Page 62 of 16 Forever

“Okay,” I say. “The night before you first started looping, like five years ago or whatever, you and your girlfriend broke up. Well, she said I love you, and you didn’t say it back. And you said you wanted to break up. And then... The next day...”

“Ohmigod,” Carter says, taking a step backward. “That’s why I’m stuck in this hell? Because I dumped my girlfriend? Who was she?”

“I’m... I’m not sure.”

Carter gives me a skeptical look and twitches his head likeWhat?“Then how do you even know for sure that that happened?”

“It’s complicated,” I say, desperately wishing there was a teleportationapp on my phone.

“Everything all right here?” Chord asks, putting a hand on my back as he steps up next to me.

He’ll suffice, I guess.

“Yeah, totally,” I say. “We were—”

“Wait, was it Layla Banerjee?” Carter asks, ignoring Chord completely. “Was that who I dumped?”

I feel the color spill from my face, splashing a Jackson Pollock onto the floor. “Why would—How do you—? Who told you that?”

“So itwasLayla!” Carter says, one finger pointing in the air like he’s just had the idea for a new invention. “Sheisthe key!”

“Maybe you should give Maggie a little space.” Chord puts his arm in front of me like he’s a tollbooth.

“Seriously, how do you know about Layla?” I ask Carter. Didherememberwhat I told him that last night in December? (Mental note: That would make a great lyric.)

“Let’s just say a little friend told me,” Carter says, stepping closer in spite of the tall, muscular fellow blocking his path. “A little friend namedME! Ha!”

He left a message for himself about Layla. Not great.

“All right, all right,” Chord says, putting an arm around me and directing us away from Carter. “Maggie, you want to come with me over here?”

I definitely want to exit this conversation, but I could use that decompression time in the bathroom more than ever. Explaining that to Chord, though, seems like more hassle than it’s worth.

“Um, sure,” I say.

“So was that everything?” Carter asks.

I look back at him. “Yeah,” I lie. “That’s everything. I’m sorry, Coco. I mean Carter.”

The crowd cheers as Linda Schweitzer takes the stage. Chord takes my hand, and we hunch over and run to his table, where his friends shift around to make a spot for me.

I feel weird that I didn’t even say bye to Carter, but when I glance back over toward where we were standing, he’s already gone.

Carter

“You seem agitated,” Soren says.

It’s the day after the concert. Friday. I freaked out at Bodhi as I drove him home last night. I asked him why he never told me that Maggie and I had dated. He said he was really sorry but Maggie had asked him not to mention it. I said that sucked. He agreed. Then he pulled a bag of Takis out of his coat pocket and asked me if I wanted one. I did.

Today in school I aggressively ignored Maggie the two times I passed her in the hall. That’ll show her.

And now I’m at my 4:00 p.m. therapy session with Soren. Very well-timed, actually.

“I am agitated,” I say, sitting forward in the red cushiony chair in his office, holding the random-ass rooster-wearing-glasses tchotchke that is always sitting on the small table next to me. “Turns out Maggie and I dated last loop. Did you know that?”

“I did,” Soren says, nodding with his eyes closed, which, when combined with his glasses and annoying hipster mustache, makes him look smug as hell.

“And you didn’t think that might be valuable information for me to take in?”