Chapter 26 #2
seemed to be holding back her grief.
“I know, it’s a lot.” Carly leaned forward. “But if we want to find Adam, I don’t think it hurts to have everyone looking
for clues.”
“Absolutely, yes, okay, we’ll meet you in town at sunset.” Sheila seemed to straighten at the words, a soldier giving herself
an order.
And Carly knew she had to break the other news to them. “Just so you know, Shireen and Dean will probably be there, too. I
hope that’s okay.”
“Oh, honey, you know, we didn’t tell Adam this, but we said our piece to them early on. We made sure they were okay.” Bill’s
tone was even and measured, like he was just commenting on the weather.
Which made Carly certain that she hadn’t heard correctly. “Made sure they were okay?”
“We’ve known them since they were kids,” Sheila clarified. “Our families spent holidays together. It’s not so easy to just
never speak to someone again.”
“But they broke Adam’s heart.” Carly’s brows furrowed in confusion.
She waited for Bill and Sheila to say something, anything, to make her feel better about the fact that Adam’s parents had checked in with his ex-wife and ex-best friend and kept those things from him.
But they didn’t. And while she knew Adam wouldn’t want her to say anything, she couldn’t help but stand up for him.
“With all due respect, I heard you tell Adam that he doesn’t open up, but there seems to be a lot of secrets in this house.
Seems unfair to expect him to share his feelings when you can’t share yours. ”
Carly didn’t want a big confrontation—that wasn’t her goal—she’d spoken on Adam’s behalf and defended him, but she didn’t
want to waste time arguing. Not when she could be doing something to bring him back. Without looking at Bill and Sheila, she
stood up and made her way to the door. She was vaguely aware of their murmurs and footsteps but chose to move forward. As
she reached for the door handle, though, Bill stopped her.
“I think you’re right,” he said. “I mean, I know you’re right. It’s just hard to change.”
“It is hard to change,” Carly said, thinking of how long it had taken her to change. But meeting Adam had opened her up to
sharing her story about Bruce. So she knew that change was possible. She hadn’t understood that Adam had shifted part of who
she was but now she realized he definitely had. “But I hope you try, for Adam’s sake.”
As Carly walked out the door and headed for the car, she understood that she’d just meddled in Adam’s business. But Adam wasn’t
there to stand up for himself, and even if he was, Carly wasn’t sure he’d speak up on his own behalf. She’d have to tell all
of this to Adam when he returned, and she hoped he’d be understanding.
She turned the car on, took a deep breath and decided to go find Dr. Song and Rick. They were the people Adam had asked for
help with Shireen’s disappearance, so maybe they could focus on bringing Adam back instead.
By the time Carly found the Caltech van outside Rick’s airstream, and told Rick and Heather all the details about Adam’s vanishing,
they were minutes away from the eclipse.
“No change in the time,” Heather told Carly when the eclipse ended. “So it’s stayed stagnant since Shireen went missing. The only changes being Shireen and Adam’s presence here. Stands to reason that as they vanish, the eclipse remains stable.”
“Well, the eclipse staying the same is a good thing, maybe?” Carly squinted against the light coming through the trees. “Maybe
it’s just this thing where one of us vanishes and then pops back up a few days later. That’s not so bad, right?”
“Newton’s third law,” Dr. Song said, almost under her breath. She scratched her head and almost pretended that she didn’t
say it.
Carly was afraid, but said, “I can tell I’m not going to like this.”
“For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction.” Heather kicked a pink flamingo, and it fell with a whomp onto
a pile of dry leaves.
“Hey,” Rick’s worried voice broke through as he rushed to straighten the flamingo.
“So I just kicked that piece of pink plastic, right? As a result, the flamingo fell, hit the leaves and the leaves scattered
to the side.” Heather bent to help Rick put the flamingo upright again. “So we have to wonder, why did Shireen vanish in the
first place? Was her disappearance a reaction to something? And why did she return? We could argue that the action of Adam
vanishing caused Shireen to return, but why? What did Adam do to bring Shireen back here? And what action will we have to take to bring him back?”
“Fuck,” Rick said, removing his prescription goggles. “She keeps hitting scientific home runs.”
“Oh, thanks.” Dr. Song waved his compliment off, but a blush crossed her cheeks.
Carly was trying to make sense of what Heather had said. For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. It sounded like something Adam would rattle off. What had Adam done to trade places with Shireen, though?
“I’m telling you what, the aliens would have a field day with this one.” Rick angled a proud thumb in Heather’s direction.
If Adam had heard that, he’d roll his eyes and bite back a comment. For the first time all that loop, Carly couldn’t help
smile as she imagined what Adam would say about all of this.