Chapter 18 #2
Adam remembered spending most Saturday nights at the French-inspired winery with Shireen and Dean, feeling so lucky to have a best friend and a wife he loved, and that they all liked to spend time together.
He was going to forgive Shireen and wish her the best, yes, but moments like these were still hard to stomach—did the affair begin here?
Adam pulled the dated and dusty hearse next to the timeless and gleaming convertible. The sooner he got this over with, the
sooner he could refocus on the next few loops and how to spend them with Carly. So he straightened, marched himself to the
front door and let himself in.
French pop music played, and the tasting room smelled like ripe plums. There were booths for seating as well as stools around
big wine barrels, but Shireen sat near the pocket windows, which had been pulled open and looked out onto the rolling vineyard.
On the table in front of her was an open bottle of red wine and two full glasses, along with a charcuterie plate loaded with
meat and cheese and almonds. Carly might like this place actually, considering all the cheese.
“Babe, you’re about to miss the sunset,” Shireen said. She turned, clocked Adam and froze. “Oh—oh my God, sorry, I thought
you were Dean.”
Adam held up his hands. “I come in peace.” He walked to the table and took a seat across from Shireen.
Shireen said quietly, “Dean will be back any second.”
“This won’t take long.” Adam’s palms had begun to sweat. “I know you don’t love when I fixate on astronomy stuff—another one
of my rants.”
Shireen had always playfully rolled her eyes when Adam waxed poetic about the stars. It wasn’t that she’d been unsupportive,
but she’d grown less and less open to hearing Adam’s observations on the night sky. This, however, he had to share, even if
Shireen didn’t believe him.
She took a sip of wine, maybe biting back her words, so Adam quickly started.
“I mentioned the eclipse time was shortening?” He waited for her to nod, and when she did, he continued.
“It’s over a minute shorter now. I spoke with a Caltech scientist, and she thinks this might mean the loop is about to end. ”
“The loop is ending?” Shireen sat forward. “For real?”
“The thing is, we don’t know if the loop ending is good or bad.”
“Why would it be bad?” Shireen’s incredulous expression was one Adam was familiar with—one she’d given him many times in their
marriage.
“Well, we don’t know what’s on the other side. We might be fine, but there’s also the possibility we won’t be.” He let those
words sit.
“Why are you even telling me this?” Shireen glanced around him, as if trying to see if the real answer would present itself.
“How do I know you’re not just messing with me?”
“I realized that if we only have a few loops left, I don’t want to spend them holding on to resentment. Our relationship ended
a long time ago, even before the affair. You were right. I wasn’t present.” He wiped a hand across his face. As it turned
out, admitting he was wrong was painful. “I just want you to know that I’m sorry for making you feel like you didn’t have
a partner. I’m sorry that I took you for granted. And I’m sorry that I latched on to this anger for such a long time.”
“Thank you,” she eventually said. “I’m sorry, too. For everything.”
Adam knew what her everything meant—she was sorry for the Dean of it. He’d heard her say this so many times, but now it felt they were meeting at similar
emotional places.
“I won’t ever fully forgive you and Dean for the choices you both made, but I’m ready to move on with my life, if you are too.” Adam stood up from the table, took the untouched glass of wine and held it out to Shireen. “To the end of our marriage, and the beginning of what’s next.”
Shireen sucked in her lower lip, then held up her glass and they clinked. Adam took a long, hearty gulp of the wine.
He wanted to find Carly. He wanted to bury his face in her thick black hair. He wanted to be with her and experience all the
time they had left in the world.
“I hope you’re happy, too,” Shireen added.
“Thanks.” Adam met her gaze and they shared a kind of goodbye. He didn’t wish her anything but happiness. And moving to that
place felt so much better than the acrimonious planet they’d been orbiting.
Of course, he wasn’t above being petty. On his way out, Adam couldn’t help kicking one of Dean’s tires. Childish, yes. Satisfying?
Also yes.
According to his watch, he had four more hours to find Carly before the reset. Unlike Dean, though, she didn’t have a cherry-red
tracker attached to her. Still, he knew enough about Carly to understand that she wouldn’t be in some remote field, where
the possibility of a cow encounter was strong. She wouldn’t be at her dad’s house, which seemed to be an off-limits zone.
No, she’d most likely be in town where there were people and activities to disappear into.
Adam drove to town, got out of his car and searched the whole of Main Street.
He nearly tripped over a pile of empty shoeboxes that were lined up like an enormous domino set.
He was fairly certain he was offered drugs a handful of times—random pills of varying colors.
And he paused to watch in wonder as a human s’more was created.
One person coated in marshmallow fluff, another squirted with Hershey’s chocolate syrup and still another covered in honey and sprinkled with crushed graham crackers.
What would happen to the human s’more after was a true mystery he didn’t want to get to the bottom of.
Adam walked into every store. He called out her name, Carly, Carly, Carly, but wasn’t able to compete over the sound of the Wicked soundtrack blaring from an outdoor speaker. He went to The Last Showing theater and cupped his hands to look through the glass
windows. But she wasn’t there, not even a light left on.
Adam slumped against the outside of the theater, barely noticing the chaos around him because his thoughts were on their own
kind of overdrive.
Is she okay?
Where the hell could she be?
What if something happened and I wasn’t there to help?
He knew that the world would reset, and he’d eventually find her. But it was strange how even a few minutes without Carly
felt like the longest of his life. She was a nova explosion, and he was blindsided by the force of her. Adam hadn’t felt that
kind of intense longing for anyone in years.
And he did long for Carly now. Maybe it was that pining that caused him to turn his head and spot her in the sea of people.
Carly stood outside of an enormous pillow fort, holding a couch cushion and propping it against the side of the Sunglass Hut.
Around her were a handful of children, popping in and out of the fort. Adam had started to jog toward them without even realizing
it.
When he reached her, his hand landed on her shoulder and she turned. The smile fell off her face as she took in the sight
of him. “I’m not your mom or Shireen, in case that wasn’t obvious.”
Carly picked up another pillow and carefully placed it on top of the fort.
“I know that.” He wasn’t sure what she was getting at. “Are you mad at me?”
“Oh, no, I’m not mad. Not anymore. I got the message that you don’t want to work with me loud and clear.” She angrily picked
up another pillow.
“So now you’re collecting pillows?”
“I’m making a pillow castle, Adam. This is my good deed for the day. I’m giving those exhausted parents over there a breather.”
She hitched a thumb toward the bar, where a handful of adults watched the scene with glasses of wine in their hands.
“That’s kind of you,” Adam said, happy to be back in their dynamic.
“What do you want? Why are you here?” Carly made it clear there was nothing friendly about them.
“I spoke to my parents and Shireen,” he started, but then, because Carly couldn’t help herself, she cut him off.
“I spoke to the mayor, and I told her everything. You’re not the only one who can speak to people.” Her hands were at her
hips now and she was clearly annoyed.
“You told the mayor?” Adam repeated. “You mean about the eclipse?”
“Yeah. You don’t want to work on this anymore, so I found someone who will. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a moat to build.”
Carly turned and, as she did, “accidentally” whacked him with the pillow.
What was happening here? This wasn’t how the situation was supposed to go. He was supposed to find Carly, tell her his feelings
and then they could spend whatever time was left with each other.
“Carly, I know I was closed off earlier, but I want to work with you. More than that, I want to be with you.” He so desperately needed to touch her in that moment—to just reach out and show her how sincere he was.
But she’d been on the offensive, and he had some serious defending to do.
She didn’t turn around, though she seemed to be listening, so he continued.
“I like you. I like you a lot, Carly. If you want to spend the rest of the loop working together, and only working together, that’s fine.
I can do that. As long as I can spend my time with you, that’s all I want. ”
He waited for any kind of response. But instead of Carly turning to tell him that she wanted to be more than colleagues, a tingling crawled up his arms. He glanced at his watch, but before he had time to see if they were about
to reset, his vision went dark.