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“Hey, hey.” His hands come to my shoulders, and he coaxes me back and away. He’s nothing but a series of angles and shadows in the darkness. “Is this about the Groundhog Day dream Benny was talking about?”
“Do you remember when I got here,” I say, “and I ran into the house like a crazy person? I told Kennedy not to trip over Miso, I told Dad not to eat the cookie. I went through the thing about Theo’s hair being fine, about your dad and the gin. All of that?”
He nods slowly. “Yeah. I remember your arrival being sort of . . . wild.” He quickly adds, “But funny. I liked it.”
“But specifically,” I say, “do you remember me saying those things? And the weird hunches you asked me about?”
Andrew shifts my weight on top of him. “Yeah.”
“I had all those weird hunches because, by that point, I’d already been through it three times before.”
He lets out a long, slow breath. “Sorry. I don’t—”
“I knew your mom would have made those terrible bars,” I say, “because Dad broke his tooth every other time I’d lived it.”
Andrew lets out another incredulous laugh. “No way.”
“I knew Kennedy would skin her knee. I knew you’d sleep in the Boathouse. I knew where to find the sleeping bags.”
“Well, okay,” he says, trying to work this out. “Why did you get sent back in time, then?”
Relief that he’s listening and not immediately running away courses warm through me. “I made a wish.”
Andrew laughs, a bright, happy burst of sound that immediately dies when he realizes I’m completely serious. “A wish.”
There’s no way around this. Taking a deep breath, I say, “The first time around—okay. Things were different with me and Theo.”
“Different how?” Andrew asks quietly.
“The first time I lived this holiday,” I say, “on the last night, we were in the basement playing board games— Christmas night? We drank too much eggnog. You left to go to bed, and we came back upstairs—Theo and me—and we ended up making out in the mudroom.”
Even in the darkness, Andrew visibly pales.
“It was awful,” I rush to add, “and we both went to bed, and then the next morning, he got up early and didn’t even acknowledge me.” I pause, that’s not right. “Actually, he said, ‘It was nothing, Mae. I should have known you’d make a huge deal out of it.’ It was our last day here, and it was completely miserable.”
Andrew still doesn’t say anything, so I continue. “It was so awkward. You came out and teased me because you’d seen us—”
“Are you sure you didn’t dream this?” he asks.
“I’m sure. Your parents told us that they were selling the cabin, and then my family left for the airport. I was freaking out and made a wish to find out what would make me happy.” I swallow. “We got in a car accident. I woke up on the plane headed back here. And the same thing happened two more times—once, I fell down the stairs, and once a tree branch fell on me.”
He shakes his head as if he can somehow dislodge what I’ve just said. “You made out with Theo three times?”
“No—God—just the once. Each time I was sent back, I would try to figure out what was happening. I assumed it was like a puzzle, you know? I would think I had it figured out, and would decide some course of action, and then boom, gone. I kept getting sent back because I wasn’t doing something right.” I wait for him to respond, but he’s gone still and quiet beneath me. “But once I was like, ‘Screw it,’ and just 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.”
