“I don’t know. You waited tables at a diner. They could have had hotdogs there, but I can’t remember.” I paid more attention to eavesdropping on the frantic and disturbing conversation between Hartley and her older sister than the menu.
“I worked at a diner?” Her eyes grow wide and her voice gets a little high. “Which one?”
She has that same panicked look she had earlier when she first looked around the apartment. I have no idea what she’s thinking.
“The Hungry Spoon. It’s about a mile or two that way.” I jerk my thumb over my shoulder.
“I had no idea.” She rubs her head wearily as if this whole ordeal is exhausting for her. Her scar flashes into view, reminding me that she lives with a man who broke her wrist.
She always said her wrist injury was an accident, and since she didn’t seem concerned about it, I tried not to be as well. I guess I’d pushed that out of my head along with everything else to make room for the elephant-sized worry over her injuries and Seb’s that planted itself in my brain. Now that I’m with Hart, and her head injury isn’t my main focus, part of the anxiety has receded and I’m starting to remember details about her past. I’m beginning to see how trauma could cause you to forget shit. I haven’t hit my head and I’m already losing it from fear alone.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?” I blurt out.
She blinks at me, bewildered again. “Yeah, I’m fine. My ribs are still a tiny bit sore, but overall, I’m good. My body’s good, at least.”
“Okay.” I breathe a little easier. She seems entirely sincere. “Let’s get our stuff and go home.” Home. The word slips before I realize what I’m saying. I glance in her direction to see if she caught it, but she’s preoccupied with loading up her hotdog with every condiment known to man. There’s no sense in putting a bigger burden on her than there was before. Maybe her old man changed. I want to believe that.
I force a smile on my lips. “That’s a crime,” I tell her.
“What is?” Her head pops up, jerking to the right and left as if trying to see if there’s a cop ready to arrest her for abuse of relish.
“You’re not supposed to put ketchup on the dog and there’s a specific order you apply the condiments in.”
The corner of her mouth lifts. “The hotdog police haven’t appeared yet, so I’m going to risk it. After all, isn’t the fault really with the store? They put the ketchup out. This is obviously entrapment.”
“They’re waiting outside. They don’t want to cause a scene in here. Plus, if others see them arresting you the word will get out that this is a honey trap,” I inform her with a grin. I haven’t seen her smile in so long I forgot what it looked like.
“If I’m arrested, everyone’s going to hear about it,” she jokes. When both dogs are wrapped, she carries them toward the counter. Over her shoulder, she calls, “Can you grab me a Diet Coke?”
I walk over to the fridges and pull out the bottle of soda. My eyes drift toward the booze. The conversation coming up isn’t going to be a fun one. It’d be loads easier if I had a few forties in my belly. Or maybe one in hers.
“Coming, East?”
Her using my nickname drags my attention away from the booze. Man, I’m so whipped. I snatch another bottle of Diet Coke and amble toward her.
She’s leaning over the counter holding up a prepaid cell phone. “I can get the phone for sixty bucks, but how much per month for the service?”
“Another thirty.”
Hart fingers a hundred-dollar bill.
“Did you lose your phone?”
She nods. “Yeah, Mom said it must’ve gotten wrecked in the accident. That or the towing company lost it.”
That answers why none of my texts were answered. I feel marginally better. I gently nudge her aside and lay down the sodas and a few bills to pay for the food and the phone. This one can make do until I buy her another.
“Wait, I have money,” she protests.
I ignore her and so does the clerk.
As we wait for him to make change, she thrums her fingers against the counter, clearly debating something.
Finally, she stops and asks, “Do you remember me?”
The clerk looks up from the register. “Um, no, should I?”
“I didn’t shop here before?”
“No clue.” His eyes dart in my direction, seeking help.
“She’s got amnesia.”
“Wow, that’s a thing?”
“Yeah, a real thing,” Hart replies. “I must not have shopped here often, huh?”
“I guess not. You ate food from the diner at times. Sometimes you let me feed you.”
“Oh.” Her shoulders drop.
“I’ll take you to the diner if you want. You can ask them stuff.”
“What’s the point?” She sounds so discouraged.
“If it makes you feel better,” the clerk chirps, “I’ll remember you now.”
“No. That doesn’t make me feel better,” she retorts, grabbing her phone and rushing out.
“Eh, sorry, man. My bad,” the clerk says.
“It’s fine.” I gather up the rest of the stuff and join Hart outside.
“Sorry,” she says.
“For what? Being upset? Why do you have to apologize for that?”
“For being rude inside.”
“You weren’t rude. He made a bad joke.” I fling an arm around her shoulders and steer her toward the apartment. “You sure you don’t want me to take you to the diner? We can go right now. It’s open twenty-four hours.”
“I don’t know. If you’d asked me a few days ago, I would’ve said yes immediately, but now…I’m afraid.”
“Of what?” I slow my stride to match her shorter one.
“Of what they’d say. What if I was a terrible co-worker and they hated me? I think I’ve reached my limit of how much I can handle being told I’m awful.”
“You were never awful. You worked other people’s shifts when you could. I don’t know how much you actually worked there. You told me once that they didn’t offer you as many hours as you would’ve liked.”
She falls silent, thinking about what I told her.
“You seem to know a lot about me. What else do you know?” she asks quietly, burrowing into my jacket as if the leather can soften the blows that she thinks are about to come at her.
“Not enough,” I reply, “But I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” I hesitate then, not for my own self-preservation, but because I don’t want to inflict more damage on her than she’s already suffered. I railed into her earlier about relying on other people’s stories, and now I’m offering to do the same thing and I feel a bit hypocritical. But it’s clear she’s desperate for answers, and I’ve never been able to deny this girl anything. I do, however, offer her another out. “Your doctor said we were supposed to let you remember on your own. It hasn’t been long, Hart. You sure you don’t want to wait it out?”
She takes a deep breath. Under my arm, her shoulders rise and fall with the inhale and exhale. “Earlier today, after seeing you at the ice cream shop, my plan was to move forward. I was going to forget about the past and forge new memories.”
“But something happened to change that?” I guess.
She sighs. “Maybe.”
“You can tell me anything. I’m not going to judge you.” My past is an ugly one and I’m afraid to tell her about it, but I’ve come to the conclusion that if I’m not completely honest with her, she’s not going to ever to trust me. She told me the night outside the French Twist that she needed someone to be straight with her. That has to be me, which means I have to confess all the shit things I’ve done in the past. But that can wait, because if I don’t get the hotdog inside of her before the talk, I bet she’s going to lose her appetite. I nudge her ass with my knee. “Up. Our food is getting cold and the Coke is getting warm.”
She jogs up the stairs without argument. I toss the bag on the floor, grab two glasses, and throw some ice in them
. I eye the vodka bottle and decide that Hart may need a stiff drink.
She toes off her shoes and removes my jacket, laying it carefully on the floor. She scoots over to the middle of the room and starts spreading out our grocery snacks. Once she’s done, she inspects her prepaid cell phone. It’s nothing fancy, but at least I can contact her now.
“Hey, toss that over here,” I ask.
She does without hesitation. I punch my number in and then put it on her fave list. “There. Now any time you want a hotdog, you can text me.” I hand the phone over and push my bag behind her back so she has something to lean against. “But don’t get too used to this fancy treatment,” I tease, trying to lighten the mood. Her face is stiff with tension. “I don’t buy gas station hotdogs for just any girl.”
“I would hope not. It’s pretty much the same as asking them to be your girlfriend.”
“Nah, this is marriage stuff.” I bite off half the dog.
“How do you figure?”
“Girlfriend stuff is the planned-out shit because you’re trying to impress someone. Marriage stuff is the laidback things you really enjoy doing and you’re comfortable enough with the person that you don’t have to impress them.”
She thinks about this for a moment while she chews. “Did we do the planned-out shit before I lost my memory?”
“You remember dating?”
She gives me a half smile. “No. It’s more wishful thinking. I don’t know what happened between you and me.” She ducks her head. “In fact, I worried when I first came in that I was a teen hoe, taking money in exchange for sex.”
I choke on my food. I choke so hard, Hartley jumps up and pounds me on the back. My eyes water and I gesture for the soda, which she rushes to retrieve. I down half the bottle before my throat clears and I can finally say, “You thought you were a prostitute?”
“I think the preferred term is sex worker,” she replies primly. Her hands are folded on her lap and her jean-clad legs are pretzeled into a lotus pose. With her long black hair tucked behind tiny shell ears, it’s hard to imagine her as a “sex worker” as she puts it.
“Well, you weren’t.” My right palm has the calluses to prove it.
“How would you know?” She scowls adorably.
“When we reached puberty, Uncle Steve took each one of us boys to a whorehouse in Reno so we could lose our V-card to a professional,” I say flatly.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.” I don’t know why I told her that. Maybe because it’s the least offensive part of my past and I’m trying to dribble out the bad parts in small portions so she doesn’t run screaming from the apartment. “You really don’t remember shit, do you?”
In the back of my mind, I had a kernel of doubt about her amnesia, but it’s real and it’s tormenting her. I want to scoop her into my lap and tell her it’s all going to be okay. If there was a way to shield her, I’d want to do that. Which is why I can’t be drinking anymore. I set the half-empty glass of booze away from me. I need to be here, mentally and physically for her.
“Your doc said not to fill your head with stuff, but I’m willing to tell you anything I know and you’re ready to hear. Do you need another refill?” I nod toward the vodka in her hand. I shouldn’t drink it but she might need it.
“No. I need a clear head for this. Lay it on me.”
“What do you want to hear?”
“Everything. I don’t know a thing about my past. My phone, my purse, and all my social media accounts are gone—if I ever had them in the first place. The stuff is my room is so new you can see the cardboard creases in the curtains. But here’s the weird thing, Easton. I can remember things like stores and directions and a few events from when I was younger. Like when Felicity first came to my room, I thought she was Kayleen O'Grady. We met in kindergarten. I remember having a music teacher by the name of Dennis Hayes. Felicity told me Kayleen moved away three years ago and Mr. Hayes got run out of town a year after because he turned out to be a pedophile.”
I stiffen. “Are you saying you think you were one of Mr. Hayes’ victims?”
“No.” She waves a hand. “I looked that up online at the library. He was having an affair with a seventeen-year-old student, which is wrong, obviously.”
I relax at that news and sort through the other stuff. “Do you remember your family?”
She runs a finger along the scar on the underside of her wrist. “Some. I remember going to Parker’s wedding. I remember doing small things with Dylan like braiding her hair or playing with her Legos. I read to her sometimes…” She trails off, still rubbing the scar. “Sometimes we’d fight. I can’t remember what we fought about, but I recall yelling at each other.”
Hart had said that her sister had extreme moods, which reminded me a little of myself. I’d been diagnosed with ADHD and for a while my mom made me take meds, but then the voices in her own head took up too much of her time and attention. I used booze and other pills to compensate. I guess I still do.
“But nothing in the last three years,” I guess.
“Definitely nothing in the last three years. I don’t even remember what happened here.” She holds up her wrist.
“I do.” My eyes drift to my vodka. What I wouldn’t give to down half a bottle, pass out and not have to tell Hart that her dad hurt her. But that’s a coward’s way out, and, for all my faults, I like to think I’ve never been a coward.
"I saw a picture of you on Instagram,” she says.
Her change in topic surprises me, but I recover quick enough. "Searching me up, are you?"
She doesn’t bother denying it. "Yes. You. Me. Felicity. My cousin Jeanette. I messaged her and she responded, but I decided not to read it.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because after running into you today, I decided I didn’t want to remember. My brain decided that I should forget about certain things and so that’s what I was going to do.”
“Was?”
“Yeah, was. Because forgetting about the past only works if we all have the same memory loss. You remember things. My sister remembers things. My parents remember things and all of your memories impact how you react with me today. Even Felicity and Kyle are motivated by something I did to them before.”
This makes sad sense to me. “Yes and no. I don’t know what Kyle’s deal is. If I had to bet, it’s because he’s getting something from Felicity. You and Kyle don’t know each other. You have zero classes together and you never hung out. You were busy. When you weren’t at school, you were working your ass off. Hell, sometimes you even skipped school to go work.”
“Really?”
“Really.” My gut is churning. The lies I told before, the sins I’ve tried to hide, they need to come out now. “Come here.” I crook my fingers.
“Why?” she asks, but she scoots close enough that our feet are touching.
“I’m gonna need to hold your hand to make it through this.” I’m not even joking, but I smile as much as I can so she doesn’t freak out.
I lay out my hands, palm up, and wait. She looks down at my hands and then up at my face, pondering what I’m about to share. When she slides her palms on mine, I feel a tremor in them. I close my fingers tight around hers, wishing it was more than her fingers that I was holding.
“I’m not a very good person,” I begin, trying to keep my gaze steady, trying to keep my eyes on hers, trying not to look away like a spineless candy-ass. It’s hard, especially because right now her eyes are soft and pretty and warm and at any minute they could turn cold with disgust. “I’m not a very good person,” I repeat. My hands are growing sweaty. Holding hers was a dumb idea. Why do I care so much? Why does it matter what she thinks of me? I let go, but she catches me and tugs me forward.
“Don’t.”
“Why not?” I say hoarsely.
“Because I’m gonna need to hold your hand to make it through this.” Her lips tilt up at the corner. She scoots closer until our legs are pressed from knee to ankle and ou
r combined hands are in her lap. “I don’t want to know about the past if it hurts you. Don’t tell me if it hurts you. I think we’ve both been hurt enough to last a lifetime.”
I’d like for that to be true, but we’re not moving a step forward without me being straight with her. I gather my courage and start talking. About how I did Felicity dirty, agreeing to be her boyfriend and then treating her like a piece of trash the next day. About how I slept with my brothers’ girlfriends because they were the ultimate forbidden fruit. About how I had liked Ella because she reminded me so much of my mother and when she kissed me at the club, I knew it was to make Reed jealous and I played along because hurting people was fun for me. About how my mother killed herself and it was my fault.
My throat is sore and my eyes are red when I finally shut up. My hands are no longer in Hart’s. Instead, I’m lying down, using her knee as my pillow. I don’t know how I got into this position, only that I don’t want to leave it—ever. She keeps rubbing a finger across the top of my forehead and it should be soothing, but instead my dick is waking up and reminding me that we haven’t had any kind of touching in a long, damn while.
Which is why when she bends down and her hair falls like a curtain around my face, blocking out the world, I don’t move away. Which is why when her lips touch mine, I don’t push her aside immediately. Which is why I kiss her back. Why I grab her head, twist around until she’s underneath me. Why I take gather that long spill of hair and tug until her mouth falls open.
When she shoves her fingers into my hair and licks to the roof of my mouth, a trail of heat burns a line from my tongue to my dick. It’s like we’re at the top of the Ferris wheel again, only this time we don’t go around in circles. Our car is sent flying out into the dark night, spotlights provided by the carnival lights.
But the kiss isn’t enough for me. She’s been lonely? Me, fucking, too. I’ve been lonely since my mom died. I’ve been aching since my family divided itself into tribes that didn’t include me. I’ve been dying inside while trying to keep a smile on my face because I’m scared if I let that dark cold spread beyond the box I’m trying to keep it in, I’ll end up doing the same thing my mom did.