Chapter 4
Adam
Adam sat at the desk in his childhood bedroom and stared at a blank piece of paper. He liked to start his afternoons with
a to-do list. The list gave him a sense of routine, and his tasks ranged from the mundane—like make himself lunch—to the extremely
unique. More specifically, Adam wanted to solve a scientific phenomenon that only occurred during a total solar eclipse. Because
if anyone was going to crack the mystery surrounding the eclipse, it would be the guy who got to watch it every day.
But at that moment, he couldn’t focus on the to-do list because something about the morning irked him. Not only had he been
passive-aggressive with Shireen, but there was the interaction with Carly as well.
He didn’t know her. They’d be strangers, if not for the fact that he’d orchestrated her dad’s funeral. But she’d called him
an asshole under her breath. And, well, it hurt his feelings. He wasn’t oblivious to the fact that he could be blunt and that
could rub people the wrong way, but an asshole?
Was he? He knew he could’ve been kinder to Shireen.
Okay, fine, he’d been a bit of a dick to Shireen.
But the truth was he’d been on edge because Shireen was now officially dating Dean, an unfortunate fact that his mom discovered when she’d gone into town to grab a bottle of wine.
Apparently, she’d seen them holding hands and felt obligated to tell Adam because, he suspected, she wanted him to move on, too.
Which was why his cool, let’s-never-talk-about-the-past demeanor had cracked. He’d sounded pathetic, really. Adam didn’t blame
Shireen for her dismissive reaction. But he couldn’t help himself. Here he was, banging his head against the wall to uncover
scientific mysteries, and Shireen was dating Dean?
Adam glanced at the blank piece of paper. Write something, he commanded himself. But as he held the pen in his hand and waited for letters to appear, none came. He sat back in his
chair with a huff. Okay, fine, he was having a block. An extremely unusual occurrence, but nothing he couldn’t fix with some
strong coffee. As he pushed himself up and headed for the door, the concert poster for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs caught his eye.
He’d always had a bit of a thing for the lead singer, Karen O. And Carly, he only now realized, had the same dark hair. God, what an unfortunate connection
to make—his high school celebrity crush and the woman who spent her time analyzing wallpaper. He shuddered as the thought
slipped through him.
“Mom?” he called out as he walked into the hall. His parents didn’t often just hang around the house, and it was likely they’d
already left for a hike, or to feed the squirrels.
“Offspring?” his mom’s singsong voice called out. As he came into the kitchen, Adam spied her at the breakfast nook with his
dad, who was painting green-and-white squares onto a board. While Adam had a passion for astronomy, Bill’s hobbies were more
artistic.
“I sanded the board this morning, and your father is making it chess-worthy.” Sheila sipped from the mug of green tea in her hands. “We should be able to play a game this evening, if you’d like a little friendly competition?”
“It’s no competition,” Bill said. “You always win.”
Sheila gave his arm a there-there pat. “Can’t help that I’m smart. The same way you can’t help that you’re handsome.”
Bill gave her a quick wink of acknowledgment, then went back to painting. Adam took in a deep breath. His parents could be
a lot.
Adam turned away from them and toward the coffeemaker.
“Oh, let me make a fresh pot.” Sheila pushed herself up from the table.
Maybe it was the fact that he was in his childhood home, or that his mom wore the Math is Radical sweatshirt from her high school teaching days, but Adam suddenly felt like he was sixteen again.
“Thanks, Mom.” He moved aside and watched as she grabbed a filter and scooped in grounds.
Sheila tucked a strand of hair back up into her loose bun, a style she’d worn since Adam could remember. The only change had
been her blond hair going gray, now that she was in her sixties. She put the kettle on to boil as she asked, “Any plans today?”
“Just . . . working.” He shrugged.
Sheila shot a glance to Bill, and his dad’s jaw tightened.
“You’re not going to say anything, Bill?” Sheila asked.
“What . . .” Adam started, but his dad cut him off.
“We’d really like you to try and get out of the house today, honey,” Bill said.
Adam frowned. What was happening now? “I’m sorry?”
Sheila looked up with a crease between her brows. “We’re worried about you. You’re spending so much time by yourself. And
you haven’t really accepted . . .”
That we’re all stuck here, Adam filled in the rest of his mom’s sentence in his head. He leaned a palm into the countertop as he soaked in the fact
that his parents had staged a kind of intervention.
Sheila wrapped her arms around Adam and pulled him to her shoulder. She gently stroked his hair, and his eyes instinctively
closed. “I don’t know if you’re depressed, or just lonely, but Dad found a therapist who’s willing to work with you . . .”
Depressed? He knew he was sad, angry, hurt but . . . depressed?
“I’m not depressed.” He pulled away from his mom and met her gaze. Depressed people didn’t make to-do lists. Depressed people
weren’t trying to solve complex physics equations. Depressed people sat in bed, in the dark, unable to move. And yet, here
was Adam, standing in a brightly lit kitchen squarely not depressed. “I promise,” he tried again.
“How about we just try to get out of our routines today?” his mom asked. She’d sound patronizing if she weren’t so very clearly
pleading with him. And, to be fair, Adam realized that he couldn’t really remember the last loop when he’d done that.
“I’ll try.” He swallowed and deeply wished he had that coffee to burn the shame rising in his throat.
“We can all go do something fun,” Bill offered. “The Stardust Bowling Alley is still open. Your mother will beat us both at
chess, but we all know I’m the kingpin.”
“Kingpin of gutter balls,” Sheila quipped back.
Adam surprised himself by chuckling. He couldn’t bowl, though; he had work to do. Not that he would tell them that. “I’ll
find something on my own.”
Sheila planted a kiss on his head. “Love you.”
“Love you, too,” Adam said.
“What about me? Doesn’t anyone love me?” Bill put on an expression of hurt.
“Sometimes,” Sheila said as she grabbed Bill’s hand. His parents were always touching if they were in a room together. Adam
had observed their love growing up and assumed his and Shireen’s would be the same. But they hadn’t been the same, had they?
As Shireen liked to remind Adam, they stopped being connected that way a long time ago.
Adam forced himself to smile as he poured a cup of coffee. “Thanks.” He raised the mug to his mom, and she nodded.
He walked out of the kitchen, back down the hall to his room and then he was alone. The smile faded, but the sick feeling
in his stomach grew more intense. He got on his bed and wrapped his arms around his middle to stop the dull ache . . . Depressed.
Depressed. Did Shireen think that, too?
While his ex had clearly moved on, he spent every loop at his parents’ place with his to-do list. He didn’t always stay in the house. He went for drives. He occasionally visited the observatory. But maybe they were right about the fact that he
was in a bit of a rut.
Adam could have fun. He could pretend like he hadn’t started his day looking into the eyes of a person who’d betrayed him.
Adam would prove how not depressed he was. He pushed himself up and swung open the bedroom door. He walked down the hall and managed to avoid his parents,
who were putting on their walking boots. He went out the sliding doors that led to a long stretch of back patio that overlooked
the dense forest. His childhood home was tucked into the woods, a farm-style, single-story ranch house with a sleet-gray exterior
and massive outdoor deck to watch the sunsets.
Which was convenient, seeing as sunsets were all they had now. The night ended at 11:59 p.m., and the loop restarted at 10 a.m. A whole ten hours of each day just missing. If they ever got out of this, he’d stay up all night just to see a sunrise again.
The place that held some of the happiest memories for Adam was the childhood tree house that was tucked into the woods. Would
a depressed person actively seek out wholesome nostalgia? He thought not!
Adam hadn’t stepped foot in this space in . . . maybe a decade. But when he did, he saw a ceiling covered in glow-in-the-dark
stars, a torn poster of the constellations, solar-powered string lights, a telescope in a metal carrying case he’d gotten
for his ninth birthday, binoculars and hand-held star charts. Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Death by Black Hole was worn and dog-eared on the round rug. Judging by the look of things, critters were frequent guests—so there was some maintenance
to take care of.
Adam took a striped towel, stiff from being left in the sun, and wiped down the makeshift desk. He coughed at the eruption
of dust and brushed a spider off his arm. Glamorous the tree house was not, but he was grateful his parents had the sense
to put a roof on, if for no other reason than his notebooks, pens and telescope had all managed to stay protected from the
elements.
He rolled up his sleeves to the elbow and grunted with the exertion of cleaning the dirt from the surfaces around him. By
the time he was done, his face was slick with sweat, pieces of hair stuck to his forehead and his shirt clung to him. He wiped
the back of his hand across his mouth and tasted salt.
He was sore from the hour of rage cleaning, but the space was as he remembered. So the hard work had paid off. He cringed
as he thought of that word: work. His parents had asked him to get out of his routine, but did cleaning really count?