Page 29 of Not You Again
Then Adam pulled a plain flour tortilla out of the to-go bag, wrapped itaroundthe taco, and created a taco-burrito monstrosity, which he then took a bite of.
“Oh my God, what are you doing?” she practically yelled at him.
“I don’t like it when fillings spill out of the sides. This keeps them nice and neat.” He took another bite and her mouth fell open in shock.
She couldn’t tell if his move was genius or unholy, but then Adam cleared his throat. The guttural, animalistic noise had the most bizarre effect on her—goose bumps.Seriously?Goose bumps because the man cleared his throat?
Adam glared in response. To her delight, he had a bit of guacamole on his chin, which erased all those goose bumps. She could either let him go about the day looking like a human tortilla chip, or she could help him out. Without much thought, she picked the glob of guacamole off with her fingers. A blush spread across his cheeks, which she rather enjoyed.
“My good deed for the day, making sure you don’t humiliate yourself,” Carly said. “And now we’ll see if that eclipse shortens again.”
“Thanks,” Adam grudgingly replied. “What you’re proposing is... it’s not based in science.”
“But not everything can be explained by science, like the shadow bands,” Carly pointed out.
“Theywillbe explained by science once I collect more evidence.” Adam gathered up their trash into the paper bag.
“Science is real,” Carly clarified, not wanting him to think she was being dismissive. “But life has plenty of magical moments, too, and that doesn’t make them any less real. My dad always said that coyotes reminded him of my mom. Whenever he saw one, he felt like it was a sign from her. And on my birthday every year we always saw one, without fail, in our front yard.”
Adam nodded, and she worried she’d revealed too much. What if he asked more about her mom? Carly didn’t want to start the day with tears, so she sputtered out, “As an optimist, I choose to believe that the eclipse shortening is a good thing, and that my good deeds have something to do with that.” She took a tortilla chip from the bag and filled the silence with her loud crunching.
“And as someone who believes in facts over nonsense, I’ll be cautiously optimistic but also agnostic until we have more data.” He crumpled her discarded wrapper into a ball.
The clip-clop of horse hooves caught Carly’s attention, and she saw Goldie in a red string bikini coming down the street. “Ten hours, people!”
“Ten hours left,” Adam said. “So three more until the eclipse and the shadow bands.”
“We could make a list of more theories as to why we’re still in the time loop. Like, maybe we’re all being punished for something.” Carly had held this fear for a long time. Maybe she was stuck here for being such a shitty daughter.
“I find it hard to believe that every single person in Julian is so evil that they’re now trapped.” He gave her one of those withering looks he was so damn good at, but she was part of this team, and she wasn’t about to let him shut her down.
“Look, it took two hundred forty loops for the eclipse to shorten, and this last loop it didn’t change at all. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to have to wait another two hundred forty times to see change again.” Carly stood as she spoke, not making eye contact with Adam in case he melted her resolve. “I want us to do everything we can to end this thing.”
Adam seemed to actually consider this—a win, if Carly ever saw one—when a man with thick, dark hair, and the kind of shoulders you could melt into called out, “Join us, sister.” He wore a white linen shirt and a long beaded necklace that swayed as he walked over and handed her a heavy rock before turning back to his group.
“Ugh, the Chaos Club. Again. Better I have this than them,” Carly said and held the rock to her chest. Something about this Julian clique made her particularly uneasy. How many times could you smash windows and still go back for more? Carly glanced to where the Jesus-esque leader had gone and saw a teenager approaching her dad’s movie theater. Thetheater was a place she always tried to avoid, but there he was—heading straight for it.
“My turn!” he shouted.
She noticed the heavy gray rock in his fist.
Without thinking, Carly started to run toward the teenager. She knew what this kid’s plans were, and the idea of him actively firing a rock at the thing her dad had worked so hard to build was impossible. “Stop!” she shouted.
But it was too late. The boy’s hand had catapulted the rock, and it sailed through the air toward the glass doors. As it did, Carly screamed out “No!” so loudly that she barely heard the glass shatter.
She stopped moving and stood in front of the open-mouthed hole that revealed the theater lobby. She didn’t know she was shaking until Adam’s steady hand landed on her shoulder and he draped his jacket around her. Her ears buzzed with a kind of white noise from the shock of what had just happened. Even the world seemed to dim.
“Adam...” she said through a shaky breath.
“Let me get you out of here. Where’s your dad’s place?”
He meant her dad’s apartment, but her gaze instinctively went to the front of the theater.Thiswas her dad’s place, and someone had just smashed in one of the glass doors. Anyone could walk in and completely destroy it. She couldn’t let that happen.
Carly reached into the pocket of her dress and felt the brass top of the key. She knew that in a few hours the world would reset. The door would be back as it always was—closed and protecting the theater. But right now, she wanted to do the thing she hadn’t been able to when her dad was alive: stand by what he’d built.
She moved toward the entrance, carefully sidestepped thebroken glass and slipped inside the theater. She hadn’t returned to this space with the maroon carpet and hanging stars since the day the loop started. Instead of the grief she’d felt the first time she’d come, there was a kind of release of tension from her shoulders. She could watch over the theater, and if her dad was somewhere, he’d know that she cared enough to do this for him.
The crunch of glass caused her to turn as Adam pushed the door open and cautiously came in. His brows creased at the mess before he looked up at her.
