Page 35 of 16 Forever

Instead, we discussed stupid stuff. Meaningless stuff. Carter wondered aloud about who invented the saltshaker. I told him it was Edna Shaker, which I knew because I’m related to her, that she’s like fifteen generations back on my dad’s side. Carter laughed and said he was so honored to know me. We then proceeded to share this made-up fact with our server, a nice bald dude named Rich, who seemed genuinely astounded.

Like I said, stupid stuff.

After dinner, we got into Toro—Carter’s car—so Carter could drive us to his house. Where we were maybe going to have sex for the first time.

I say maybe because we’d gone back and forth about the question of sex a lot. Like, on my end, I felt like it might not be wise to do this incredibly special thing together if Carter was going to forget about it soon after.

Part of me was thinking we should wait until Carter turned seventeen.

But the rest of me knew that might never happen, so why wait?

We’d never really landed on a decision.

And we both knew that night might be our last chance.

“I’m gonna play something for you,” I said as soon as we pulled out of the parking lot. I knew I would lose my nerve if I didn’t do it right away.

I plugged my phone into Toro’s sound system and scrolled to the track.

I took a deep breath, like I was about to dive underwater, and pushed Play.

As the voice memo recording began, me plunking away atpiano keys, messing up, needing to start again, I curled up in an awkward ball in the front seat.

“Oh god,” I said. “I meant to edit that out.”

Carter didn’t seem to mind. The girl on the track who sounded like me started to sing, and I felt even more self-conscious. This amateur recording featuring my amateur trembling voice singing my amateur, overly sincere lyrics about the person sitting next to me. I had to close my eyes and disassociate until the song ended.

We sat in silence for a moment.

“You wrote a song about me,” Carter said quietly.

“I did,” I said.

“Thank you.” I couldn’t tell how he felt about it. He was just staring straight ahead as he drove.

“Was that okay?” I’d made a mistake. I should never have played it for him.

“Of course,” he said. “It was really... It was really great.”

“But...?”

“But nothing. You’re an incredible musician, Mags. You sounded so good. And I love the song. I think it just made me feel... like, a little sad. About tomorrow.”

I nodded, and then came the tears, as if they’d been patiently waiting in the wings for their cue. “I’m sad too, Coco.”

“You’re so great,” he said, glancing at me for the first time since the song ended.

“So are you,” I said. And then I knew the time had come. It was now or never. “I really think... I mean, Iknow, that... I love you, Carter.”

“Oh,” he said. He froze again behind the wheel, and my insides froze too.

“Yeah.” I worried he was about to break up with me.

“Well,” he said, what felt like three hours later. “I think... I feel that too. For you.”

“Like... love?” I asked.

“Yeah. Like. Yeah. I love you. Too.”