Page 9 of Not You Again
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 squarelynotdepressed. “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 alwaysstayin 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 hownotdepressed 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 at10 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’sDeath by Black Holewas 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.
