Chapter 28
Carly
One moment she’d been in the woods, crunching through leaves, and the next there was the feel of the folding chair underneath
her. But a folding chair was good, because it meant she’d reset, and so had Adam. Carly stood and spun to face the door of
the funeral service room. She ran toward it.
“Adam!” she called out, maybe a little giddy.
Yes, she was anxious, and excited and floating at the idea of seeing him again. She had so much to catch him up on. Where
to even start? There was the eclipse staying stagnant, how he’d swapped places with Shireen, the conversations she’d had with
his parents—
Carly stopped running as she came to the hallway and saw Shireen. Shireen shook her head.
Carly’s mouth opened in shock. “He’s not here?”
“Adam didn’t reset with me.” Shireen crossed her arms and gave an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, Carly.”
Carly blinked back tears and took a breath. She’d convinced herself that Adam would reset. The loop returned Shireen in the
same amount of time—why not Adam?
Shireen’s arms wrapped Carly in an unexpected hug, and that was when the tears came. She’d tried to keep her despair pushed down, but she couldn’t any longer.
“Where is he?” Carly asked through a sob.
“I’m sure he’ll be back the next loop.” Shireen hugged her tighter.
But he wasn’t back the next loop, or the one after that. Four more loops passed, and no one had seen Adam. No one else had
gone missing, either, from what they could tell. The eclipse remained at 2:47. Everything was normal, except for the most
important person in Carly’s world vanishing.
On the eighth loop with Adam missing, Carly had grown tired of waiting for something to happen. She was angry, actually. What
the hell was this loop playing at in not giving Adam back? She’d been patient (or tried to be), but she wasn’t willing to
spend any more time without him. She remembered what Heather had told them: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
Carly was going to retrace her steps with Adam to see if something happened that caused him to vanish. Maybe if she replaced
the anxiety about Adam with the memories of him she loved most, it could bring him back. Maybe, by living in the places they’d
spent time, he’d come back to those spots, too. Equal and opposite reactions.
“Wish me luck, Dad,” Carly told Bruce before leaving the funeral home.
She skipped the pity party with Shireen, too, and quickly started the walk into town, the way she had so many times.
The walk was a bit of a balm, in that this was familiar territory.
Carly hadn’t realized how much Adam had infiltrated not only her thoughts, but associations as well.
As she walked past the pasture where the terrifying cows had been, and Adam had (maybe rightfully) teased her, she was reminded of him.
When she got to Main Street and tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, she remembered the spot where she’d stage kissed him.
Her first target was the library—the time when she’d admitted she wanted to kiss him, even without scientific reasons. Carly
walked through the sliding glass doors and headed straight for the nonfiction section. She found the aisle with the Kip Thorne
books. What would Adam want her to find in these? She took every Kip Thorne book on the shelf and brought them to a long table
to start sorting through. As she cracked open a book, though, she got the distinct sense that it wasn’t the words she was
meant to consume, but the memories.
Carly walked through the library, past the rows where Adam kissed her, and the desk where he’d sat her down and she’d moaned
his name. Instead of allowing her mind to spin out of control with “what-if” scenarios, she closed her eyes and tried to remember
the buttery smell of Adam, the way his fingers scratched her back as he pulled her in, the wicked grin he got before giving
her pleasure.
When she left the library and walked to the French bistro they’d spent time in, she admittedly felt calmer. Something about
reliving those memories brought him back, if only briefly, and having the memory of Adam was better than no Adam at all.
She ate thick slices of cheese and baguette outside where the bistro string lights dangled above her head. She remembered
exchanging barbs with Adam there. What she wouldn’t give for him to tease her in that moment. Cheese comes from cows, she could almost hear him saying.
When she’d finished, she walked along the sidewalk and found a discarded bike. She pedaled all the way to Adam’s house, where
she climbed the steps to the tree house and sat in the middle of the floor to time the eclipse. 2:47. No change.
Carly rode the bike up a steep mountain to the observatory, where she watched the sunset and recalled their trip to observe the stars.
On the way back to town, she stopped in the orchard, lit by the night sky, and swiped a red apple from a tree.
She took a bite of the juicy fruit, and the sweet smell brought back the feel of Adam pressed against her, and how he took her hand in his to trace the constellations.
She watched the stars, just as Adam would’ve. The air grew cold and she curled herself up to stay warm. In the morning, he
might reset. In the morning, her actions might have an equal and opposite reaction. In the morning, the future she wanted
might be waiting.