Page 61 of A Thousand Second Chances

He nods and swallows hard, averting his eyes. “It’s the least I can do. A way to honor my mom’s memory and show her how much I loved her.”

A pause stretches while I consider his words. “That’sbullshit,” I say at last, unable to hold back my ire any longer. Percy sucks in a breath, too shocked by my response for anger. I take advantage of his surprise to continue. “It’s not fair to put allthat on you. To make you face a painful past he’s too much of a coward to confront himself.”

There’sthe anger I’d been expecting. “My dad’snota coward!”

I shrug. “Maybe not.” I lean forward, waiting until he meets my eyes with his furious gaze. “But this trip should be aboutyou, not him. You deserve closure as much as he does. You’ve gotta find your own way to honor your mom—yourownway to live your life.”

Percy stares at me for a long moment, and I hold my breath. I’ve seriously overstepped. This is where he tells me how much he regrets getting stuck here with me. How he wants me to avoid talking to him every iteration from now on.

Instead, something in his face gradually loosens, the tension seeping out of him. “Maybe you’re right,” he says quietly. “Maybe itistime to start living for me.” He takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders as if steeling himself for what he’s about to say. “I was with my mom the night before she passed. She made me promise that I…”

His voice cracks, and he pauses, swallowing. I want to comfort him, but I don’t dare interrupt. I can tell how hard it is for him to get the words out. Instead, I give him a small smile, hoping he gleans the silent support I’m trying to convey.

After taking a moment to gather himself, he continues, his words increasingly unsteady. “She made me promise that I’d be okay—that I’d be happy. And I want to live up to that promise more than anything, but she had this whole vision in her head of my future with a wife and kids, and I know I should’ve told her the truth, but I chickened out, and then she died, and I…I…”

His breath hitches, and without thinking, I reach past the seats to squeeze his hand, my mind reeling. Jesus. Percy had already been nervous about coming out before we left for winter break. I can only imagine how much worse his anxiety became after finding out about his mom’s diagnosis. Add in the strain of hisfear of rejection, plus his guilt over not confiding in her before she passed, and, wow, yeah—I totally get how that would fuck with his head.

“It’s not your fault, Perce,” I whisper, trying to catch his gaze. “You didn’t do anything wrong, and knowing your sexuality wouldn’t have changed how your mother felt about you. You said it yourself—all she wanted was for you to be happy.”

I can see on his face that he doesn’t believe me, no matter how desperately he wants to. If only I knew the magic words to make everything better—to convince him that he deserves to be loved. But I don’t. We stare into each other’s eyes for a long, fraught moment, his bright blue orbs threatening to draw me in until I sink and drown in their sorrowful depths.

When he clears his throat, I startle at the sudden sound. “Chris…” It’s like that fraught moment outside the car again, his voice choked with emotion. His jaw trembles as he presses his lips tightly together.

I swallow, both terrified and infinitely curious to hear what he’s about to say. “Yeah?”

“It matters.” His azure eyes blaze, and I’m powerless to look away as he continues, his words imprinting themselves onto my soul. “Everything that’s happened to us is real to me. And I don’t regret a single second of it. I would happily repeat the same day athousandtimes if I got to spend them with you.”

I open and close my mouth, utterly speechless. What the hell am I supposed to say tothat?

Before I can form a coherent response, the driver’s door thumps open. Leather squeaks as Quinn slides into her seat. “All right, boys, you two ready to go? We’ve still got plenty of hours to kill before nightfall.”

Percy holds my gaze a moment longer before settling back in his seat and giving Quinn a fragile smile. “Let’s go.”

I nod mutely in agreement, slowly tugging my seatbelt into place. Quinn keeps sneaking glances at me as she pulls onto the expressway, but I hardly notice. All I can think about is that look in Percy’s eyes. That brief touch to my cheek. Those words he’d uttered like a quiet, fervent prayer.

I don’t regret a single second of it.

I close my eyes and lean my head back against the headrest. I hadn’t realized how much I’d needed to hear that until now.

Neither do I, I think, my heart in my throat.Neither do I…

We continue down the expressway, putting more miles between us and Mackinac Island, but I can’t shake the feeling that something has shifted between Percy and me. Perhaps it’s been shifting all along, and his quiet confession was simply the final catalyst needed to complete the process. The tension that’s been lying thick between us ebbs away, replaced by something else entirely. I find myself looking at him more often than before and catch him doing the same, our eyes lingering each time they meet as if neither of us can stand letting the other out of their sight for more than a few heartbeats.

Within an hour, Quinn has us both guffawing over one of our many late-night adventures on campus. Percy looks freer and more open than I’ve ever seen him. It’s as if all his worries have been swept away, a mask I hadn’t even realized he’d been wearing stripped off and discarded. As the hours drag on, the afternoon fading into twilight and then into darkness, he doesn’t check his phone even once. Maybe he listened to my advice and put it on silent. If so, good for him. Whatever the reason for the transformation, it lifts my heart to see him so at ease.

In the end, our plan fails. We’re still driving down the darkened expressway when suddenly, I’m blinking awake to my alarm at the Royal Lilac. Either distance has no effect on the temporal anomaly, or we need to drive further than theTennessee border to escape Mackinac Island’s pull. My money’s on the former.

Our most recent failure, however, does little to dampen my mood as I get ready for the day and head down to meet Percy at our usual spot. Something changed between us yesterday—something important. And for once, I’m looking forward to whatever this latest cycle has in store.

By the wide smile Percy gives me when he walks into the cafe, he’s feeling at least some of what I am. I pass him his usual chai latte and muffin. I tend to order for us most days so he can avoid interacting with Owen. That kid is gruff with everyone, but he seems downright hostile to Percy. Something about their shared childhoods, I guess, though Percy had seemed about as clueless as me when I’d asked him about it.

“One-fifteen AM,” Percy says in lieu of a greeting.

It takes me a second to process what he said. “You’re sure?”

He nods and sips his drink. “I made it a point to keep an eye on the time, and I’m certain I didn’t fall asleep.”

He’d gotten a similar result a couple of cycles earlier, and this seemed to confirm it. Our time loop resets at the same point each night—1:15 AM.