“How are you so calm?” she demanded, fingers twisting in her hair. When her hands lowered to her side, her curls were mussed, wild. Jack felt a little lightheaded at the sight, but maybe that was just the wine.
He shrugged. “It’s not the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me.” Wine dripped over his fingers as he raised his glass. “Also, I’m pretty drunk.”
They were on their second bottle, and his words were beginning to slur. Only now did he realize that the couch was incredibly comfortable. The drone of the television was reassuring, Carla’s footsteps hypnotic. His eyelids drooped.
“Are you fallingasleep?” she squawked, stopping in front of him.
Jack opened one eye. “Maybe.”
“How can you sleep? I feel like someone replaced my blood with electricity.”
“Maybe you aren’t drunk enough.”
“No,” she said, narrowly avoiding a collision with the coffee table as she stalked past. “That’s not it.”
“Too drunk?”
“I just saw a car going at least three hundred miles per hour. I’m not going to forget that any time soon.”
“Maybe next time he’ll slow down and yell at us,” Jack suggested.
Carla burst into tears. Before he knew what he was doing, he’d staggered to his feet and made his way over to her. “Hey, hey, it’s OK…”
“No, it isn’t!” she sobbed, spinning away from him. Tears ran in twin waterfalls down her face. “Nothing is OK! I’m not supposed to be here, you asshole! This fucking time loop ruined everything!”
“Whoa, hey,” said Jack, struggling to comprehend her words. “OK, so maybe it isn’t OK. Where were you supposed to be?”
Back home, he guessed, but the consternation in Carla’s gaze made his throat clench, his heart pound.Fuck, he was way too drunk for this. He should be napping right now, not trying to hold a serious conversation.
Carla collapsed onto the couch and draped her arm across her face. “I was supposed to be gone, Jack,” she groaned. “Don’t you get it?”
Forcing himself to take deep, measured breaths, he sat beside her. “Maybe you should tell me.”
She lifted her forearm to peer at him. “It was supposed to be a secret.”
A stab of dread. He watched her intensely, anticipating her next words. “You can trust me.”
“Yeah, I know.” Carla covered her eyes again. Another sob, loud enough to crack the house in half. “That’s the whole problem, Jack.”
“Um,” said Jack, glancing around for any potential eavesdroppers. But the basement was silent between Carla’s sobs. “Maybe I can help.”
“Maybe you could,” she said, weeping properly now. Great, shuddering sobs shook loose from her lungs. The couch quaked with the force of them. “But none of it matters now.”
Right. Jack struggled to think of a counterpoint. The wine left him slow and fuzzy, half-drowned in confusion and adrenaline. “We’re getting there.”
Carla sat bolt upright, looked him right in the eye. He shuddered, didn’t dare break eye contact. “Every morning, for a god damned eternity, I am going to have to listen to that foghorn fart and wake up knowing that I left him. I fucking left him, Jack. I packed up my bags, and I drove the fuck away from here, and I stayed in a hotel and drank champagne until I fell asleep, and then I woke up right back here. Right back here! And at first, I thought that maybe I dreamed it. So, I fucking left him again.And you know what happened? Do you know, Jack?” Carla panted, pinning him beneath her stare.
Holy fuck.She’d gone through with it. Hadn’t just dumped him but actuallylefthim.
For one terrible moment, he felt tiny, helpless, lanced through with pity and sorrow. He ached for her. “You woke up here again,” he murmured, trying to keep his voice low, soothing. “God, that’s—Carla, I’m so sorry.”
“And the worst part is that he doesn’t even fucking know! I left him, and he’s not angry, he’s not sad, he’s just completely clueless!” With shaking hands, she snatched a pillow from the couch, lifted it to her face and screamed just once, shrill and short. Then the pillow was back in her lap, and her eyes were on Jack, distraught, pleading.
“Carla,” he said and reached for her hand. Hesitated, wondering if he should touch her. But so often she seemed to want that, and he sensed now wasn’t the time to refrain. He grasped her small, manicured hand in his and said, “I’m so sorry. I had no idea things were so bad.”
“I told you I was gonna leave him,” Carla whimpered, shoving her face into his shoulder, clutching him like he was the only thing keeping her from flying away in a hurricane.
“I know,” Jack said, stroking a hand down her back. He was too drunk to offer anything more helpful. His head spun, his limbs were unsteady, and there was nothing he wanted less than to say the wrong thing. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to think.”
