Chapter 12
Adam
Adam restarted the loop in his office, the same as he always did. Shireen was inches from him, but all he could think about
was Carly.
She’d fallen asleep pressed up against him, and he’d been too scared to wake her. So he just held her through the action movie
and the gratuitous shirtless scene. (He had to admit she was right; Rhys was handsome.) Adam felt her chest rise and fall
in slow, easy breaths, and as the credits rolled, he stayed as still as possible so as not to disturb her.
He found he didn’t mind, because she’d been so upset that she’d cried herself to sleep, something she obviously needed. But
the other part was that peppermint smell. He liked breathing it in, soothed by the scent.
He checked his watch before closing his eyes and, seeing as they only had a few minutes left, decided to tell Carly something.
“The eclipse was another ten seconds shorter,” he spoke in a whisper, so as not to wake her.
“Don’t gloat about it too much, though.” She stirred at the last part, then tucked herself in closer to him.
His fingertips instinctively squeezed her in tight to his chest. He gazed down at her in his arms and took in a sharp breath as he realized he like-liked Carly.
More than as friends, or whatever they were purporting to be.
Eventually, his eyes closed, and the last image
he saw was her pressed safely into him.
Then he found himself reset, as was always the case.
“Say hello to your girlfriend for me.” Shireen’s voice was tinged with a bitterness Adam was all too familiar with—she was
jealous.
Shireen waited for Adam to respond, but he couldn’t. His thoughts were still tied to Carly and the feel of her pressed against
him. Shireen turned and walked out the office door in a huff. Adam almost called out, She’s not my girlfriend, but what was the point? He didn’t have to comfort Shireen. She had Dean for that.
Adam rubbed a hand across his forehead and was suddenly aware of his wedding band. He wiggled it off and held it in his palm.
He was truly very tired of having versions of the same conversations with Shireen. Wouldn’t it be nice to start a day in a
mood that wasn’t despair?
For a brief moment, he had started this loop with hope, and all from his night with Carly.
Carly. He wouldn’t be able to see her for the next two days. They’d actively avoid each other, per his mandate. His feelings
for her had shifted, though, so he wasn’t even looking forward to the alone time. No, he was bummed out. He wanted to walk
into the hall and crack a joke about how she’d fallen asleep before Rhys had so much as taken his shirt off. Maybe they didn’t
need to start the isolation today.
Adam placed the wedding ring on his desk, dashed into the hall and headed for the funeral service room.
But when he looked in, Carly was already gone.
She must’ve snuck out before Shireen, as he hadn’t so much as heard the thud of her combat boots.
He leaned against the door frame and let out a breath.
Okay. This was happening. He had to spend two loops without her, and then they’d see if the experiment paid off. A few loops
ago, the idea of a break from Carly would be welcomed, but Adam didn’t feel relief. He felt a bit lost, really.
Adam’s shoulders sagged as he parked the car in front of his parents’ house and walked up the path to the front door. What
was Carly getting up to without him?
The door opened before Adam had time to knock.
“Honey, he’s home!” Bill called out as he waved Adam inside. “I told you he’d be back.” Then to Adam, “Your mother thought
we’d chased you off by telling you to get a life. She wanted to call the police, but I reminded her there are no police, and
I didn’t want to spend the day scouring the town for you, no offense.”
“Some taken.” Adam made an effort to straighten his shoulders as he stepped through the door. His parents had already been
worried about him, and he didn’t want to give them more reasons to ask questions.
When Sheila spied Adam, she immediately met him with a tight hug. “Where were you the last few loops?”
“With a friend,” he quickly said, only realizing his fatal error when his mom froze.
“A friend?” She looked at his dad. “Which friend?”
Ugh, she was going to make this a whole thing. “You don’t know her.”
Adam pinched his eyes closed. Why’d he say her on top of friend? When he opened his eyes, Sheila tried to hide the O shape her mouth had formed. His dad, on the other hand, tightened his lips and gave Adam a You’ve really done it this time, kind of look.
“What’s her name?” Sheila grabbed his elbow and guided him toward the kitchen.
Adam busied himself by opening the fridge and taking out the half-eaten coffee cake that was always waiting. Stress eating;
he could do that just as much as anyone. “Carly,” he eventually said.
Sheila once again turned to Bill, who only offered a shrug. Sheila rolled her eyes and refocused on Adam. “She sounds nice.”
Adam squinted at her. “I haven’t told you anything about her. For all you know, she’s a terrible person. Why is she nice?”
“If she puts up with your bad attitude, she’s nice,” his dad joked.
“It must be genetic,” Adam joked back. He cut into the cake and heaved a slice onto a plate, then grabbed a fork from the
drawer.
“Are you taking that to meet—what’s her name again?” Sheila asked.
There was hope in her eyes. The same hope he’d had the past few loops—the kind of expression that only came from being excited
about change. Much of his life, he’d tried to earn a proud look from his parents. He just hadn’t expected to see one because
he’d met someone new.
Adam reluctantly replied, “I’m not seeing her today.”
“Oh.” Sheila gave Bill a disappointed look, and Adam’s jaw tensed.
“I wanted to come here and check in with you two,” he fired off. He stuck his fork into the edge of the cake and through a
mouthful said, “I’ll see her again soon. Maybe I can bring her here.”
Well, that was absolutely something he didn’t have to do. If he was going to keep on this people-pleasing train, why not just offer to marry her in the backyard if that would make them happy?
His mom visibly brightened. “We should celebrate you being home, then. Bill, you make some homemade pasta, and Adam, we can
do a bonfire with s’mores?”
Adam didn’t consider himself an outdoorsy type necessarily, but he knew how to build a fire. His mother had taught him the
basics. She’d also built the tree house, taught him how to change a flat tire and taken him camping in Yellowstone for his
twelfth birthday. So when he looked at her, he could only say, “Sure, I’ll get it set up.”
The eclipse wasn’t for a few hours, so Adam collected sticks, big branches and dry leaves that would provide kindling. He’d
started the pile about two hundred feet from the back door of his parents’ house, past the patio and in a clearing where the
smoke would have room to billow up and not touch nearby trees. When the pile reached up to his chest, he stretched his back
and marveled at what he’d built.
“Your mom usually saves bonfires for the New Year.” Bill came down the patio steps toward Adam, one hand on the railing and
the other wrapped around a coffee mug. He moved carefully, and Adam was reminded of the fact that he was getting older—not
in the time loop, but in general. He’d noticed small markers of his dad’s age on occasion—more forgetfulness, a slower pace
to his movements—but it was still jarring. Maybe if there was one silver lining to being stuck, it was that his parents ages
were, too. “A new year can mean new goals. New intentions to set,” Bill added.
For all of Adam’s logic, his dad could be whimsical, like the hidden squirrel art Carly had noticed on the walls of Rhodes
Funeral Home.
“Maybe it’s time you had a new start and leave some of the past behind.” Bill’s honey eyes, the same ones Adam had, were surrounded by the crinkles of age. “Shireen might be a good one to say goodbye to.”
“Yeah, I kind of got that suggestion without you having to spell it out,” Adam chimed back. He’d never be able to fully say
goodbye to Shireen, not when he had to see her every single loop. But he also knew his dad wasn’t happy with this part of
Adam’s life—his failed marriage—and wanted him to move on. Bill had never been cheated on, though, never watched his own life
dissolve in front of his eyes. What right did he have to dictate how Adam navigated these things?
“Think about it,” Bill simply said. Then he clapped a hand on Adam’s shoulder and made his way up the steps to the house.
His mom wanted Adam to move on. His dad wanted that, too, apparently. But what really didn’t make sense to Adam was move on
to what? Adam had spent his adulthood trying to build a life—just as they had. He’d found and married Shireen, they’d been on their
way to buying a home, he’d studied mortuary science in college all so he could take over the family business and keep his
dad’s legacy alive.
He’d done everything he was supposed to, but still they wanted more. And there it was, the thing Adam kept dancing around
but knew in his gut: All of his decisions had been based around the basic need to make his parents happy. It wasn’t Shireen
holding him back; it was his own innate fear of disappointing everyone around him.
In that moment, Adam thought of Carly. She was his opposite in this respect.
She’d gone after her dream of writing for a living and taken a risk he never could.
While she had no fear, Adam still needed to let go of his.
He hoped that even though the loop would reset his world, it wouldn’t undo the hope he had to change.
That was a hope that Carly had unexpectedly given him.
Adam’s entire body was heavy from the discussion with his dad. Bill wasn’t an emotionally revealing man, but he had forced
Adam to examine himself.
When the eclipse came, Adam timed it from the yard. Unlike the day before, it stayed at 4:02—no change.
Carly’s theory—however nonsensical—had for now been proven right. Maybe a coincidence, or maybe she was on to something. Adam
wasn’t banking on her theory, though, and he was certain the time would shift on the next loop.
So when he reset in the funeral home, he planned to more or less count down the hours until the eclipse. Carly snuck out before
they could see each other again, and Adam went back to his parents’ house. He timed the eclipse from the tree house and waited
for the revelation that everything was not the result of their interactions.
Imagine his utter shock, then, when he checked his watch and saw that for the second loop in a row, there had been absolutely
no change.