Chapter 32
Carly
Carly sat in the passenger seat of the hearse and held on to Adam’s hand while he drove them into town. Now that he’d returned,
she’d never let go of that hand.
Well, that was an exaggeration. Much like Adam had pointed out when she’d hurt her back, she’d have to eat, pee and do things
without him. But still! She was going to keep an eye on this Rhodes guy so he didn’t pull a disappearing act again.
“Do you think Rick really vanished?” Adam asked. “We don’t even know if the loop is over.”
As they pulled the car up to Main Street, there was once again a stage erected in the middle of the road, and Mayor Franco
held court on top of it. She slugged from a bottle of champagne and unlike previous loops, she wore her standard toned done
outfit of a muted green pantsuit.
Carly stepped out of the car and a breeze swept through her hair, almost ushering her away from the scene. Indeed, she itched
to drive out of town, but she also needed time alone with Adam. They had so many practical details to sort out, logistics
and kissing to catch up on. For the time being, though, they had to find Rick.
“We have confirmation that folks are able to leave the Julian limits,” Mayor Franco announced into a megaphone. She held up the bottle of champagne and took a long swig as cheers erupted from the crowd.
“I’m not going to enjoy announcing that Rick is missing,” Adam said to Carly. “Everyone’s so happy.”
“It’s the right thing to do.” Carly wrapped her fingers through his. “He helped look for you when you vanished.”
Adam pursed his lips. “So, you kinda missed me, huh?”
She gave his hand a tight grip, and he mouthed an “ow,” as they continued to walk. “I missed you, yes. The way old people
can miss a step and fall down the stairs. It was painful and unexpected.”
“I know you’re a screenwriter, but have you considered poetry? That was really something.” He bent down and pressed his lips
to hers, and Carly loved how her mouth knew him so well, even after so many loops apart. She was about to reach up and pull
on the end of his fiery red hair, when a voice interrupted them.
“Toonces came home!” Megan Rae explained inches from their faces. She held the cat to her chest as evidence. “Poor little
gal must’ve escaped the Julian limits right before the loop started. But look!”
Carly gave a genuine smile and reached out to pet the cat. “This is the best news. Other than you returning.” She added the
last bit for Adam’s sake.
Then a commotion from the crowd erupted.
“They came!” someone shouted. “They found me!”
Carly searched for the voice, but didn’t have to look far, as Rick took the stage. Her mouth fell open in a gasp. “Oh my God.”
“Good people of Julian,” Rick spoke into the megaphone.
“I am here to inform you that last night, while on a mission with my lady friend, I was once again contacted by the aliens. They took me into their ship and told me that I need to run for Mayor of Julian or they’ll return again and plunge us into an even longer loop. ”
Carly looked to Adam, who had a frown so deep between his eyes she was sure it would be there permanently.
“Rick!” Heather’s voice came from the crowd and stopped Rick cold. He dropped the megaphone, hopped down from the stage and
hurried toward her.
Mayor Franco had no problem picking the megaphone back up. “Aliens? That’s spooky! Maybe we can pass a law where two mayors
can preside over Julian, hmm? I’d hate for another loop to start!”
“This loop is really weird.” Adam tightened his grip on Carly’s hand.
“I think we can call it a weird day, since we’re out of the loop,” Carly corrected him.
“Oh, right, where were we?” Adam tilted Carly’s chin up, brought her into him and kissed her again.
She let out a relieved sigh into his mouth. While he’d been gone, she’d all but resigned herself to a life without his hands
or his mouth. Now that she was surrounded by his buttery scent, she wanted to clip this moment and keep it in a file in her
brain so that whenever she felt lonely, she could reference this point where she was blissfully happy.
“What should we do after the kissing?” Adam muttered into her mouth. “Should we try to leave town?”
Carly wanted to be with Adam. She wanted to continue what they were starting. But before she could leave, she had to say goodbye.
“I have one last thing to do before we go.” She traced her thumb along Adam’s cheekbone and hoped he’d help her.
The space where Bruce was to be laid to rest was in a shaded part of the cemetery, surrounded by willow trees and a babbling brook. Bill lowered Bruce into the ground and Carly took a shuddering breath as the casket disappeared under a blanket of earth.
“Do you want some time with him?” Adam softly asked.
“I do,” Carly said. Adam kissed the top of her head, and when the world around her had gone quiet, she looked at the ground.
“Dad, this is a really beautiful spot. I see why you picked it. I mean, a babbling brook? Can’t find that in LA.” Carly sat
next to his plot of earth and dug her hands into the dirt. “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. You told me you wanted to build
something special—something of your own. I know you really did that here. I wish I’d come to celebrate with you.”
She picked up a handful of cool dirt and sprinkled it over the top of the mound. “The loop ended, by the way. I’m going to
try and convince Adam to head back to Burbank so I can show him where I come from. But don’t worry, I’ll be back to visit.”
Carly had spent every loop restarting by her dad’s side. The idea of waking up tomorrow and not being next to him . . . that
was hard to think about. She coughed on a sob and allowed tears to roll down her face. This was how she’d wanted to say goodbye
to her dad—when she was ready. And as she stood up, dusted off her dress and kissed her palm then held it to the earth, she
felt that he was saying goodbye to her, too.
“Talk to you soon, okay?” she told him before she walked away from the plot and back toward the funeral home.
Packing up her car didn’t take long. Carly had only brought a suitcase with her when she first came to Julian. But she did add some of her dad’s movie memories to her bag. She’d have to come back to grab the rest, but for now—and the purposes of getting out—she had plenty.
“I’ll take that,” Adam said as he grabbed her suitcase and rolled it to the trunk of the car, where he placed it next to his
own bag. He wore dark jeans, a blue cotton shirt and a leopard-print cardigan. He looked way cooler than any mortician had
the right to be. But then again, if he got into Caltech, he wouldn’t be a mortician for long.
“Apple?” Carly called out, and the puppy appeared in the yard, wagging his tail. She picked up Apple, whom she’d found at
the adoption site. She couldn’t leave Julian without him, too. “Time to go home.”
Carly got into the driver’s side and handed Adam their dog as he slipped into the passenger seat. He’d agreed to come with
her to Burbank. Carly spent so much time exploring where he was from, and now she was ready to show him her little corner
of the world.
“What do you actually think broke the loop?” Adam asked as he buckled his seat belt.
“Oh, God,” Carly said as she started the car. “I was sort of hoping we’d never talk about this again. Like, we tried out a
weird sex thing and it’s just never going to be addressed because it didn’t go as planned.”
“We haven’t even explored my weird sexual things.” He raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t know what broke it,” Carly said. “I mean, I’ve been thinking about the wormhole theory. About negative energy. Negative
mass? Whatever it is.”
“Well, negative energy makes antigravity, which is the real thing that keeps a wormhole open.” Adam sipped from the bottle of water in the cup holder.
“God, you’re cute when you’re nerdy.” She gave him a little cockeyed grin.
“I don’t think you and Shireen were the negative mass, but I do think it’s tied to you and to me.
You told Shireen you wanted her to move on, and then she vanishes.
You confront Dean and your parents, and then Shireen returns, but you vanish.
I finally found my dad. I acknowledged he was really gone, and now . . . no more loop.”
“Grief is a powerful emotion,” Adam acknowledged. “But I think we need to address the elephant in the room, which is the aliens.”
Carly cackled as she pulled them out of the driveway of her dad’s bungalow and onto the road that would take them out of Julian.
“Seriously, though,” Adam said. “When I went to talk to Dean, that conversation was hard for me. I realized we were no longer
friends. The loss of that friendship, I think, is almost harder for me to fathom than the end of my marriage.”
“Maybe it never was a wormhole, or shadow bands, or aliens, or a hole in the bubble.” Carly was spitballing, but that was
kind of what she was good at, and what Adam liked about her. “Maybe it was something else, like we needed this time to let
go of what was.”
“You always said people were powerful.” Adam handed Carly a potato chip and she crunched the salty perfection of it. Then
he fed one to Apple.
As they drove down the streets of Julian, her heart began to race. “Is this really going to happen?” she asked. “What if we
just . . . reset.”
“At least we’ll reset together. I hope.” Adam grabbed her hand as they came to the Leaving Julian sign, painted sky blue and
dotted with red cartoon apples.
Carly was scared, though. She’d just gotten Adam back. What if they reset and she lost him again?
She pulled the car to the side of the road and took deep breaths in and out to try to steady herself. Adam took her face in his hands and stroked little lines across her cheek.
“Hey.” His voice was calm. “You are the only thing I see right now. You’re the only thing I want to see for the rest of my
life. I lost ten days with you, but I’m not going to lose any more time. If we reset, fine. If we get to leave, even better.
As long as I’m with you, I’ll be happy. But as a very smart woman once said to me, ‘What do you want?’”
Her gaze met his honey eyes, and her eager body melted for this man. “I want you,” Carly said.
Adam brought his lips to hers and kissed her, slow and deep to show how much he loved that sentiment. He belonged to her,
and she to him. And when they eventually pulled apart, he smoothed his thumb over her cheek and said, “I love you.”
And her lip trembled in shock because, she realized, she felt the same way. “I love you, too.”
They kissed again, and Adam wrapped her in his arms and pulled her close. She loved him, and he loved her. Was there ever
a feeling more sweet and wonderful than this one? She knew that she could loop this moment for the rest of her life and never
be done with it. So when she pulled the car back onto the road and drove past the Leaving Julian sign and away from the bubble,
they both kissed again with the knowledge that their life was only just beginning.