Chapter 2
Unexpected
The day became one big nightmare.
The worst part wasn’t that Ethan Coffer sat next to me in Math B and English, and as I headed to my next class, he showed up there too. Sitting where she sat. Always my friend and my shaded memory of her—gone. It was frustrating that her memories were shattered by him. He’d taken them from me—my friend Melody was gone. Lost to this stranger who continually showed up because it was the only seat available, and he was in the same class. Worse, the lights in the school were broken and they flickered constantly to the beat of my anger.
Why do you have to keep following me? I hissed to him. I wanted to scream at him, but couldn’t. Why do you have to be here?
His eyes would narrow, and yet nothing I said (since no one could hear me) changed a thing. He didn’t move, he didn’t talk, and he didn’t bother with eye contact for any length of time, or with anyone around him.
My throat tightened as pain in my chest ached for breath to release, or to inhale. I forced the fog to thicken to the reality I best suited. Nothing would please me more than to fade away completely. To be gone from this time and to be alone with nothing but my deranged idea of what I wanted returned.
I tried to think rationally. He was new here. I should be pleased it didn’t happen when Claire came, though maybe she had been so frightened by my reaction, that she stayed away. I forced myself to accept that Melody was no longer here. That my pitiful attempts at seeing her in the classroom where we shared on all topics, wasn’t going to happen—ever. I chewed on this thought with deep realisation that the doctors, who had seen me all those long and dreadful months ago, were right. It takes time. When my mother was so lost with my unspoken words, my sadness, and my lack of interest in anything to do with now, they had all said the same thing. I needed time to accept. And now—it was here.
I was pondering a new dilemma.
Was it time for me to let her go?
No. I would never. She would stay, and I would still see her memory. I just had to see her before he was in the room. I couldn’t let her go. She was all I had because if she was truly gone, and my voice never returned. Where did that leave me?