The girls lay down on their backs.
“Eric, put some lotion on your hands.”
“What?”
“Do what I say or go back to your bed.”
Eric squirted lotion into his hands.
“Now reach down and rub me.”
“What?”
“Do it!”
Jazz entered the room with coffee cups then stopped when Hunter looked up from his computer.
He shook his head at her. They both looked at Eric who hid his face behind his hands, breathing heavily and crying. Hunter felt so sorry for Eric, but the girls? Who was filming them? Did they even know what they were doing?
Hunter looked back at his computer and continued to type.
*****
Jazz knew Hunter was watching the memory, one he did not want to see. His face looked so pitiful, so pained. She backed away with the cups, watching tears drip down Hunter’s face. She turned around and walked back to the kitchen.
Did she want to know Eric’s memory? No. Why would she need more nightmares? Would she want Eric to see one of her memories? No.
She sat at the table and sipped her coffee. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and saw a message from MawMaw.
How are you? How’s your mother?
Jazz texted back. Still in rehab. I might go visit her this weekend.
Then a picture of her little sister appeared on the screen. Little Rosie, now five years old.
Jazz remembered a night of yelling between her mother and her grandparents. MawMaw said Jazz and Mom had to leave. They couldn’t stay with them anymore. PawPaw held the baby. Mom screamed she would not leave Rosie.
“You are not taking this baby,” said MawMaw. “You can’t take care of her now. Leave her with us and see how things go.”
“I don’t want to leave!” Jazz shouted.
MawMaw hugged her. “You can’t stay, Jazzy. Give it some time. Maybe in a year or two you can come back, but you have to leave now.”
Jazz could not remember why MawMaw made her leave, but for some reason she understood. Maybe MawMaw knew that Mom couldn’t make it by herself.
Jazz enlarged the picture of Rosie. She was so cute! Jazz had asked MawMaw about Face-Timing, but she had refused. Jazz knew they had not told Rosie anything about her mother . . . or even Jazz.
And why should she? The past five years were nightmares. The past few weeks were the longest Jazz had gone without some asshole man living there.
Jazz texted. Mom said that maybe after she gets out we could see you.
Jazz stared at the screen, hoping for a positive response, but nothing came back. She sighed and felt the familiar ache deep in her throat. She tried to swallow. Once again she felt like a little girl hoping for attention and affection. Once again she had to stifle her loss and pain and focus on something which made sense—science.
She flipped open her computer and went to Quora.com, posting the question, “Are memories stored outside the brain?” She scanned through answers, followed links to science journal articles, a process she had performed hundreds of times. Nothing in the literature would support what was happening to Hunter, yet his visions were real. He deleted memories. She had seen the evidence.
How did she know he had deleted one of her memories if she no longer had the memory? Because the memory was restored when she read his story. The bullet hole was real. She didn’t remember making it when he first asked, then remembered when she read his story. Yet she had no idea which memory he had deleted at his father’s. Did she feel different? Yes, but that difference was hard to define. Like a distant pressure, a weight, she had become used to was now gone. How did she know? She couldn’t remember the exact feeling of that weight, but something felt different inside her, less burdened, like she could breathe more deeply.
She found a question posed by a skeptical scientist when considering whether memories could exist outside the brain: “Has anyone ever come across someone else’s memory when wandering around the world?” Yes. Hunter had. Many times. Would it be easier to explain him diving inside a person’s brain using telepathy than hijacking a memory during its recall outside the brain?
If memories existed in another dimension, they could interact. Dreams could be a subconscious journey through others’ memories. The spark of creativity could be the result of many people’s memories interacting with each other. And the idea of a collective unconscious might be easier to explain.
Her brain swirled with thoughts and possibilities until she heard talking in the living room. She closed her computer and rose from her seat. The boys walked into the kitchen.
Eric looked more relaxed, but Hunter dragged his feet. His shoulders hung, and he stared at nothing. He lifted his head when he stepped into the kitchen and peered at Jazz with haunted eyes. He pushed his wet hair back on his head.
“You can keep this,” said Eric as he put Drew’s story on the table. “I’m trying to fix it.”
“I know. You told me. That’s good, Eric.” She reached out her hand. “No hard feelings?”
“OK.” He shook her hand then backed up a step to look at them both. “I don’t know what’s going on with you two or how you’re doing this. But I don’t want you getting into my head unless I want you there. Is that clear?” He shook and breathed heavily. “Is that clear?”
Jazz saw the twitching in his eyes. “Hunter’s not getting into your head, Eric.”
“Then how’s he doing it?” he pleaded. “I have to be the one to decide what he sees.”
“I don’t want to see what’s in your head, Eric,” said Hunter. “But I’ll do it to help you.”
“How? How are you seeing my memories?”
Jazz moved toward Eric. “I’ll try to explain. Your long-term memories don’t stay in your brain. At least, that’s the theory I’m using. When you think about something from your past, your neurons light up like they did when the memory was formed which pulls it back into your mind. It’s like downloading a photo from your cloud storage. The image on the phone is hazy and incomplete. It takes up less memory that way. When you want that photo, you tap it and after a few seconds, the full image is there. Hunter intercepts the memory before it forms in your mind. “
Eric squinted his eyes and shook his head. “Why does the memory leave in the first place? Isn’t there enough room?”
“Theoretically, yes. But you’re constantly making new memories. Like right now. Your brain’s making a movie of everything we’re doing and saying, using some of the same neurons that are needed for previous memories. It probably makes things run smoother if the old movies are stored elsewhere rather than gumming up the process of forming a new memory.”
“How do you know this?”
“I don’t know it. Scientists are still guessing. What they do know is if you suffer brain damage, you might not be able to speak or hear or balance, but you won’t lose specific long-term memories. Why? Perhaps because those memories exist outside your brain, which is needed to communicate with that cloud we all have. Some scientists think the brain is a transmitter and receiver more than a storage device. When we get old, we lose the ability to send and receive signals. We don’t suffer memory loss. We suffer signal loss—a communication breakdown.”
“I still don’t see why Hunter intercepts my memories.”
“Because most of Hunter’s memories were erased a year ago. His brain sends out a signal but nothing comes back. Except memories that are somehow related to the ones he lost.”
Eric snapped his head toward Hunter. “Did you watch child pornography?”
“No,” said Hunter. “But I was abused by someone in my family. At least, that’s what I think happened.”
Jazz nodded. “Hunter sees something from his past just before he sees another person’s memory. And once that memory is in his mind, it can’t be yours anymore. Like someone hacked your photo before it could fully download.”
Eric shoo
k his head. “So if I don’t think about the memory, you won’t see it?”
“That’s what we believe,” said Hunter.
“OK. Can I come by tomorrow after school? Can you take another one?”
Hunter rubbed his neck. “I’ll try. Text me first.”
“Sure.” He held his hand out to Hunter. “Thanks, man.”
Hunter shook hands then placed his closed computer on the table.
Eric looked at them both, gave a nod, and walked out. After another minute, Eric drove away.
“You look terrible,” said Jazz. “You want coffee? Anything?”
“A hug.”
Jazz pulled him to her. “Was that as bad as it seemed?”
“Worse. His brother abused him and introduced him to child pornography. There were twin little girls. Eric and his brother masturbated while watching several videos. Jazz, you wouldn’t believe what the girls did. There are two girls out there being abused repeatedly, then videoed, so that people like Buddy and Eric can get off watching them, violating them again and again. It’s sick.”
He broke away from her and paced around the kitchen, his anger rising. “And what’s worse is that nobody knows about it, except for the sickos who watch that stuff online, but they don’t care about those girls. Nobody cared about you or me or whatever happened to Tatiana. Or any of the other thousands of kids who are abused.
“And why is that? Because most people don’t know. Maybe they don’t want to know. How would normal people react if all these stories were published and read?”
Jazz shook her head. “They’d think they’re inappropriate for teens. The stories are too dark. Even adults wouldn’t want to read them. Too much sex and violence.”
“Tell that to the kids in these stories. One reason this stuff keeps happening is because it’s kept secret. If Eric tried to explain to his classmates what happened to him, they’d call him a perv. If you or I showed our scars to everyone, they’d freak out and call us crazy. We hide our problems from everyone so the normal people can live in their fantasy worlds.”
He began to pull off his shirts. “I’m not hiding these anymore.” He tossed the clothes onto the table. “I guess I’ll soon learn why and how I made these.” He held out his arms to examine his cuts. He found one on each wrist with more pronounced scars than the others. “These must have been deeper cuts.”
Jazz gently lifted each wrist to her lips, kissing his scars. “Your dad said he thought you’d bleed to death twice. Maybe that was after each of these.”
“Would you be embarrassed to be seen with me if these scars were exposed?”
“No, Hunter. I’d be proud you were brave enough to show them.”
He pulled her face to his chest. “Eric wants to keep seeing me until all his memories with the twins are gone. At first, I didn’t think I could do it. But I have to. He was a victim. He needs a chance. And I need to find out whether those girls are still slaves.”
She pushed her fingers through his hair. “You’re amazing to try, Hunter. Who else would accept the worst memories of others?”
“You. If you could do it, I know you would.”
“For you, yes. For Eric, I don’t know.”
“Even if Eric doesn’t remember these events, they still happened to him. The fact that he doesn’t remember this one incident of abuse will not cancel the impact it had on his life. Will it?”
“Who knows? But the haunting will be gone. I still see . . . so many scenes that I wish I could close my eyes to . . . forever.”
He held her face in front of his. “I’ll take all your bad memories. You’ll forget why you made every cut. The scars will fade eventually, and you’ll be whole again. I promise.”
“Oh, Hunter.” Could he?
“Show me. Please.”
Jazz’s heart thumped. She’d never shown anyone.
“Please.”
She crossed her arms and reached for the hem of her shirt. Then pulled it off, clutching it against her breasts.
Hunter’s eyes revealed no shock at seeing twice as many on her shoulders and arms than appeared on his body. Nor at the bruised red welts glaring against her pale skin. His chin trembled.
“Oh, Jazz. I’ll fix every one.” He kissed the scars on each shoulder until she wailed and pulled him to her, weeping into his chest.
“I know what I need to do,” he said. “No matter how hard the visions will be, no matter how much suffering I have to live through, I will take away your pain and from anyone else who wants me to try.”
She wanted him to take her memories. She would make the choice and always know she gave her nightmares to him. Unlike what happened to Hunter, who never consented, who had every memory, good and bad, shocked into oblivion.
Hunter stroked her hair. “I don’t want a reset. I’ll take what I can and write them down. Maybe someday others can read them and learn what you went through.”
They stayed together for another minute, their breathing synchronized. Finally, Hunter removed his hands from her back and lifted her head away from his chest. “I like hugging you.”
Jazz removed the shirt she held between them then pressed her skin against his. The warmth was so comforting, yet also enervating. She could feel her desire growing.
Then Hunter pulled away, breathing heavily. “I’m afraid.”
“Why?”
“How can Eric ever have normal sex after what he’s been through? How can you? Or me? I’ve seen so many people having sex during the past two months, all of it secret, most of it abusive or criminal. How can I touch you without thinking of all that? I keep seeing the little girls in Eric’s memory . . . made to do horrible things. Seems like that part of our lives has been twisted so many times, it’s broken. How can anyone heal from that?”
She moved toward him and touched his chest, her own heart fluttering. “By finding someone to kiss my scars and kiss your scars and then look beyond them.”
Hunter swiped his forearm across his face, smearing away tears. “We’re broken, Jazz. Look at us! Look . . .” Hunter raised the front of his shirt only to immediately drop it, as if in defeat.
She put a hand lightly to his chest over his heart. She stopped over an uneven ridge of flesh. “We are more than this, Hunter.” Jazz leaned closer and moved her hand to press her lips where her fingers had been. She raised her eyes, then her head. They stood face to face. “I have to believe I can still love and be loved, that I can share my bed with someone real, not just a poster. We can’t stay broken forever.”
“I think the healing will hurt more than the original injury.”
“Maybe. But we were alone then. We’ve got each other now.”
“Before Eric’s memory started in my head, I saw my mother . . . almost naked. I went into her room and saw her changing through the bathroom door. I turned away, and she laughed at me. She said I wanted to look at her.”
Jazz saw such pain in his face.
“Maybe she didn’t abuse me. Maybe I abused her.” He grabbed his head with his hands and squeezed. “I wish I knew the truth.”
“It will come to you eventually.”
“Do you think we can ever be normal?”
“Maybe not normal, whatever that is, but able to love and be loved? Yes.”
“What about your mother? Do you believe she can heal?”
“Maybe. If she can stay off the booze. If she can forget some things. Maybe if she can be with Rosie.”
“Who?”
“My little sister.” Jazz saw Hunter’s brain working behind his eyes. “Is she in the memory you took?”
“No. Your mom was pregnant, though. And I saw the photo in your mom’s room.”
“We had to leave Rosie behind. MawMaw forced us to go. I don’t remember why.”
Hunter nodded and looked away.
Jazz touched his cheek. “Do I want to know why?”
“Not now.”
“OK.
“So Rosie is a little Jazz without all the hurt?”
Jazz pulled out her phone and showed him. “Here’s her picture.”
“She does look like you.”
“I’d like to see her.” She hugged the phone to her chest.
“We’ll go to MawMaw’s after your mom gets back.”
Jazz’s eyes widened. “We will?”
“All of us.”
“That would be very cool.” She kissed his cheek. “I’m going to take a shower and change my clothes. I put your bag in my room—just temporarily. You can decide where you want to sleep. There’s a quilt and some blankets in the hall closet. Make your bed wherever you want.”
“I’d like my thermos.”
She walked down the hall toward her room. “It’s in here.”
Hunter followed her.
“Are you tired?” she asked as she pulled some clothes out of her drawers.
Hunter sat down next to his duffel. “Yes, but my brain isn’t.” He unzipped the bag and pulled out his thermos. He flipped open the top and took a drink.
“You can stay in here if you want. Even lie down on my bed. And if you don’t want Alessandro staring at you, just take him down. I don’t think I need him anymore.”
Hunter smiled at her. “Think I’ll have to seriously work out to replace Alessandro.’”
“He’s just a fake body to fantasize about, Hunter. Whatever pleasure he helped create kept the demons at bay only for a few minutes. You can eliminate the demons entirely. I’d choose you over Alessandro any day. Or night.”
Jazz winked and left the room.
Chapter Nineteen
Hunter took another sip from his thermos. Soon he heard the sound of a shower drifting into the room. He closed his eyes and the scent of Bombshell Seduction filled his nose—his mother’s favorite perfume. He stood inside her bedroom, facing the door.
“I have something to show you. Turn around.”
He felt dizzy, and the back of his throat ached. He knew what he would see if he turned around. Why did she do that to him? He stood outside her door hearing her laugh.
Someone To Kiss My Scars: A Teen Thriller Page 15
