Page 55 of Not You Again
“Thank you.”
“Second, I ate probably the equivalent of two pounds of cheese yesterday. I was a mess. I was miserable, actually. And yes, it’s because you left me behind, and I thought you hated me, basically.” She crossed her arms and gave him an evencrosser look. She wouldn’t milk the situation, but she wouldn’t make it easy, either. He should know that he hurt her feelings, at the very least.
“I don’t hate you,” he quickly said.
“Just mildly dislike me, then?” She echoed a conversation they’d had early on.
“Something like that,” he replied with a smile.
He walked toward her, all smooth and confident, slipped his hand behind her head and began to bring her toward him.
But Carly still had the niggling feeling about Shireen. “Wait,” she said. “Did you and Shireen...?”
He rubbed his thumb across her cheek. “I told her that I understood our relationship had been over for a long time. Long before the affair. And that I was moving on with my life.”
“Do you mean that, though?”
“I do. And Shireen told me she hopes I find happiness, too.” Adam inched closer to Carly, then ghosted the words across her lips, “I think I have.”
Carly exhaled a shaky breath and was surprised by how relieved she was by those words.
“There’s another thing,” he said. “The eclipse shortened yesterday, but just by ten seconds.”
“So what do you think this means...?” She drifted off. Was the eclipse still shortening because of her Together Theory? Was it tied to the shadow bands, like Adam thought?
“I don’t know, but to be honest, what I realized last loop was that if all we have is the time left, then I want to make the most of it—with you.” He licked his lips. “And more importantly, you should spend these days however you want. So, I will leave you alone if you tell me to. But the last loop really opened my eyes to what I want, and it’s you.”
Adam was choosing her? She’d reset ready to fight, buthe’d managed to get right to her big feelings before she’d had time for any of that anger to fester. And maybe Adam’s superpower of knowing how to calm her was why she felt drawn to say, “I want to be with you, too.”
Adam closed the distance between them and kissed her. Carly let out a tiny gasp of excitement as he nipped her lower lip and wove his fingers through her hair to massage her neck.
There was no Shireen. No eclipse. No loop to escape. Just this moment where Carly was Adam’s, and Adam was Carly’s.
“Let’s get out of here,” Adam said as his thumb traced a line across her shoulder.
When they got to his car, Adam opened the door and Carly tucked herself into the seat. This was like so many of the loops she’d spent with him, except now they were together. Dating? Who knew? But they were a thing.
“We’ve spent all this time participating in one giant science experiment, which obviously makes me happy,” Adam said as he started the car engine. “But you mentioned you haven’t been writing. I just wonder if there’s some way to bring that back?”
Carly was sure her entire body had turned red from the heat of this attention squarely on her. “I don’t know that I want to spend the last loops, or hours, we have working. We could be trying to solve the eclipse or doinganythingelse.”
“But writing isn’t work, right? I mean, itisin the sense that it’s what you want to be doing long-term. But also, I imagine you have fun when you do it? The way I look to the sky to escape.”
Yes, writing was Carly’s escape. Had been, at least. She could drift in and out of fictitious worlds, characters and scenes. She could transport herself into someone else’s thoughts to avoid her own. She turned to writing to process certain things in her own life. And, to Adam’s point, it didn’t feel likework. Putting together the pieces of a script felt as satisfying as finishing an actual puzzle. Getting to step back and look at the finished product gave her a sense of pride and excitement. Because once a script was done, she was that much closer to having it turned into a movie.
“I haven’t written in a long time.” Not since her dad died. She hadn’t sat down at her laptop since the phone call from the hospital, asking her to confirm that she was Bruce’s next of kin.
“Look, I’m not going to force you to do something that makes you uncomfortable. But I’m just wondering if sitting still with your thoughts might help you reconnect with who you were before the loop,” Adam continued.
“Didn’t we try sitting still at the library?”
“You and I both know scientific research isn’t the same as being creative.”
Maybe she could start slow. “I don’t have a script I’m working on that’s really speaking to me.” Carly drummed her fingers on the armrest.
“Where do the ideas come from?” Adam’s knuckles ran up, then down her arm. “Do they just pop into your head?”
She was having a hard time focusing; his knuckles caused yummy friction across her skin. She cleared her throat and said, “I have these brainstorming exercises I do. They’re kind of ridiculous, actually.”
