In A Holidaze - Christina Lauren Page 0,71
went for what I wanted, everything fell into place.”
Still nothing. No reaction from Andrew.
“I was melting down on the street in town,” I say, “because you’re what I want, and I have this feeling that we won’t be able to keep what we have. That it will all disappear. And then everything started to go wrong.”
“So that’s why you asked Miles to punch you?” he asks, confused.
“Yes!”
His silence stretches, and my thoughts turn foggy with worry that this is all sounding manic and impossible. “I knew we’d build the snow monkey. I knew Miso would destroy your sweater—”
“Miso hasn’t destroyed my sweater.”
“Well,” I falter, “no, not yet, but—”
“Mae.” Andrew lets out a long, tired breath, and in the darkness, I see him lift his hands to his face. “Can you just—” He pauses, and then shifts farther away from me. A chill runs down my bare arms, and I suddenly feel too naked. I reach for the sleeping bag, trying to move closer to him, but he holds me away. “Please. Don’t—I just need to . . .”
“I know it sounds insane,” I say, genuinely worried that I’ve scared him. I put my hand on his shoulder, but it feels cold. “I know it does. But I think I got to do this over and over again so that I could do things right. I really do. For you, and the cabin. And my life.”
“I thought you weren’t into Theo.”
My stomach drops. “I’m not. I wasn’t. Ever.”
“But you’re saying,” he says slowly, “in some version of the past, you made out with him?”
“For like a minute.”
He rubs his hands over his face. “I’m not even sure if this happened, but you certainly seem to think it did.”
“I know it sounds impossible, I get that, but it did. I was feeling sad and desperate. It wasn’t great, he was really cold afterward, and I immediately regretted it. I don’t—”
“Sad and desperate over what?”
“You, partly. And just the state of my life.”
“So you made a wish for the universe to show you what would make you happy and—” He shakes his head. “I’m the result of that? I’m the prize at the end of the game?”
“I mean,” I start, stumbling, “Yes—I mean no, but—”
“Why not just tell me how you felt? That seems, I don’t know, a million times easier?”
“Because I was scared. Because I’ve known you my whole life and didn’t want to ruin it. Because I assumed you weren’t interested in me. But being sent back to the plane over and over made me realize I didn’t care if I failed. I had to try.”
“So which Mae is real? The one who goes for what she wants, or the one who makes out with my brother when she’s afraid of facing her real feelings and then wishes it away?”
“This one. The one right here, telling you that I want this to happen with you.”
“I need—” he starts, and slides his hands down his face. When he looks up at me, even in the low light I can tell that the glow in his eyes is flattened, like a candle has been blown out. “I need you to give me some space.”
His words leave a ringing silence in the cold, cavernous room. My stomach dissolves away, painfully acidic. “Andrew. It wasn’t—”
“Mae,” he says very calmly, “don’t. Don’t make it sound like it isn’t a big deal. You made out with Theo because you’d decided—without ever even talking to me—that you and I weren’t going to happen. Whether you’re remembering something from a dream, or you hit your head or—I don’t know—you’re somehow repeating time, don’t make it seem like it’s not totally strange that you think you and Theo actually—” He stops abruptly, unable to finish the sentence. “And then instead of dealing with your life the way it is, you—make a wish?” Frustrated, Andrew rakes a hand through his hair. “God. I can’t even process this—whatever this is.”
“Andrew,” I start, and there’s a waver in my voice that I have to work to swallow down. “It’s not like there wasn’t a weird sense of fate for you here, too. You told me about the tarot cards.”
“Oh, come on, Mae, of course we know that’s bullshit.”
A tiny fire ignites. “What’s happening to me isn’t bullshit—whether you believe me or not.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t think destiny includes kissing one brother and then the other.”
“How many ways can I say that was a mistake?”
He bends, scrubbing his face with a hand. “I think