by L V Chase
Dr. Harrington takes my arm and inserts a needle into my elbow—the same vein that Klay was telling me about in my memory. He tells me a whole bundle of sentences, but I can’t listen while the shadows continue to escape from his mouth. The distraction doesn’t completely come from the movements but from the difference between the warmth of his tone and the eeriness of the apparitions.
The seconds bump against each other as he continues to talk. Nausea pools in my stomach, slowly rolling up my throat. I keep swallowing it back down, but it fights its way back up again each time. Dr. Harrington gives me a plastic wash basin before I start vomiting. Most of the vomit is stomach acid and orange juice.
Dr. Harrington tries to talk to me, but I only nod with my head bowed over the basin, trying to ignore the bitter taste in my mouth. I feel a cold breeze as the door opens and then hear the long sigh of it closing. A minute or two passes before the nurse returns. She rubs my back and gives me some reassuring platitudes.
As the nurse continues to talk while cleaning me up, the colors from her voice start to fade away. They linger like a faint gauze, but they’re easier to ignore. She washes out the basin and supports my arm as I get off the bed. I head to the bathroom and wash out my mouth.
When I finish in the bathroom, the nurse is gone, and Dr. Harrington is sitting at the foot of the hospital bed. He offers to drive me home. I ask him if Klay is going to be there. He laughs. The shadows appear more like ghosts, smaller and wispy. He tells me he doesn’t know. As he continues to talk, the ghosts fade away.
Time blurs, passing by too quickly. As I buckle my seatbelt, I realize I must have agreed to let Dr. Harrington drive me home, but the moment had slipped by too quickly for me to remember. I stretch out my legs in the Maserati. The inside of it is just as sleek and dark as the exterior. I find myself talking, although I don’t remember starting to talk.
“—Feels a whole lot like I’m pouring myself into a colander,” I finish.
I look straight in front of me. Raindrops spatter on the windshield, the wipers pull them away, and new ones quickly replace them.
“Keep going,” Dr. Harrington prompts.
“What was I talking about?” I ask.
“Klay,” he says. “You were explaining how you felt like you were contributing a significant amount of yourself into the relationship, but he was only reciprocating enough to keep you dependent on those moments where he was attentive.”
I press the tips of my nails into my bottom lip. “The drug must still be in me.”
“The interaction of alcohol with the benzodiazepine amplifies its effects, and the half-life is between ten to twenty-five hours. Likely on the longer side for your body frame. But we purged the majority of it from your stomach.”
The cars in front of us stop at a traffic light. “But from what we’ve discussed,” Dr. Harrington says, “it sounds like you’ve needed to vent about this for a while.”
I clasp my hands on my lap. Through the mist of rain, the mix of red brake lights and the amber color of turn signals in front look like tiny fires.
“I don’t know how I feel,” I admit.
The line of cars in front of us starts to move. Dr. Harrington doesn’t say anything as we continue. I stare down at my hands, half-expecting some delusion to warp how they appear, but they’re perfectly normal.
It would have been easier to be insane than admit that I only wanted to touch Klay. It would have been easier to believe it was the drugs messing with my head than realize that I would jump out of this car and run straight into traffic if that was what Klay wanted.
“Klay is a complex man,” Dr. Harrington says, bringing me out of my dark reverie. “But from the manner in which he discusses you, I believe that he cares about you.”
“He has an odd way of showing it,” I mutter, resting my head against the cold window.
“My son’s doubts and anxiety manifest themselves in his desire for complete control over any situation. The way he feels about you is uncontrollable, which causes those negative emotions to become unbearable. He’ll learn to deal with it over time. I’m certain you could help him with that.”
Joy trills in my chest, vibrating throughout my whole body, but it’s accompanied by a soft sadness for Klay. I glance at his father, catching him looking back at me. A tiny confirmation of Klay’s feelings reassures me, but his father’s investment in my reaction feels stifling and strange.
Maybe it’s because my parents passed before I could start dating. After devoting their time and money to their child for nearly two decades, it would be stranger for them not to want a good partner for their child.
Dr. Harrington pulls into his driveway. In the dark, his house is lit up like a metal and glass lantern. A couple of silhouettes move throughout the house.
“I need to check on some personal business,” Dr. Harrington says, his tone apologetic. “I’ll be right back.”
“Could I come in?” I ask. Lowered inhibitions must be one of the drug’s effects, but Dr. Harrington’s mention of Klay’s control issues prompts me to continue. “I’d like to thank Klay for helping me.”
“Of course,” he says. “Though I can’t be certain if Klay will be here. He has a tendency to commit to his own priorities.”
After Dr. Harrington and I start walking to the house, I see that one of the silhouettes inside is a woman in a robe. A flicker of jealousy shoots through me until I take a closer look. It’s an older woman, wearing a thick cotton robe. It’s likely Klay’s mother.
She notices us and skitters away from the massive windows.
Dr. Harrington makes no sign of seeing her as he unlocks the door. After we step in, he resets the security system.
Walking deeper into the house reminds me of the last time I was here.
When Klay and I had sex in his gym.
I can barely recount how to get to the home gym, but every inch of the gym is committed to my memory, and the memory triggers a flood of heat beneath my skin.
“I need to go upstairs to my office,” Dr. Harrington gestures towards the spiral stairs. “Drinks are in the kitchen, like before. I’d offer food, but I suspect that you’re not hungry right now. I don’t know where Klay would be, but his bedroom is past the gym. Go all the way down the hall, past the den, and turn right at the end.”
Before I can respond, he starts to jog up the stairs. He’s heading to the same area where I’d seen his wife.
When Klay had stopped at my grandmother’s house, he’d said that he needed to pick up medication for his mother. If she’s the personal business that Dr. Harrington mentioned, it’s sweeter than I imagined any Harrington man being.
Tracking down Klay in his own home feels invasive. He had called me a stalker the last time I was here. The way we ended up seemed so out of control that I shouldn’t have been surprised a control freak like Klay would react with anger and retaliation.
I don’t forgive him for the photo he sent out afterward, but I can’t shake the thought that he wasn’t acting out of pure malice. At the very least, when I was in any immediate danger, he protected me. And his father was certain he cared about me.
Something else is going on, something that happened in my two-year amnesia, and it’s desperate to come out of me like water bursting out of broken floodgates.
Or maybe I just need to pee.
I toddle down the hall, trying to recall if I’d ever passed by a bathroom. The house feels like an M.C. Escher Relativity trick, where the steps could lead anywhere and the halls could lead to anything, but it also could just be the drugs filtering through my system. Because I swear I should have passed by the home gym.
I stop in a room with Persian rugs, a fireplace, two couches, a recliner, and a wall covered with newspaper clippings of Dr. Harrington. I walk over to them.
My bladder still feels like it’s about to explode, but one of the photos, where Dr. Harrington is standing with two other men, evokes a writhing sensation that overshadows any warmth I’d felt befo
re.
I don’t know what causes me to turn. Maybe I saw something in my periphery, maybe I sensed movement, maybe a certain smell caught my attention.
But I turn and see Klay. My eyes quickly drop down to the surgical gloves on his hands, the bright blue color contrasting sharply with the dark red of the blood spattered on them.
I don’t have the nerve to ask him who’s blood that is.
“Sadie,” he says, my name slipping through his clenched jaw. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to thank you,” I say, staring at his hands.
Their appearance should send me out of the house screaming, but the drug must be blunting my fight or flight response.
“What happened?” I ask.
“You got drugged,” he says flatly. “Because you’re an idiot.”
His hostility and the confusion over the blood rankles me. I’d thought that his actions tonight meant we’d gotten past his juvenile behavior, but I was bound to be disappointed.
“I should be allowed to drink without assuming someone drugged it,” I say, folding my arms over my chest.
“People should be allowed to drive without assuming a drunk driver will kill them, but we both know that’s a poor assumption,” he says.
He holds his gloved hands in front of him to avoid letting the blood touch his clothes. Or maybe he’s showing me what he does to people he hates. Because he’d have to hate me to bring up my parents like that. His father must not understand his son at all.
“In the real world,” he says, “outside of the insane asylum, you watch your own fucking back, and you don’t trust anyone. Most girls would know better.”
“Well, I guess I’m just an idiot, and you should have let me stay at that house, drugged.”
“I should have.” Klay pulls his gloves off, letting them turn inside out. “Maybe you would have learned your lesson better.”
“You’re a real bastard.” I take three steps towards him.
He leans slightly backward.
I wave my hand down the long hallway. “Show me where the bathroom is. Afterward, I can leave and never come back again.”
Klay smirks. “You call me a bastard, then ask me for a favor?”
“I’m asking you for directions in your own house. It’s not a favor. It shouldn’t hurt your brain too much to come up with the answer.”
“And why should I answer?”
“Because otherwise I piss all over your floor.”
He tosses the rubber gloves on the end table a few feet away. “Go ahead. Piss away.”
“You know what?” I slam my fist against my thigh, letting the pain ricochet up my body. “Maybe I’ll just go back to the party. It’s down the street. I’ll piss in Roman’s house.”
I start walking to the right of him, but he grabs my arm, his grip tight enough to be a warning.
“Don’t threaten me with Roman,” he says.
I look down at his hand.
“It wasn’t a threat,” I say. “But it’s good to know you see it that way. It gives me leverage.”
He yanks me forward so abruptly that I stumble. My back touches the wall, but I barely feel it. Instead, all I feel are his hands on my shoulders, pressing me against the wall like I’m another specimen for him to pin down and dissect.
If it meant his hands, his pressure, and his heat shackling me to this wall, I’d celebrate the exploration. Our bodies are so close that my trembling knees repetitively tap against his knees.
“Don’t,” he says, his breath hitting against my cheek. “Don’t fucking test me, Sadie. You know what I’ll do for you. You know what I’ve done for you. Nothing will change that.”
“I don’t know anything,” I say.
He bows his head, his mouth so close my ear that when he speaks, his lips brush against my earlobe.
“You wouldn’t keep coming back here if you didn’t know,” he says, so quietly that it takes me a few seconds to understand what he’s saying. “But you need to forget. You’re digging your own grave.”
After he pulls away, I study his eyes. The dark brown of his irises demand respect, but flecks of vulnerability slip out through the striations of gold.
“And what about you? Whose grave are you digging?” I challenge, taking a step forward.
He doesn’t move back. Our bodies press up against each other, reminding me of his stature and the way my body shivers with the need for his friction.
His subtle smirk slowly falters. He shoves me back, my shoulder blades bumping against the wall, and he takes a step back.
“I need to clean up,” he says, picking up his surgical gloves. “The bathroom is through that hall, two doors down.”
He walks toward the kitchen. Every muscle in my body tells me to follow him, to grab him and kiss him with enough force that he could never walk away again. Shoving him back also feels like a valid decision.
But I don’t.
It’s not because I think it’s a bad idea. It’s a remarkably bad idea. I’m spiraling down, straight into the graves we’ve dug for each other.
After going to the bathroom, I hear an unfamiliar voice, angry and bitter. It must be Leon or Vince. I can’t quite figure out what direction the brother’s coming from, but he’s cursing about getting kicked out of Roman’s party, so it seems like a good idea to avoid his warpath.
I head farther down the hall until I reach a dead end. There are two doors on either side of me. I open the one on the right, slip in, and quietly close it behind me.
It’s the bare bones of a bedroom. The bed is a steel frame with a mattress and a white comforter on top. A small bookshelf inhabits the space to the right of the bed, and one of those massive windows that occupy the whole house brings in light to the left of the bed.
I walk over to the left wall, where a sliding door is barely visible. I slide it open. It’s a walk-in closet, but there’s barely any clothes in it.
I sit down on the bed. My adrenaline should be spiking after hearing the angry voice, but my body feels like it’s ready to shut down. I lean back until I collapse onto the comforter. A warm and woodsy scent lingers in the bed. It smells just like Klay.
Lying on the comforter in this desolate room with Klay’s cologne wrapping around me—like those resistance bands on my wrists and ankles, oh god—gives me a strange sense of nostalgia.
The day has been strange overall, and my head feels too heavy to think much about it. Dr. Harrington or the nurse never mentioned if I can sleep or not with the drug still in my blood, but sleep is calling, and I can’t deny it, not after so many nights battling insomnia.
Angry voices rise somewhere in the house. They aren’t as close as the first voice, but they’re louder. One of them is definitely Klay’s. Despite the volume, it’s hard to understand them from so far away, and I can barely stay awake.
Dr. Harrington’s voice responds to Klay, colder and harsher than I’ve ever heard him speak to anyone.
My eyelids get too heavy to keep open. I curl up on the bed. A faint memory tugs at my thoughts. Klay’s body was curled around mine. He played with my hair before letting his hand move farther down. When his hand settled on my hip, I turned toward him. We kissed. My lips were an invitation and his mouth a welcome gift, crossing the threshold into the world we're building together.
For the first time, I had belonged to someone, and someone had belonged to me. We had shared our hearts and bodies, our dreams and joys.
And our fears.
Something happened. We burned down the world we’d built between us. All that’s left is ashes.
33
Sadie
I open my eyes. As I’m looking up, trying to remember where I am, the mattress sags near my feet. I’m barely awake, but I raise my head and see Klay’s back. I don’t look away when he turns to face me. I sit up slowly, only raising my knees a little bit, so that my feet are still close to his body.
“I remember everything,” I say, raising my chin.
Th
e left corner of his lips barely tugs up in a half-hearted smile.
“Nice bluff,” he says. “But I’ve always been able to read you, and I know when you’re lying.”
I let out a slow breath. It was a decent attempt, but I knew the whole time I was chasing something that couldn’t be trapped.
“I’m going to tell you everything,” he says.
I sit up straight, pulling my legs closer to my body.
His gaze focuses on where my feet had been. “But you’re not going to believe it.”
“Why wouldn’t I believe it?” I ask.
“Because it’s too much for anyone to take in,” he says. “And it’s part of human nature to deny that someone else is pulling all the strings.”
“Pulling the strings?” I ask. “Is someone controlling you?”
“Not me,” he says. “At least, not directly.”
He grips the comforter so tightly that when he lets go, it stays raised up like a snow-covered mountain.
“Klay,” I say, reaching toward him.
He turns his shoulder away from me. I wrap my arms around my knees, and he faces forward again.
“Think of it like this,” he says. “Me, Roman, Ethan—our families live in a different world from the rest of the school.”
It sounds like something an egomaniac would say, but when I look into Klay’s eyes, I see pain, not pride. It’s the truth, nothing more, and a source of suffering for reasons he has yet to explain.
“But there are others, powerful people so far ahead of even us in ways you can’t imagine. The Society. That’s what they call themselves.” Klay shakes his head. “The difference between my family and these people is like the difference between your classmates and us rich brats. We still pretend to follow the law, mostly. Their word is the law.”
