If I See You Again Tomorrow - Softcover

Couch, Robbie

 
9781534497504: If I See You Again Tomorrow
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1534497501 ISBN 13: 9781534497504
Verlag: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

From the author of The Sky Blues and Blaine for the Win comes a speculative young adult romance about a teen stuck in a time loop that’s endlessly monotonous until he meets the boy of his dreams.

For some reason, Clark has woken up and relived the same monotonous Monday 309 times. Until Day 310 turns out to be…different. Suddenly, his usual torturous math class is interrupted by an anomaly—a boy he’s never seen before in all his previous Mondays.

When shy, reserved Clark decides to throw caution to the wind and join effusive and effervescent Beau on a series of “errands” across the Windy City, he never imagines that anything will really change, because nothing has in such a long time. And he definitely doesn’t expect to fall this hard or this fast for someone in just one day.

There’s just one problem: how do you build a future with someone if you can never get to tomorrow?

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Robbie Couch is the New York Times bestselling author of If I See You Again Tomorrow, in addition to Just the Good Parts, Blaine for the Win, and Another First Chance. Originally from small-town Michigan, Robbie now calls Los Angeles home. 

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1
I’M ABOUT TO TELL MY therapist something that I’ve never told anyone before. I shouldn’t be nervous because it’s Ms. Hazel (she’s heard it all by now), and nothing matters anymore anyway. But still, it’s going to be strange admitting this out loud for the first time.

“Can I tell you something?” I ask.

Ms. Hazel pauses from unwrapping her caramel hard candy to offer her full attention.

I clear my throat. “I think… I’m lonely.”

She pops the candy into her mouth, smiling. “It’s terrific to hear you say that.”

My forehead crinkles with confusion. “I don’t know if I’d consider it terrific.”

“It’s not terrific that you’re lonely,” she clarifies, shattering the caramel between her teeth. “It’s terrific that you told me.”

I like Ms. Hazel. I knew I would on day one. Oddly enough, it started with her office. You know how they say people look like their dogs? I think therapists look like their offices, and a therapist’s office can tell you a lot.

Take Dr. Oregon. He had deep wrinkles carved into his face, like the cracked hardwood floor he insisted I sit on cross-legged and shoeless. I quit after our first session, not because I don’t want my therapist to have wrinkles, but because I appreciate chairs. Mr. Ramplewood had chronically bloodshot eyes and only wore gray, which matched the vibes of his dreary, water-damaged basement clinic. If he ever quits being a therapist—and he really should—I’d suggest Mr. Ramplewood follow his true calling and become a haunted house tour guide.

But Ms. Hazel’s has a real Museum Collector Meets Amateur Hoarder energy, and for whatever reason, I dig it. We’re sitting in identical brown-leather chairs separated by a coffee table covered in ancient psychology magazines, candy dishes to feed her self-diagnosed sugar addiction, and discolored rings from decades of coaster-less drinks. Faded floral wallpaper is hardly visible between rows and rows of shelves housing worn books and broken trinkets, and there are enough crookedly hung photos to sufficiently fill the interior of an office ten times larger than the one we’re in. It may be a minimalist’s nightmare, but I could tell, even during our first session, that the room’s noisiness strangely helps in quieting my mind.

And Ms. Hazel, dwarfed in a waffle-knit sweater and yellow scarf despite the late-summer heat, is an extension of the elaborate room she’s spent decades curating. An immovable gray crown of hair rests atop her head, and sparkly earrings shaped like ice cream cones dangle on the outside of her gargantuan glasses, which look like they were custom made for a beach ball with eyes—not a shrinking sixtysomething-year-old (though, somehow, they suit her.)

Sure enough, unlike Dr. Oregon and Mr. Ramplewood, I’ve enjoyed my visits with Ms. Hazel. Not necessarily because she’s a better therapist than they are—although I think she is—or because her office is more comforting than theirs—although I know it is. I like Ms. Hazel because she gives it to me straight. Like I’m sure she will right now. So I ask, “Why did you suspect that I’m lonely? What gave it away?”

Without a moment of hesitation, Ms. Hazel breathes, “Everything.”

My eyes pop at her bluntness, but Ms. Hazel doesn’t seem to care as she springs up and starts busying herself around the room yet again.

During our first few sessions, I got a bit irritated having a therapist who apparently couldn’t focus on me longer than thirty seconds at a time before bouncing off to a different task. But I grew to appreciate this eccentricity as I realized Ms. Hazel could be tinkering with a lampshade or pulling apart nesting dolls and still absorb my every word. She’s not interested in performing the part of Good Therapist just to make me happy. And come to think of it, I sort of despised how intently the other two would stare into my eyes while pretending to care about the words coming out of my mouth. In their offices, I felt like I was on display, but in Ms. Hazel’s, I feel like I’m just a part of it. And I like that.

She stops at her desk and starts rifling through paperwork before finding my session notes. “Here they are,” she sighs. “Clark, I first suspected that you’re lonely because you’ve mentioned that you’ve been feeling down since Sadie moved across the country, and that developing new friendships has been tough for an introvert like yourself—understandably so. It doesn’t help that Sadie appears to be, as you once put it, living her best life without you in Texas.” She emphasizes living her best life like it’s an important clinical specification.

“But then your mom and dad are in the middle of a divorce, which, as we’ve discussed before, can bring about feelings of abandonment,” she continues. “And, as I noted last week, it seems as though you’ve been succumbing to staying within an increasingly small comfort zone, which, I’ve found, ironically leads to more discomfort, like loneliness.” She looks up at me with a sad smile. “All of that is to say, it sounds lonely in that head of yours, Clark.”

She’s entirely correct, but Ms. Hazel doesn’t even know the half of it.

The half of it being the biggest source of my loneliness.

It’s not worth bringing that up to her now, though. Believe me, I’ve tried. Three times. The first resulted in a concerned phone call to my mom, the second sparked a surprisingly hearty laugh—immediately followed by her choking on a caramel—and the third concluded with Ms. Hazel gently suggesting I watch fewer sci-fi movies. And since I’m actually hoping for some clarity today, I’ll pass on an attempt four right now.

“How do I beat loneliness?” I ask. Her answer won’t change my predicament, but knowing Ms. Hazel, it’ll at least be interesting.

“Aha!” she squeals, pointing at me from across the office with a stiff finger.

I jump. Ms. Hazel never squeals.

Strange.

“That’s a great question,” she says. “I love that question, Clark. Because it shows you understand that loneliness can be a somewhat fleeting, fluid feeling, and not a chronic, immovable state of being. Many people aren’t so convinced.”

I’m not as convinced as Ms. Hazel seems to think I am (but I keep my mouth shut).

“Clark, I know what I want your homework to be this week,” she says, returning to her chair with a pen and notepad, scribbling away excitedly as she sits. “It’s a four-part challenge that I’ve found can work really well if the patient commits.”

I tilt my head, thinking I misheard. “Did you say a four-part challenge?”

“That’s correct, yes,” she says.

That’s… strange, too.

Ms. Hazel’s homework for me is always simple and straightforward.

“Here’s how I think you can beat loneliness, Clark—or, at the very least, begin to make progress,” she says. “Number one: try to make a new friend, rather than just looking forward to graduating high school soon,...

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Verlag
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Erscheinungsdatum
2024
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1534497501
ISBN 13 
9781534497504
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
352
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV, GPSR Europäische Union
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
Utrecht
3584 AA
Niederlande

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