Hate to Forget

by L V Chase

  A white Maserati crests the hill right before my grandmother’s house, cruising down it. I uncross my legs, standing up as it pulls into the driveway. It’s a guy in the driver’s seat, not the older woman I’d seen in the house earlier, but the windows are too tinted to get a good view of him.

  The driver’s door opens. A boy around my age with an Ivy League haircut, Ivy League V-neck sweater, and a perfect smile likely bought by Ivy League parents, steps out.

  “Hey, Sadie!” he says, grinning as he opens his arms like a ringmaster. “You ready to go?”

  My first challenge, and I haven’t even reached the school.

  “Oh, right,” I say. “Aren’t we going to end up at school early, though?”

  His eyes crinkle before he laughs. “Sure, but that’s never bothered you before.”

  We must be close to each other. He’s attractive in a way that I’ve always found appealing—those clean-cut boys who don’t mistake masculinity for aggressive, stoic displays of power—but looking at him, there’s no urge to be closer to him or fantasize about a future together. If anything, a quiet agitation rumbles in my stomach.

  His fingers tap the hood of his car as he gazes at me.

  “I just don’t know,” I say.

  He frowns.

  “Are you alright, Sadie?” he asks. “Did I say something wrong? Are you upset about your grandma?”

  “I’m fine. It’s just—”

  “What are you wearing?” he interrupts, gesturing to my shorts. “It’s getting too cold for that. I should get you some new clothes. We could go shopping after school. I’ll get you some of the best clothes. You’d look great in some Dior.”

  “Maybe,” I say, irritation nibbling at my nerves.

  He shrugs. “It’s not a big deal. I already got you that little present you wanted.”

  He holds out a hand-sized rectangular box to me. I carefully take it. A metallic circular logo glints in the center of it. After struggling for a second, I manage to pull the top off.

  It’s a smartphone. The black screen reflects my flustered expression.

  “Wow,” I say. “This is very generous of you.”

  “I told you I’d get you a new one, and I’m a man of my word,” he says. “There’s no way a girl is going to go through her last year of school without a phone. And, if we’re both honest, I should carry a little bit of the blame for breaking your phone. I didn’t mean to scare you so badly.”

  “It’s not your fault, but this absolutely makes up for it,” I say, hoping what I’m saying makes sense. I don’t know him. He could be a serial killer. He could enjoy pineapple on pizza. But as much as I don’t trust him, I trust my mind even less. I didn’t know Emmy, I didn’t know the woman in my grandmother’s house, I didn’t know that my grandmother had been committed, and now I don’t know the person who’s willing to drown me in gifts. I have to trust him more than I trust my mind, because my mind is defective.

  The last thing I want is to be committed to a psychiatric ward like my grandmother, so I have to go with the flow until something tells me to fight against the current. It’s my consequence for diving into the waters in the first place.

  3

  Sadie

  I run my hands through my hair for the third time. I step out of the way of one of my classmates as I pull my backpack strap up higher on my shoulder. In front of me, Emmy makes wide gestures with her hands as she tells a vivid story to the school secretary.

  “So, we got to the end of the trail and Sadie—God, it was crazy, Mrs. Fisher—she saw this beaver in this nasty-looking snare and it was just…it was so sad, it was trying to scramble its way out, but it must have been doing it for hours, because it was exhausted. Sadie and I could just tell that it was ready to give up. Sadie didn’t even think at all. She just jumped down to help it, but she slipped and cracked her head against two trees on the way down. We went to the hospital, of course, and they fixed her up, but they can’t be certain when her memory returns.”

  “You did such a wonderful thing,” Mrs. Fisher says to me, her hands clasping together.

  I force a smile.

  “I wish I could remember it,” I say, but my lying isn’t as convincing as Emmy’s.

  Mrs. Fisher turns back to Emmy. “What happened to the beaver?” she asks.

  Emmy exhales slowly, her shoulders drooping. “I don’t know. I left with Sadie as fast as I could.”

  “Of course,” Mrs. Fisher says. “You had to take care of your friend. What’s important is that you’re both safe now.”

  Mrs. Fisher turns away from me, plucking two pieces of paper from the printer. She slides them across to Emmy. Emmy hands them to me.

  “Thank you so, so much, Mrs. Fisher,” Emmy says. “You hold this whole school together.”

  Mrs. Fisher rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling as she turns back to her computer. “Just try to not fall down any more hills, girls.”

  As Emmy and I leave the office, I look down at the papers. It has my locker number, my combination, my classes, their rooms, and my teacher’s names. I’d spent so much time worrying about how I was going to find my way around the school, and Emmy solved all of my problems with a story about a beaver.

  “Uh, Emmy,” I say. “Thank you for your help. I don’t know how I could make this up to you.”

  “Please, lovely, I’d jump out of a plane for you,” she says. “Besides, how else were you going to do this?”

  “I’m still not sure I can,” I say. “Do we share any classes?”

  “Nah,” she says. “You’re in the more advanced classes. I’m with the rest of the idiots.”

  “You’re not a—”

  “Oh!” she says. “So, if anybody asks you why you don’t remember anything, and you don’t want to use my perfect amnesia story, you can just laugh and tell them that you’re messing with them.”

  “You’re suspiciously good at lying,” I joke.

  She flashes me a smile. “I didn’t manage to get us into every awesome party by telling the truth.” She touches my arm. “I’ve got to get to my homeroom. I’ll see you at lunch. Don’t lose any more memories until I’m back!”

  She skips away from me, her blonde hair swaying behind her. She disappears in a crowd of students dressed in tie-dye shirts, bell-bottom pants, and long skirts with floral designs. I blink several times. When did I slip into the ‘60s?

  Hippie Monday. Emmy had told me about it. I’m not losing my mind. I’d overlooked her peasant blouse and hemp headband as the eccentric style of a flower child. It matches her personality too well.

  I pass by the other students, dressed in my modern t-shirt and jeans. Emmy had said nobody would care about Spirit Week with the football game and dance coming up, but she must have been underestimating, because most of the women are participating and a good chunk of the men are, too.

  As I spot Roman, a head taller than most of the other students, my body stiffens. He catches my eye. I hold back a gasp. As we’re about to pass each other, he steps closer to me. He’s wearing a tie-dye shirt with a cannabis leaf in the center of it and a sneer on his face. I try to move away from him as he gets closer, but he still reaches across the hall. He grabs me by the arm and shoves me. I slam against the nearby lockers. I nearly fall, but I catch myself at the last second.

  I spin around, checking down the hall as a surge of adrenaline shoots through me. Roman is walking backward, smirking at me. Some of the other students pause to look at us while others keep walking. After a couple of seconds, everyone acts like nothing had happened.

  I rub my shoulder. I continue walking, trying to erase the moment out of my head. I walk into homeroom, taking one of the few remaining desks. I roll up my sleeve, checking my arm. It’s red, but I don’t know if it will bruise. I could go to the principal’s office, but the last thing I want is for Mrs. Fisher to bring up my memory loss to him and for people to start asking too many questions.

  As I move my backpack to hang on the back of my chair,
I see him.

  I glance away, but after a couple of seconds, I’m looking back towards him again. His dark hair is disheveled in a way that makes it seem like he doesn’t care about his looks. The grease on his jeans doesn’t help, either, but everything about him feels fresh, new, and worthy of exploration. Especially, the combative heat that flickers off of him.

  How could somebody appear so calm on the outside while the slightest movement of his hand and the smallest twitch in his face tells me that he could snap an arm at any point he wants?

  I look back down at my desk. I don’t get suckered into boys like this. I’ve looked and considered them to be aesthetically pleasing before in the same way I’d enjoy a good painting, but he makes me feel like someone electrified me. It’s something new and seductively intimate.

  I swing my gaze back to him. He looks over, catching me staring. I look down at his hands like I’d been trying to peek at his homework. But the only thing on his desk is his keyring, combining a few keys, a folding knife, and a keychain in the shape of green mountains with the words “Green Mountain National Forest” in cursive on the front of it.

  As long as I can remember, my parents took me up to Vermont at least every other year. After my parents passed away, my grandmother took me there a few times, making sure we visited the Green Mountain National Forest every time, where so many photos of my parents and I were taken.

  Now, my parents are gone forever, and my grandmother is locked up in a psych ward. Green Mountain National Forest may become a distant memory--not forgotten but faded.

  I suck in a breath and push myself out of my chair. He’s caught me staring, so I might as well use my knowledge of Vermont to act like I was focused on his keychain, not him.

  I stop at the corner of his desk, but he’s concentrating on the Green Mountain keychain now, his thumb rubbing over its ridges. I lay my hand flat on his desk. He raises his eyes but doesn’t react to my presence.

  “Hi,” I say. I point to his keychain. “Vermont’s always so beautiful, isn’t it? The smell of pine trees always brings me back, but it’s never quite the same unless you’re in Vermont.”

  He looks around us, his eyes pausing on every person in his periphery. He’s not wearing hippie clothes like everyone else. I don’t mind. It means we both don’t fit in, and his gray hoodie fits him too well to wish he was in anything else.

  “Yes,” he says. “Vermont is great. The ice cream’s quite good as well.”

  “Oh, I loved the ice cream,” I say. “When did you go there?”

  “About a year ago.” He slides the keyring into his pocket before leaning back into his chair. “Did you need anything?”

  His dark irises flit away from me, checking what the other students are doing. He’s not interested in me at all. His disregard should repel me, but my legs won’t work.

  “I could use help getting to my next class,” I say. “After homeroom, could you show me the way to Mrs. Horowitz’s class?”

  “You don’t know where it is?” he asks. “We’ve been in classes for nearly a month.”

  I wince. “Oh. I know. But I just switched classes. Um, there were issues in the other one.”

  I used to think being a bad liar would be a great attribute, but it’s eating me alive right now.

  “Sure,” he says, shrugging.

  “Thanks,” I say. I turn away, managing to force my body back to my desk. Heat rushes into my checks. I’m never this proactive with anybody. We’d clearly never talked to each other before, so he must think I’m crazy for talking to him now and stumbling through the discussion the whole time.

  I glance over at him. His head is bent down a bit, the keyring in his hands again. Aggression contorts his face in a way that should make him look ugly, but I only want to run my hands over his face and soothe him. Or let him throw me around and get all of his aggression out on me as his touch changes from threatening to nurturing.

  He looks up, the anger vanishing from his face. He smiles at me, but the expression is forced. I turn around, facing the front of the classroom as announcements start to play, and the teacher frantically starts taking attendance.

  The second that announcements are done, he walks up to my desk.

  “Are you ready?” he asks.

  I nod, pulling my backpack strap onto my shoulder. He stays a couple of inches ahead of me as he leads me out of the room. It’s hard to keep up with him among the bustle of students, but I pick up my pace to stay close to him.

  “So, it’s Klay Harrington, right?” I ask, recalling what the homeroom teacher said while doing attendance.

  “Yes.”

  “Like the bank?” I ask. He peers back at me, confusion rippling over his face. “Bar-clay. Klay.”

  “Oh. No. You’ve never said that before,” he says.

  I tuck away this little piece of information. We’ve talked before. But he didn’t think it was strange I hadn’t known his name, so we didn’t know each other that well.

  As we go down the stairs, other students move out of his way, but it causes them to collide into me. I struggle to keep up.

  “I’m really thankful that you’re willing to take time to do this,” I say, catching up in the hallway. “I know you have a class to get to.”

  “It’s not a problem,” he says. He doesn’t look at me at all. It shouldn’t bug me, but it does.

  He stops beside a doorway and gestures into it. “Mrs. Horowitz’s English class.”

  “Thank you,” I say, stepping closer to him.

  I can’t be certain about what I wanted to do—hug him? But he slides away from me, walking away in another direction. I watch him go until he turns to head back up the stairs.

  My grandmother used to tell me that if I invited the devil into my house, I better be willing to sell my soul and smile while doing it. And, in this case, I think I might be.

  4

  Sadie

  Nobody tries to talk to me or calls on me for the first two periods, which may have bothered me before, but I know it’s what I need to hide my amnesia, and it gives me the time to think about Klay.

  He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. His kindness doesn’t match the rage radiating from his body, with the way it’s built like a military type, prepared for violence. People who leave their anger exposed can cool off faster, but people who keep it locked up are releasing a beast when that smile and civility shatters.

  I don’t need wolves or beasts in my life. I need stability and sincerity.

  As I walk into biology, I recall that the world is cruel and unusual, because the biology classroom has eight tables with two chairs at every table. One of my fifteen classmates is Roman, and the only unoccupied chair is the one next to Klay.

  We’re labmates.

  I sit down, avoiding looking at him. In front of us, Ethan—I finally heard someone call his name—is counting the cash in his wallet, and Roman is trying to sharpen his pencil with a scalpel. I can’t help but smirk slightly as he cuts across his finger when the blade skips over the graphite.

  Ethan or Roman’s actions should garner most of my attention, but Klay demands all of my attention. His arm is tensed between us, though his hand is barely clasped. I rest my arm close to his. He slides his arm away, leaning back into his chair.

  When did I get so desperate?

  Roman drops the scalpel down, twisting around to look at me. He leans on the table, resting his cheek against his fist as he stares.

  “So, did you find another dick to ride?” he asks.

  A mocking grin crosses over his face. “You seemed desperate the last time I saw you. You could have just asked me politely for a good fuck.”

  Klay’s fist clenches, but a second later, it loosens again. He’s staring over at the other side of the room. I follow his gaze, but the only view of interest is one girl trying to paint a peace sign on another girl’s cheek.

  Roman hits the toe of his shoe against my calf. “Hey. It’s rude to ignore people. Didn’t your mama tea
ch you respect? Oh, wait…your mama’s dead.”

  A tornado of fury whips up in my chest, pressing out against my ribs and threatening to crack apart the room. As I sit up straighter, my fists pressed against the seat of my chair, I see Klay in the corner of my eye.

  He’s gripping his own fists so tightly I’m prepared to hear one of his fingers snap off at the joint. I glance up at his face. His jaw is clenched, changing his jawline from chiseled to sharper than a chef’s knife.

  “Come on, whore,” Roman taunts, reaching forward.

  As his hand grasps onto my knee, I jerk backward, the chair legs screeching loudly against the floor. I inhale sharply as Klay lurches out of his chair. Klay grabs Roman by his shirt collar, yanking him out of his chair and against our lab table. His fist jabs down so fast, I only see him pulling it back when his other hand releases Roman’s shirt. Roman slumps down on the floor.

  It’s a split-second, but the mood of the room changed from a carefree, pseudo-hippie spirit to a shaky uncertainty and uneasiness. The only sound is the scuffle and laughter of people walking by the classroom. I stare at Klay, trying to piece his behavior together into one cohesive unit, but all I end up with is a portrait of a psychopath.

  He wrenches his backpack off the back of his chair, striding towards the door with enough fury to repel everyone except Ethan. Ethan leaps out of his chair, darting to the door to cut off Klay right outside of the threshold. I can see a sliver of Klay’s tense back, but nothing else.

  Mr. Miller, the biology teacher, clears his throat. “Let’s not eavesdrop, folks. Mark and Nathan, could you two help Mr. Shaw to the nurse’s office? They’ll decide if he needs medical attention. We’ll start our lesson, and your partners can catch you up when you get back.”

  My hands are trembling as I watch Mark and Nathan lift Roman to his feet. Roman groans, his chin rising and his eyes opening for a brief second before his eyes close again. His head slumps back down.