Hate to Forget

by L V Chase

  He turns around, quickly moving away from the closet. I step out, taking a deep breath of the musty air. I wait a couple of minutes, preparing myself for if Roman returns. When he doesn’t, I start finding my way back out of the hotel.

  It takes me a couple of attempts to find the stairway that leads out of the basement. Once I’m back on the first floor, I check out the front door to ensure that Roman’s car is gone. It is.

  I step outside, taking another deep breath.

  I should just walk back home. I don’t need Klay to save me, and once he sees I’m not locked in a closet, he’s going to think I’m a liar or melodramatic.

  But I want to see him.

  I sit down on the stairway. It doesn’t take long before I see his black Jeep racing down the driveway. It slows down as it pulls into the driveway, parking a few feet away from where I’m sitting.

  He jumps out of the Jeep while it’s still running. He rushes over to me.

  “Are you okay?” he asks, kneeling beside me.

  He takes my wrist, his fingertips finding my pulse while his eyes search my face. A flicker of a memory comes back to me when he did something similar—in the surveillance video, when I was drunk. He pulls back my shirt sleeves, where red blotches blossom from when Roman grabbed me. He checks over his shoulder.

  “Roman is gone,” I say. “He came back after he realized I had his phone. I told him you were coming, and he left. He didn’t want me locked up when you found me, I guess. I know that sounds like I made up the whole thing and that I just wanted attention or something, but—”

  “I believe you, Sadie,” he says. “You don’t need to explain yourself. It’s my fault.”

  “It’s not your fault Roman’s a jerk.”

  He shakes his head, slowly standing up. “So, you’re okay? You don’t feel lightheaded or sick?”

  “No,” I say. “I’m fine.”

  “I’ll drive you home,” he says. “Just…just don’t talk to me at all.”

  His rule should irritate me, but the way he says it, it feels almost like a protective gesture. I follow him to his Jeep. I jump into the passenger side. He waits until I’ve buckled my seatbelt, and he starts to drive. As requested, I stay silent.

  For a while.

  As we’re nearly back to my grandmother’s house, I fiddle with my seatbelt.

  “You know where I live,” I remark.

  “Yes,” he says, a flicker of annoyance flashing across his face.

  “I should have known,” I say. “Roman has surveillance cameras in his house, and he showed me a video of the party from last weekend. It showed that you helped me while I was drunk.”

  He doesn’t say anything. I stare out the window. He parks in my grandmother’s driveway. He turns toward me.

  “All I did was help you get a ride to the hospital,” he says. “You’d had too much to drink. I was just being…nice. I only know where you live because we live on the same bus route.”

  “I went to the hospital?” I ask. “How did I end up back in the house then?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “You’d have to ask Roman that.”

  There’s a note of irritation in his voice. I don’t want him to lash out at me again, so I open the door and let myself slide down until my feet hit the ground.

  “Sadie,” Klay says.

  I turn back around to look at him.

  “Don’t go out with Roman alone again,” he says.

  I raise my eyebrows. A sarcastic response is about to leap off of my tongue, but I bite it back after considering the anxiety creasing his face.

  “I can promise that,” I say. “Thank you for the ride. Should I…I don’t know, report Roman to the police?”

  “No. I have everything under control,” he says.

  He reaches over and shuts the passenger door. The tires of his Jeep scrape against the rocks in the driveway as he swerves out onto the road. He speeds away.

  I have everything under control.

  He said the same thing in my fantasy of him.

  17

  Sadie

  I don’t believe anything anymore.

  I don’t believe it’s Saturday.

  I don’t believe that I stayed in bed until it was nearly noon.

  I don’t believe it’s been one week since I woke up with no memories of the last two years.

  I don’t believe that I’m missing a large part of myself—the part that had a passionate relationship with someone, the part that became good friends with Ethan and Emmy, the part that got drunk at parties and let her grandmother fall into a breakdown without telling her best friend.

  I don’t believe any of it because my brain is a ravaged country, where I’ve been robbed of my memories, and its anarchy has led me to be kidnapped by my thoughts of Klay. Sprinkle in a little Stockholm Syndrome for those obsessive thoughts, and I know I can’t trust my thoughts.

  I have everything under control.

  I’ve forgotten nearly everything from the last two years, but Klay’s words have dug into my head.

  I must have heard him say it before, and my brain incorporated it into my fantasy. There’s no other explanation for why he said the same thing in my fantasy and in reality. But why would I remember that out of all of my other forgotten memories? Certainly, at some point, Ethan or Emmy said something far more important to me.

  I walk outside, still wearing pajama pants and a shabby sweater. I retrieve the stack of mail crammed into the mailbox. It’s mostly magazines that my grandmother signs up for indiscriminately. There are two clothing magazines—one with yoga clothes and the other with fifties vintage dresses. There’s also a magazine for dolls, an organization that raises money for endangered animals, an entertainment magazine, and one for baking equipment. There’s a piece of junk mail concerning buying a metal roof.

  I step back into the house.

  “Good afternoon, Sadie.”

  I nearly trip on my own feet. I spin around to see a woman with curly blonde hair. The woman who’d been in my grandmother’s house when I returned from Roman’s house. Occasionally, I’ve seen some signs that she’s been in the house, but for the most part, she’s been absent. I know she said she wasn’t my guardian since I wasn’t young enough to need a guardian, but I can’t quite find out who she is supposed to be to me. I’m afraid if I ask, she’ll send me to the psychiatric ward to join my grandmother. For how little I’ve seen her interact with anything or anyone, she might as well be a hallucination.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” she says, the last half of an English muffin in her hand. “How did you sleep?”

  “Fine,” I say, setting the mail on the end table in the living room. “Have you heard from my grandmother?”

  “Not yet,” she says. “I’ll try to call the hospital today. I’m sorry I haven’t been around, but—”

  Her phone rings. She taps on the screen and brings it up to her ear.

  “Beth Murray,” she answers.

  Beth. I need to remember that. For some reason, the name Murray is familiar.

  She continues. “Of course. I am going to be there before one. Yes. Of course. I’ll bring the samples. Yes. Thank you. Goodbye.”

  She hangs up, staring down at her phone’s screen like she wishes she could jump into it, burst onto the side of the person who called, and sucker punch him or her. She snaps out of it and smiles at me.

  “I need to apologize again. I truly need to leave right now. You’re going to the dance tonight, right?”

  “Yep,” I say. “With Ethan.”

  She smiles. “That’s great. He’s a good kid. Have fun. I’ve left some cash on the window sill if you decide to get something to eat while you’re out.”

  She finishes the last bite of her English muffin and wipes her hands on a paper towel. She tosses it out.

  “So, um, have a good day,” she says.

  She picks up a laptop bag and awkwardly moves past me to get out the door. Whoever she is to me, we’re not
close.

  I plop down on the couch. I know I should feel excited about the dance, but, just like my brain, I don’t trust my own emotions anymore. My joy is intertwined in the times that Klay touches me, even when he’s being aggressive. My grief is over his absence in my life. My lust is pulsating for him—a separate, deceptive heart.

  Maybe I should be in a psych ward. Maybe there’s a psychiatric disorder that causes people to lose their memories and become fixated on a person who will destroy them from the inside out.

  I lay my head on the armrest. I try to remember what I felt like when I was told my grandmother had been locked up in a psychiatric unit. I focus all of my thoughts and all of my energy into the one memory, but nothing pops up in my head. I can’t imagine where I was—in the house, at school or hanging out with Emmy—I can’t remember what I was doing, or how I felt. It’s a loose string that I can’t tie up.

  I close my eyes.

  The school bathroom smells like bleach.

  I check my make-up, the sticky consistency of the lipstick making me feel like I’m infected with something ooze-inducing. I usually don’t wear make-up, but for Futuristic Thursday, I put on some silver lipstick and silver eyeliner. Finding the right clothes was a bit more difficult—I didn’t have the funds of the richer kids or the transportation to search through various stores—but I found a silver top that looks like it’s made of foil online, and I paired it with some jeans. I don’t look like myself at all, but I know that when I’m in front of him, I’ll return to feeling like myself. I’ll feel like I’m so deeply in my own skin, I won’t question myself for hours.

  Outside the bathroom door, I hear the wheels of a janitorial cart squeaking. Most of the high school left about ten minutes ago. The only people left in the school will be the janitors, a few unhappily married teachers, and the drama kids, who are rehearsing for Little Shop of Horrors.

  It’s not the safest situation, but it’s worth it.

  The bathroom door swings open. One of the freshman girls nervously runs to the last bathroom stall. I turn on the faucet, letting the water run, so she won’t become self-conscious about peeing. I pretend to occupy myself with applying more lipstick, but by the time the freshman leaves, the lipstick is too thick on my lips. I kiss the back of my hand to try to thin it out.

  As I wash the lipstick off the back of my hand, the door swings open again. As I turn, a hand comes down on my hip and another one on the side of my neck. His lips are on my lips. My wet hand presses against his chest, but I’m not pushing him away. I’m leaving my mark. I’m reminding myself that he’s real, and he wants me to an impossible insatiable degree. I want him the same way.

  He’s pressing against me, forcing my back against the edge of the sink. His breath is warm down my cheek and my neck. His hands are on my jeans, working on the button and zipper with an impatient expertise. If I had a bit more dignity, I might demand to have some conversation with him first, but I traded all of my dignity to touch the one who drowns me in sunrises and shooting stars. There isn’t a single chance that he wants this more than I do.

  My jeans are at my ankles. His pants and boxer briefs follow the same plunge. His hands are on my hips. He spins me around. My hands clasp onto the sides of the sink. I stare at the two of us in the mirror reflection. We’re stealing seconds away and harboring our deepest desires. It’s exciting and frightening.

  His thumbs hook under the waistband of my underwear. As he sneaks them down my legs, his hands commit an act of worship down my thighs. His hardness taps against my legs, acting as a metronome, counting down to exactly what I want. When my underwear gets past my knees, they drop down. He stands up again. In the mirror, he’s gazing at me like I’m the northern lights or Angel Falls—something extraordinary, singular, and beautiful.

  It’s so good to be wanted. It’s so much better to be wanted by him.

  He plants a kiss on my spine. As a shiver slithers down, he lunges forward. He rams into me in one thrust. My head lurches back, finding his shoulder to rest on. He drives into me, a man overtaken by his feral needs. He grips onto my hips, pulling me closer, but with every thrust, I slip up against the sink again.

  God, his viciousness is almost enough to send me over the edge.

  His right hand moves up to my breast, squeezing it through the padding of my bra. With the slightest gesture of annoyance, he slips his hand under my shirt. He pushes my bra up and squeezes my breast tightly. As I groan under the influence of his touch, he rolls the nipple between his fingers. My groan escalates into a gasp. Heat rises to my cheeks, red patches reflecting in the mirror.

  I try to keep my head up to watch us in the mirror. In my mind, every part of him evokes a memory. I recall all of the times I touched his jaw, all of the times I kissed his lips, and all of the times his arms had kept me from falling apart. But anything specific about him slips in and out of my head. The memory of him is dominated by emotions and escalated by times like now when my heart rate is about to kill me.

  An extra strong thrust hurls all of my thoughts out of my head. His hand grips tighter around my breast. His thrusts are ramming me against the sink hard enough that I could almost worry about breaking the sink’s pipes, but the knowledge that he’s getting close to his breaking point makes me need more of his pressure and more of his intensity. If I don’t strike that match soon, I may die from need.

  I grab his hand, pulling it down from my breast to my clit. He obliges, two fingers pressing down on my sensitive nub. I buck up against his fingers, panting as the ache between my legs reaches an apex.

  I grip onto the faucet, accidentally pulling it. Water gushes out, splashing against my arms and stomach. He slams into me once more. I lurch back, manic pleasure bombarding me. I’m making a noise that anyone down the hall should be able to hear. It’s not possible that every orgasm is better than the last one, but it feels like it every time. Every time, it’s overwhelming.

  He thrusts inside me four more times, frantic and ruthless, and when he comes inside me, it’s the perfect ending to my orgasm.

  He leans against me, the two of us panting. His heart pounds against my left shoulder. The sound of the faucet water slowly overtakes the sound of our breathing. When I raise my head, the bottom of the mirror is clouded with steam.

  He leans forward and kisses the side of my neck and my cheek. Some of his sweat transfer onto the back of my neck. We scramble to get our clothes on. Just as I get the button on my jeans, one of the other juniors steps in. She recoils in surprise as she sees him in the girl’s bathroom.

  “Just checking the faucets,” he says, switching off the one in front of us off. “They have more pressure than ours. You’re lucky.”

  He opens the door wider and steps past the girl. He turns around and gives me a smile. He indicates with his head that he’s heading left—toward the auditorium. I don’t know what his plan is, but I’d follow him anywhere.

  “Damn,” the girl says, letting the door close. “He could have stayed. I’d show him all over the girl’s bathroom and exactly where all the pressure points are.”

  It should make me jealous. But the afterglow is keeping me high above those petty emotions. It’s keeping me so high, I don’t see how I could ever fall down.

  I jolt awake as the front door swings open. As nobody steps forward, I scramble to my feet. But Emmy hustles in a second later, carrying a makeup case and dragging a suitcase behind her.

  “What the hell!” she says. “Were you ignoring me? I knocked three times!”

  “Sorry,” I mumble, walking over to her and taking the suitcase from her. “I was napping. What time is it?”

  “A little after four,” she says. “Which means we’re late.”

  “Are you running away?” I ask, looking down at the suitcase.

  She grins at me, her eyes wide and her cheeks flushed.

  “Of course not, lovely,” she says. “That has my equipment in it. I’m your fairy godmother, and I’m about to turn you into Cinde
rella.”

  “Cinderella married a man she didn’t even know,” I say, closing the door.

  “Which led her to becoming a rich bitch with power all over the land,” she says. “And that man searched all over his country for her.”

  “In legal terms, he stalked her.”

  She shoves my shoulder. “Come on, babe. My future is going to be filled with hours and hours of nursing school with no makeup and hospital gowns for dresses. Give me this one little, itty bitty thing, and I will never ask you for anything ever again.”

  I was wrong. I do believe in one thing—Emmy’s power of persuasion.

  “Fine,” I say. As she jumps up, clapping her hands together, I hold my hand up. “But I get to ask you questions while you’re doing it.”

  She winks. “I love an exclusive interview. Let’s just get everything set up, and we can start.”

  Emmy is the reigning queen of inattention. After setting up a makeup work station on my dresser, she realizes she forgot the lipstick she wanted. She left while I rested sprawled out on my bed. I tried to sleep again.

  I wanted to get back to my memory of him. I wanted to feel his hand on my breast, the sensation of being hopeless under his control and loving it because I knew I could trust him. I’d imagined love would be drastic and intense, which this was, but more than that, there was a security built within it. I didn’t need to worry about anything because I knew we could deal with it together.

  I have everything under control.

  Emmy returns over an hour later, but I forgive her because she brought a pizza. She convinces me to watch a new TV show with her while we eat. By the time we finished an episode, it’s half past six. She directs me to take a shower, stressing that we should have started the makeover process two hours ago.

  For me, this type of preparation is overkill, but with Emmy, I understand now that she must get up four hours before school in order to get out the door in time. In comparison, I have nothing to complain about.

  After I’m showered and in the dress that Ethan had bought for me, I step out of the bathroom. Emmy applauds me.