Page 67 of 16 Forever

“Can I ask you something else?”

“Depends on how uncomfortable it makes me.”

“From your perspective, did I like Maggie a lot?”

Lincoln’s end goes silent again except for a voice saying, “What if we did it like this?” followed by a bunch of guys roaring with laughter.

“I think you did,” he says eventually. “But there will be others, CT. I promise.”

“Yeah.” I pop up from the bed. Need to walk around. “Maggie told me how this all started, the breakup the night before my first loop.”

“Oh wow. Well, I definitely want to talk about that, but I actually gotta go. We’re at this bar on campus. It’s my turn to demolish Terrell in darts.”

“Ha!” I hear Terrell say. “Sure you will.”

“All right.” I want to ask Lincoln to just stay on with me a couple of minutes longer. But I don’t. “We’ll talk some other time, then. Have fun.”

“You too, bro. Later.”

The silence after he hangs up feels unbearable.

My throat feels tight.

I go back to Instagram.

Next to my message to Layla, a word has appeared:

Seen.

Lincoln

The Sixth Loop

Your sixth time being sixteen has hit differently than all the rest, mainly because for the first time, I haven’t been there to see most of it happen.

Which, if I’m going to be real, has been a relief.

I’ve had stretches where I’m able to completely forget it’s even happening. I can pretend I’m just a normal college kid with a normal family living my normal life.

Throwing normal darts with my normal boyfriend in a normal bar.

But then I have a conversation with you like the one we just had, and I remember: I’m not normal at all. I’m just as stuck as you are. Forever doomed to repeat these same conversations over and over and over again. When I lie to you, it feels horrible. When I tell you the truth, it feels horrible.

Because the reality is that, no matter what I say or do, I’m leaving my older brother behind. And it’s the worst fucking feeling in the world. I will keep evolving and changing, and you just... won’t.

Worse still, it’s my fault.

I’ve gotten better at not thinking about that fight we had the night before this all began. The fight that almost immediately followed your breakup. I asked you if you were okay, and... you weren’t. I wish I’d never asked. But there’s no point in thinkingabout it now. Four months into the First Loop, I worked up the nerve to tell you what happened. And you flipped out. Rightfully so.

So I’ve never gone there again.

It’s just something I have to live with. This terrible situation is my fault.

And no matter how shitty it is for me, how depressing it is to be forever reliving these same conversations, it’s about a billion times worse for you.

Which, if I’m going to be real, doesn’t make me feel better at all.

I throw another dart and miss the board entirely.