” You flipped the last nub of Pop-Tart onto your tongue. “Are we doing the birds and the bees talk again? Are there details you think I’m still not aware of?”

“It’s not the birds and the bees talk,” Dad said, sitting on your other side and gesturing for me to sit too.

I slowly lowered into a chair, even though I wanted to sprint out of the room. Out of the state.

“You really do look older,” you said to me, a note of disgust in your voice. “It’s weirding me out a little.”

“That’s actually a great segue.” Dad folded his hands on the table as if he were discussing plans for a funeral. “Lincoln looks older because... heisolder.”

You narrowed your eyes and scanned them over the three of us.