Rewind

by Mariam Alaa

  “Did she fill your head with lies just to turn you against us? Don’t tell me you would choose your bestfriend’s word over your family’—”

  “Don’t talk Trevor- save it! The sound of your voice is making me sick. Stop trying to pull your way out of this.” I spin around in my place- my eyes finding Mom’s and dad’s. “I saw the photos; I saw enough evidence that I’m Evelyn. Whatever you say won’t change the fact that I know what happened to me, and I know what you did; your secret is no longer a secret you have to carry the burden of hiding.” Never have I ever been as serious as I am right now with my family- if they even deserve the label.

  My parents’ eyes widen in shock and so does Adrien’s, which makes me believe that maybe he knew about that too. About the accident. About the memory loss. Trevor as well as my parents look like they weren’t expecting this kind of outburst at all which makes me think that maybe- just maybe- they weren’t taking Lexi’s words seriously. Maybe they thought she was bluffing, but here it is now: the truth- spoken by me.

  “How could you?” I take advantage of their silence and voice out my thoughts, not being capable of stopping myself from questioning their motives. “How could you take my memory loss for granted and turn me into a new person? How could you stand yourselves everyday knowing your lying straight to my face? Was it okay? Did lying to me suddenly become as easy as breathing in oxygen? How could you wake up every day and call me Evangeline not Evelyn?” I spit out, ashamed of my own family.

  My parents’ and Trevor’s expressions demonstrate that of being not in their minds right now. They didn’t know what to say. Maybe because they were too shocked; maybe because they didn’t have something to say or maybe because they didn’t want to believe that their dark secret is right in the palm of my hand. I don’t know, and I honestly didn’t care.

  Just as I was about to say something, my mom places a hand on her chest and looks at me pleadingly. “Honey, we didn’t want you to hate us like Evelyn did. We didn’t want history to repeat itself; you have to understand.”

  “What? What are you talking about? Why would I hate you?” I furrow my eyebrows in confusion.

  Their gazes find each other’s across the room in relief while I was standing here in my place, thinking about what my mom just said.

  What does she mean by ‘hating us like Evelyn did’?

  Why would I hate them?

  When no one offers me a reply, I make a quick mental note to question Lexi about it later and ended up saying, “Anyways, I came here to tell you that I’m no longer staying here- at least not for the upcoming few weeks. I need time to heal from the damage you mentally did to me. You managed to live without Evelyn; I’m sure you can manage without Evangeline too.”

  With that being said, I don’t wait for their reply because they appeared to not have something- anything- to say to me; I simply rushed upstairs to my room, got out a suitcase and started packing everything I owned into the bag: my clothes, my laptop, my hairbrush, my accessorize, my perfume, my medical books- everything. When I was done packing, I held my suitcase and started heading out of my room, when Adrien decided to show up.

  “Hi there.” Adrien offers me an evil smile screaming trouble and waves. “A lot of tension in the atmosphere down there, huh?”

  “Yeah.” I huff out a breath of irritation.

  “You know what, Evelyn?” Adrien starts approaching me slowly that I start feeling a sudden intimidation, so I start stepping back into my room until my back hit the wall.

  I was in between Adrien and the wall- trapped in my own room.

  “What I don’t get,” he continues bombarding me with his inquiries, “is how you’re so stupid and naïve like the little girl you are.”

  “Look, Adrien.” My frustrated dark, chocolate brown eyes looked intensely into his jade ones. “I came here for my parents; I didn’t come here to argue with you, so just leave me alone, will you? What do you want?”

  “What do I want?” He lets out a maniac-sounding laughter. “What do I want?” He rubs his chin sarcastically then points a finger at me. “What do you want? I did everything for you- everything anyone could ever ask for. I fucking rented the most expensive restaurants just so I’d impress you on our dates; I planned out our wedding with you; I even bought you a goddamn ticket for Paris on your birthday and paid for the whole damn trip but no! You cancel our wedding and decide to end our relationship on our wedding day. What kind of a sick person are you? Do you know how many girls would die to be in your place right now? And to think of all the time I wasted spending with you- an ungrateful worthless bitch- when it could’ve been anyone else!”

  With his final accusation and from all the rage that was building up inside of him, I have to say that I saw it coming. Maybe I didn’t literally see it coming, but I felt the change in the ambiance. I heard the kind of sound he so angrily screamed out as if he weren’t a human but a malicious beast- an animal. Maybe I didn’t react because I didn’t think he’d truly have the guts to do it, or maybe because I thought that I really know him and that I can trust him, but I shouldn’t have. Faster than a blink of an eye, his hand –the same hand that I used to hold on our dates, and the one that used to caress mine so gently whenever my mood was dampened- swung out and connected with my left eye, and it stung.

  It hurt so much that I felt the process of its swelling; that I felt a small trail of cool liquid trailing down my cheek; that instant tears formed from the intensity of the unbearable pain. With one hand fixed to my now bruised eye, I avert my right eye to Adrien. He seemed to be wrapping his head around what just happened because his eyes were focused solely on his clenched fist that was now a darker shade of his normal skin tone- probably from the blood rush. He kept clenching and unclenching his fist several times before his eyes travelled away from his hand.

  “Evangeline.” His mood has completely changed because his eyes rose to mine apologetically as he says, “I didn’t me—”

  “What the hell is going on?” Trevor’s appearance in my room wasn’t a good indication, for it was an indication that things are about to get real messy.

  I was about to tell him that it’s okay- that it was just a misunderstanding- even though it wasn’t. Before I got the chance to do that, his golden- specked irises already found their way to my left eye.

  “Trevor, it’s ok—”

  “What the hell did you do?” At first, he was only shooting daggers at Adrien, but in an instant, before I could stop him, he started tackling him.

  “Trevor stop!” My hands let go of the bag and grabs Trevor’s arms instead in an attempt to pull him away. After a few minutes with me dragging him away and him attacking, he finally stops.

  “If you think that I fell for you because of your damn money, Adrien, think again.”

  Here I was, spending the day thinking that maybe I shouldn’t have ended things with him- -regretting my decisions- and for what? Just so that he could come back at me with a punch. I didn’t care that Trevor was watching us, so I started blurting out what I wanted to say to Adrien.

  “You’re calling me sick, Adrien? Look at what you just did; you have anger issues. Just so you know, the only reason why I ever set my eyes on you in the first place was because I thought you were a man. Guess I had to look closer, though, because I’m already starting to have second thoughts.”

  With one hand covering my now swollen, throbbing eye, and another hand grasping my bag tightly, I run out of my room and downstairs in an attempt to get out of this place as fast as I can.

  All the beautiful memories I once created in this house no longer existed because this house, in less than fifteen minutes, has turned into one of the most traumatic place I made an oath to never visit again- at least not anytime soon.

  Chapter 13

  ‘When’ exactly I woke up that I can’t remember. All I know was that it was early- way too early in the morning. The thick black curtains, that should’ve been obscuring the windows, weren’t pulled over it
, thus the rays of the sunlight, as faint as they were in such icy seasons, shone over my eyelids when I was tucked in bed.

  Last night, Adam called Lexi while we were on our way to his house to notify her that something came up. He wasn’t going to be there when we arrive, but he assured us that he has asked the workers there, who were working on setting up the door that’ll separate Adam’s floor from the top two, to let us in. Truthfully, I haven’t talked to him ever since he showed me the ring, and in spite of Lexi’s reassurance on how absolutely welcoming he was to the idea of my residence here, I can’t help but think maybe he wasn’t which makes me regret not talking to him about it directly in the first place. Never have I ever been one to reach conclusions without evidences, but I can’t help but believe that maybe he does mind that the person who’ll be staying there with him is me.

  At a leisurely pace, my bare feet step on the parquet of the bedroom floor towards the portrait-displaying mirror. Inspecting the damage Adrien did to my eye with my hand, I wince at my reflection. Against my ghostly skin, great purple welts freckles my eyelid and my under eye. They are grotesque and will probably deepen over the upcoming week, but I know I’m lucky that my eye in itself isn’t injured- that I can still see.

  Reminding me that I haven’t eaten anything since before my wedding yesterday, my stomach growls. I head to the toilet, brush my teeth quickly then brush my fingers through the left side of my mid-back-reaching blond hair in an attempt to cover my swollen eye before I place my feet inside my slippers and head downstairs through the door, which was just built yesterday, to the kitchen. Thanks to my mother, she taught me a lot of recipes, so cooking was never something I struggled with.

  While I was flipping the pancakes, I hear the sound of a door creaking and instantly know that Adam’s awake. Other than my fast reflex of lowering my head to let my hair shield my face from his view, I don’t know why I suddenly become nervous, but all I kept thinking of is ‘what do I say?’, and how I hope things don’t turn out to be ‘awkward’.

  “Pancakes,” he says as he enters the kitchen. “Good morning.”

  “Morning.” My eyes stick to the pan in front of me because if I just turn my face, my hair will blow away from my eyes.

  “As much as I love pancakes.” Adam appears next to me as he takes away the ready plates from the kitchen counter to the dining table. “You didn’t have to.”

  “It’s okay; I love cooking. Think of it as a way of repaying you since you were so adamant on not taking my rent fees.” I turn off the stove and remove the final pancake placing it into a plate.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, why?” I shrug, taking the plate with me as I head to the dining table and take a seat right in front of him.

  “Don’t know; you just seem a little—”

  I look up from my plate, not getting why he stopped midways in his reply, to find him standing right in front of me.

  “Adam, what are you do—”

  Hesitantly, his hand gently brushes away the blond strands hiding my face, causing my cheeks to morph into a blushing mess. In less than a minute, his eyes, which were inspecting my punched eye, darken a darker shade of grey and his left hand, which was placed right by his side, tightened into a fist. To say that I felt uncomfortable by his actions and his stare was an understatement.

  “What happened?” He takes the seat right next to mine.

  “I-It’s nothing.” I avert my gaze to my plate and start cutting the pancake slowly.

  “Did someone do this?” He continues pressing the topic, completely oblivious that I don’t want to talk about it because it’s mortifying: the fact that my fiancé is the one who did this to me.

  “Evangeline.” He tilts my chin upwards to face him while I just gulp. “Did Adrien do this to you?”

  “How do you know Adrien?” He retreats backwards as I question him surprised.

  “It was him, wasn’t he?” He huffs out a breath in disappointment as if he knew Adrien was the only person capable of doing something like that.

  Breaking our conversation, the doorbell rings. Relief washes over me as Adam leaves the kitchen to check who’s here, while I simply start to munch pieces of the pancakes covered in maple syrup. Murmurs fill my eardrums from outside before Lexi made an appearance back here, and Adam was no longer in sight. I don’t know whether he left or whether he is simply giving Lexi and I some space.

  “Hi.” I greet her with a genuine smile, for I’m overjoyed she’s here, knowing that it wouldn’t be as awkward as it is when she’s not.

  “Oooh pancakes.” She sniffs around then, looking as excited as ever, she says, “I got you something,”

  “What is it?”

  “Do you remember how I told you that your parents burned everything that reeked of ‘Evelyn’ in your old house in Liverpool?”

  “Yeah?” I wonder where she’s going with this conversation.

  “Well, they didn’t burn everything ‘everything’. I managed to steal away something they didn’t even have a clue about from the very start. Something extremely private that belonged to you before they could get a hold of it and find it.” She places her handbag on the dining table and starts rummaging through it.

  “What is it?” I eye her curiously, my heart pounding wildly at the idea of getting back something that belonged to Evelyn.

  Finally, she retrieves her hand from the purse, but it’s no longer empty like it was before it was placed inside. Her hand is protectively tightened around the item she stole and while she was eyeing it with pride, my mouth was wide agape and my hands were shaking as they reached out to take it from her.

  “Your diary.”

  ______________________________________________________

  1/1/2015

  Dear diary,

  I never thought I’d be one of those people who’d actually own a diary, but here I am. People always assume they’ll never be placed in certain situations and fail to notice that we do not always control everything. For me, I bought these empty pages for five pounds so that I’d start filling it because I just can’t take it anymore, and I couldn’t help but feel that it would make me feel better if I let it all out. A person can only take too much, and if I can’t open up to my friends and family, then at least a bunch of papers would hopefully do.

  Since my memory was never a keeper, I decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea if I wrote down certain events- memories- that I never want to forget even if they weren’t appealing. Despite the fact that I don’t remember a definite second, minute, hour, day or year, all I know is that it started with three teenagers at middle school- three best friends- and it only ended with two. Think of it like the sand, the sun and the beach; the three of us were mostly together, but two of us managed to stick through it all, while one of us managed to slip. No one meant for it to happen- it just did. As evil as I sound, I knew the reason wasn’t because of the age gap- it was only two years or so- even though that’s what I’d always say. You’d never find the beach and the sand separated, but the sun is temporary- it blinds you in the morning and drowns away in the night. The first two resemble Adam and I, while the latter one is Adrien.

  My breath hitches in my throat at the name of my ex fiancé. Throughout my reading, I’d assumed Evelyn was talking about Adam, Lexi and I, but never, in a million years, would it have occurred to me that I knew Adrien before my accident- before my memory loss.

  My heart pangs in my chest from the words. How could Adrien do this? How could he show up as a transfer student in my college and make me believe that, out of all the other girls, I was the one who truly had his heart- the one who made him ‘stop and stare’? How could he act like a stranger? How could he make me believe we were two strangers who merely fell in love, when he was my best friend before all of this? How did he have the audacity to accuse me of being the sick person when he took advantage of my memory loss to make me believe he’s my night-in-shining armour who appeared out of nowhere? More importantly, how come he
’s older than me and was still in the same college year as I was?

  Before my fingers reach for the pages of the diary, willing to flip through them aggressively as I felt desperate to know more, a knock on the door startles me. Currently, I am lying down on my new bedroom’s floor with my legs crossed and my eyes fixed on the diary. Once Lexi handed me the diary, I wasted no time in running upstairs to my room and inspecting it like some good clue I picked up from a crime scene. I didn’t realise that I spent two hours upstairs in my room until now. Even though I haven’t read a lot, I spent the first hour hesitating if I should open it or not because even though I’m the one who wrote it, it still seemed private. Realistically speaking, it belonged to Evelyn, and I’m no longer her- I’m Evangeline; the only thing we have in common is the body we both shared by living completely different lives in.

  “Can I come in?” My rapidly beating heart starts beating even harder at the sound of his voice.

  “Yes,” I respond after a few attempts at trying to tone down my heart beats.

  “Sorry, I know I said I’ll leave you alone, but I found the door at the bottom of the staircase unlocked,” he explains.

  My gaze travels to his hands, and my heart melts at how evident it is that he still cares about me even when I’m no longer the person he knew.

  “I got you this ointment I found in my medicine cabinet; it should ease the pain a little.” He hands me the ice pack and the ointment.

  “Thank you,” I say with a grateful smile.

  Before he leaves through the door, I call out for him, “So, Adrien, you and I were best friends before?”

  He turns around so that he could face me and nods. “Yes, we were.”

  He takes slow calculated steps in my direction before he stops, jerking his head to the diary in my hand. “You got that from there, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, apparently Evelyn’s memory wasn’t any better than mine,” at my joke, his sealed lips break into a chuckle, and suddenly the sound of his laugh was one of the most genuine, beautiful sounds I’ve ever heard.