Page 77 of Not You Again
Shireen gave Carly a knowing look. “Now you’re sounding like him.”
“If that helps bring him back, then I’m all for it.” Carly ran a hand through her hair as she gathered her next thoughts. “I’d like to talk to Rick and Heather. Maybe see if there’s a science angle we can follow. Would you and Dean be willing to check if anyone else is missing?”
“Absolutely, we’ll do that.” Shireen stood from the chair, ready to get going. “Do you need a ride into town?”
“Actually, could you drop me at Bill and Sheila’s?” Carly stood, too. “I’ll check in with them first.”
“Yes, good call.” Shireen started down the aisle, but Carly was still stuck to the spot.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” Carly said. Shireen gave her a nod, then headed out of the room.
Carly turned to face her dad. She’d been so wrapped up with Adam that she hadn’t had a moment to check in with Bruce. She approached the coffin and laid her palms on the lid. “Just when I thought the loop couldn’t get weirder, people have started to go missing,” she said. “And I haven’t done a daily good deed the way I normally do. I spent all of the last loop looking for the guy I told you about, the one I like.”
She sniffled a bit, unexpectedly becoming emotional overAdam. That was normal for her, though; she’d just tried to forget how scared she was that Adam was gone. “What would you do, Dad?”
She waited for Bruce to respond, or to send some kind of sign. Instead, there was just the stretch of silence she’d grown used to. “Okay, see you next loop.” She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and headed out to meet Shireen.
Breaking the news to Adam’s parents that he, once again, had not reset, was a devastating blow. The only solace Carly stressed was that, like Shireen, he’d return the next day.
“What are we supposed to do?” Sheila tearfully asked.
They hadn’t made it past the home’s entryway, and Carly regretted not waiting until they were all seated before telling them about their son. Because Sheila had all but collapsed into Bill’s arms and he held them both firm.
“Before Adam vanished, a woman in town told us, ‘the best way to predict the future is to create it.’” Carly remembered how adamant Adam had been about this sentiment. “And I know he took that to heart. He tried to act like Shireen was still in the world. I’m not sure if that’s helpful, but maybe preparing as if he’s about to come home at any moment will make it real.”
“Is that what you’re going to do? Just pretend like he’s here?” Bill asked.
“No,” Carly admitted. “My version of that is proactively trying to find answers, so I want to talk to Dr. Song. I think it’s what Adam would want.”
“This is like a living nightmare,” Sheila said through a sob. “To not know where he is. To not know if he’s in pain.”
Carly’s body clenched from the emotions in the roomand those words. She’d tried to block out the idea that Adam would be feeling anything, and instead thought of him as being in a kind of holding room.
“Shireen said she felt nothing. When she reset, it was like no time had passed,” Carly offered. “Would you feel better if you came with me?”
“No.” Sheila blew her nose into a tissue. “You go, look for Adam. I just need a moment to gather myself.”
“Thanks for checking in.” Bill gave Carly a grateful smile and continued to rub Sheila’s back as Carly opened the door and headed out on her mission.
Walking all of Julian to find a scientist and a doomsdayer wasn’t an option—not in Carly’s combat boots. As she journeyed back to town, she spotted an abandoned bicycle, tried it on for size and was delighted to find that, while not a perfect fit, it would do the job. She biked to the bungalow, but there was no sign of Heather and Rick. So she biked down the dirt road that led to Rick’s airstream in the woods.
And that was where she found them, amidst the plastic pink flamingo haven, loading up Rick’s golf cart.
“Where’s your man?” Rick called out to her.
“He’s not back yet.” Carly flipped the kickstand on the bike to park it. She was tired from all the pedaling, and her ass had gone numb from the seat. Still, she’d found them. “I wanted to see if either of you had noticed anything that might be helpful.”
“Nothing since we last saw you,” Dr. Song said. “But I’ll be keeping an eye on the sky while Rick tries to pop the bubble.”
“We trade off,” Rick said. “She gets a day to drag me around looking at bullshit shadows, and then I get a day to find the weak spot in the fence.”
Carly thought that their pairing was one of the more jarring parts of the time loop: a doomsday overachiever and a science professor. But nonetheless, they’d found each other, hadn’t they? She supposed a screenwriter and a mortician might be an unlikely pairing as well...
“You coming or what?” Rick said as he scooted into the golf cart and started the engine.
Carly looked back toward her bike. She couldn’t pedal anymore, and where would she even go? She’d been hell-bent on finding Heather to ask her about theories, so she might as well ride along.
Carly came to the golf cart and Rick pointed to the back cab, which she climbed into. “Hold on tight,” Rick called out as he turned the key. The engine purred and he shifted the cart into Drive.
