Chapter 6
Adam
A loud pop rang in Adam’s ears as he crouched next to Carly and covered her head with his hands. The sound was quick, over
almost as soon as it happened, but he brought her into him to protect her from whatever the noise was.
He noticed the closeness. She noticed the closeness. It was way too much, and Adam pulled back. When he glanced up, there
was a store window that had been destroyed, and a few feet in front of it was a group of people carrying large rocks.
“The Chaos Club,” Carly said softly. “Total adrenaline junkies. One time I saw them walk into the Candy Depot and eat until
each person vomited.”
“Gross,” Adam said.
“To be fair, I was one of the people in the store bingeing candy, but I stopped before the vomiting.”
“Did you?” he asked.
“Yeah . . .” Her voice trailed off.
He squinted skeptically at her, and she quickly changed the subject. “Don’t worry about them. They’re angry and have endless
time. Nothing good comes of that.”
“I’m angry, too, but I’m not breaking windows.” Adam cracked his knuckles, as if he was about to do something.
“Before you Hulk out, can you just focus on wheeling me to Moms?” Carly’s question snapped his thoughts back to the present.
He looked at her, sitting in the wheelchair with her hands folded in her lap.
She was so calm about this whole thing. Clearly, she’d grown numb to the madhouse of the loop and lost any sense of real danger.
“I can’t just take you into one of these storefronts they’re hurling rocks at.” Adam fisted a handful of his hair, frustrated
with Carly’s blasé attitude. “What if you get hit?”
“They usually only target places without people in them.”
“Usually?”
She rolled her eyes, like he was being unreasonable. He didn’t care. He’d gotten her this far, and he wasn’t about to let
her get hurt now. “Let me just bring you somewhere else. To your dad’s?”
Carly flinched. It was a barely perceptible movement, but he’d noticed it all the same. Maybe she didn’t want the reminder
of Bruce Hart. She hadn’t even attended the burial, so perhaps they weren’t close. Adam hadn’t lost either of his parents.
Shireen, in a sense, but he still saw her every day. He couldn’t imagine what Carly was going through, and he wasn’t sure
if her mom was still in her life.
“Or, to the library down the street?” he offered. “It’s safe there.”
“I’m more of an audiobook gal, but okay.” Carly’s voice was resigned.
As Adam pushed her down the sidewalk they moved in amicable silence.
He worried that by bringing up her dad, he’d somehow offended her.
Maybe he should apologize, or check in? But then he was stopped in his tracks, because on the opposite sidewalk there was Shireen holding hands with Dean.
They carefully walked over the broken glass.
Dean shoved shards aside with his wingtip boots so Shireen would have an easier path.
Shireen cringed as she nearly stepped on a bigger piece, then looked to Dean, who pulled her in close like he was some big, chivalrous hero.
Shireen cuddled in tight to him, playing a damsel in distress.
Adam had never seen them together as a couple. He’d fantasized plenty of times about a moment where he’d see them, and how
he’d be much taller than Dean, and have on something other than his standard work suit. As he was now—sweating, uncombed hair,
hunched over a wheelchair—this wasn’t his time to come face-to-face with ShirDean or Direen or whatever reprehensible couple name they’d created.
“Adam?”
Carly’s voice broke through his thoughts, which is when he realized that they’d stopped moving altogether. She followed his
line of sight. “Oh shit, are they seriously nuzzling noses?”
Adam gave a slow nod. He couldn’t look away. The nuzzling was sort of grotesquely hypnotic. He didn’t say anything, but stayed
locked in on the undeniable proof that he’d been left behind.
Carly let out a big whoosh of air. “I see why you don’t come into town. I wouldn’t want to see my ex, either. And their names
rhyme. How do they live with themselves?”
Adam touched his wedding ring absentmindedly, and wondered if Shireen wore hers during the day or took it off after she left
the funeral home. “How do you know about them?”
She squinted. “I mean, whenever you two talk you tend to share, like, a lot of very specific details. Pretty memorable moments
for me.”
His jaw tightened again, but she carried on talking.
“I’ve been cheated on, too. Freshman year of college, I walked into my dorm room to find my then-girlfriend making out with my roommate. They asked if I wanted to join, like it was a book club.” Carly took in a deep breath. “It’s awful.”
She talked a lot—too much, really. Nevertheless, he acknowledged her rambling with, “Yes, it is.”
“And the worst part is how pathetic you feel, you know? Like, was I really so bad that you had to hook up with my roommate under her Breaking Dawn: Part 2 poster?”
Carly looked to him for validation, as if he knew what any of those words meant.
“Come on, Breaking Dawn: Part 2. The Twilight franchise. The movie where they name a baby Renesmee.” She glanced at Adam for acknowledgment, and he was relieved that he
had none for her. “Anyway, the point is moments like that can make you feel terrible, almost worse than the cheating itself.”
Adam wasn’t entirely sure that was true. But then it happened: Shireen and Dean turned and clocked that Adam was there. And
his response was to curl in on himself, as if sucker punched.
Wasn’t that what this was? The whole loop was just one big punch to the gut over and over again. Adam wanted to scream. He
wanted to grab a rock, just as the Chaos Club had, and hurl it so that something other than himself was broken.
Just as quickly, though, Carly reached for his hand and intertwined her fingers with his.
He looked down at their joined hands. “What are you doing?”
“Take a deep breath,” she said. “You look like you’re about to fall over, and you’re way too big for me to catch even when
I’m standing.”
Adam stared into her eyes, took a deep breath and let it out.
“Good,” Carly said. “Again.”
They both inhaled, then exhaled. Inhaled and exhaled.
Adam’s eyes burned with the sting of tears. It was one thing to have the idea of Shireen and Dean, but seeing them together was a new kind of horror. “I don’t usually . . .” He could barely get the words he wanted to say out. I don’t usually cry.
He could still see the shape of her and Dean through his blurred vision. They’d been holding each other, touching, very much
together. Like she’d really moved on from their marriage.
“I’m sorry, Adam.” Carly squeezed his hand tighter. “What they’re doing is total bullshit.”
He didn’t want to pass out or weep, or both. So he simply pinched his eyes closed and breathed out again.
“I have an idea,” Carly said. “Do you want to do something that will make you feel better?”
He’d cut off his own leg if it guaranteed him relief from the white-hot burn of shame filling his throat. Adam nodded.
Carly’s cool palm squeezed his again. She glanced down at their joined hands, then looked back up at him. He couldn’t help
noticing how plump that bottom lip of hers was.
Her tongue licked the bottom lip he’d admired, as if in acknowledgment. “You saved me from a car today, and now it’s my turn
to repay the favor. My good deed for the day.”
“Good deed? I’m not your charity case. I don’t need—” He honestly didn’t even know what he was protesting, but without much
warning Carly pushed herself up from the chair and leaned into his arms. Adam hurried to hold her up, and as he did she reached
behind his neck, pulled him down and kissed him. A kiss so surprising that Adam nearly tripped backward, but instead just
fell closer toward her.
Well, she didn’t actually kiss him. She kissed her own thumb, which was placed strategically over his lips. When she pulled away, Adam felt dizzy from
all the things going on in that moment.
Shireen’s nose nuzzling up to Dean’s.
Carly’s thumb and lips on his mouth.
Her breath that smelled like the free peppermints they had in the lobby of the funeral home. He loved those.
“Okay, my back,” Carly’s voice was pained, and Adam lowered her into the chair. She let out a shuddering breath as she relaxed
into the seat. Then she looked up, and he could just make out the line of sweat along her hairline. She looked . . . exhausted.
Like what she’d just done had taken every single drop of energy.
But what had she done? Why had she gone and kissed him?
“What the hell was that?” he eventually asked.
“Look,” she said softly, almost imperceptibly signaling to where Shireen was. He glanced over and, to his surprise, Shireen
locked eyes with Adam, as if trying to silently ask, What the fuck?
“It worked, right?” Carly whispered.
“I . . .” he started to say. “I don’t understand. What worked?”
She released her grip on the arm of the chair and took hold of his hand again. “Every day I do something nice for someone
else.”
“Nice?” Now he was even more confused. Did she really think that was nice? And why was he so lightheaded?
“Pretending to kiss you was my nice thing! No chance she’ll be thinking about Dean for the next—”
As if on cue, Goldie’s booming voice came through a megaphone with, “Ten hours remaining, people!”
“She gets it.” Carly hooked a thumb in the direction of the voice. “Now, wheel me off into the sunset and don’t look back.”
Adam did as he was told, mainly because he worried that if he didn’t, Carly might try to kiss him again. The woman was unpredictable. He guided the chair down the sidewalk. Still, he couldn’t stop smelling the peppermint of Carly’s mouth. And the weight of her on him was . . .
Shock. He was clearly in total shock, because Adam hadn’t kissed another person in a decade. Shireen hadn’t been his first
kiss, but she had been his first in almost all the other ways. The first person he’d fallen in love with, had sex with, gotten
married to.