by Skyla Madi
She forces a giggle and skips out of the room, not bothering to pick up the magazine that she let drop on the floor. I don’t even worry about saying anything as I pick it up and look around the room, pocketing my phone. I finally find my car keys underneath a pile of scrap pieces of paper in my purse, which I use to write down thoughts whenever I get them, in fear that I might forget everything by the time I reach thirty. Napkins, receipts, fast food bags…whatever I have at the time. I smile when I start to read some of them and place them gently on the dresser. I glance up at my reflection in the mirror, staring back at me with what appear to be knowing eyes.
“What?” I say to it, shrugging. “I’m not that big of a mess.”
“You’re going to be late for Dr. Ross if you don’t get a move on,” my mom says from down the hallway. I glance at the clock next to my bed. She’s right; I have twenty minutes to get to his office, and it’s fifteen minutes away. My shift at the YMCA starts not long after my appointment, so I find my backpack underneath a pile of clothes. After throwing my charger and some notebooks into it, I zip it up and race down the hallway, kissing my mother on the cheek as I pass her by.
I half-expect to see Jake’s gray Mercedes blocking me in the driveway; I daydream about his big hands wrapped around my waist and his cinnamon breath as he kisses me. Before I see it, I step into a hole that my mom has dug into the ground for a seedling, and my ankle twists behind me in searing pain. I manage to stand and climb into my car without alarming anyone—I just wanted to go to work and leave this entire morning behind me—but my mind keeps racing back to Jake and everything sinister I can think about him in a fifteen-minute drive.
I hardly remember driving to Dr. Ross’ office as I pull into a parking spot and take my time turning off the car. Each path I take in my mind when I think about Jake…they all lead to the same exact place, the same thought:
Jake is part of me.
Chapter Three
The boy
I hate the squeaky leather sofa that Dr. Ross makes his patients sit on. It’s hard and plastic feeling underneath me; it’s probably another way for him to annoy the people who come to him for help.
Like me.
I stopped talking in our appointments a few weeks ago when Dr. Ross—a sixty-something man with a gray ponytail and full beard—told me flat out that my dreams and slivers of memories aren’t mine, and I’m creating them to fill a void inside of my soul.
“So, Olivia…” He starts with this same speech every time just as he sits down across from me in his comfy-looking armchair. “Have you been having any more dreams?”
I shake my head and stay silent.
“Are we spending this hour in silence again, then?”
Somehow, I don’t even blink—that would be some form of reaction that I can’t afford.
“Olivia, I can’t help you unless you talk to me.”
“I did talk to you.” I’m fully aware that I’ve broken my code of silence against him just to defend myself. “I told you everything. I told you about the dreams I’ve been having; I told you about the people in my dreams and every detail about them. You said I was making them up inside my head.”
He nods and scratches something on a yellow notepad. “And you still think I’m wrong?”
“I know you’re wrong.”
His pen moves faster. “Can you tell me how you know that?”
“I just know, okay? I don’t care what you say—you’re wrong.”
He holds up his hands and waves me down. “Okay, let’s say that I’m wrong. I’m open to exploring that option if you are. Can you tell me what it is about these dreams that makes you believe so strongly that they’re yours?”
What a stupid question.
“They’re coming from my brain.”
“Yes, but…is that the only reason you think so?”
There hasn’t been a second where I even thought I would open myself up to Dr. Ross again, just to get pushed back down. Still, he’s the only person still willing to listen to me, and I have to take what I can get.
“I know they’re my memories. They feel too real when I wake up for them not to be. Something isn’t right, Dr. Ross, and I have to figure out what it is. Maybe it’s because I can’t remember anything from before the car accident, and it’s my way of filling in the blanks, but I don’t really think so. I can’t explain it, but…there are things that just…feel right.”
He writes quickly on the notepad while I speak. Once I stop, he lays his pen down on the pad, and his narrow blue eyes look up. “Why don’t you close your eyes, lean your head back, and take me through the dream like we would do before?”
I take a deep breath and exhale slowly before leaning my head back on the sofa so I can let the rest of my body relax. Dr. Ross counts backward from ten slowly, and by the time he hits one, my body is slumped on the cushions and I’m nearly snoozing away. This is one of the few places that allows me to relax enough to trust that someone won’t snatch me in my sleep and I’ll wake up without any memories at all.
“Okay, start from the beginning…”
***
Big red and white moving trucks take up the entire circle drive. There are dozens of men running around in brown jumpsuits with the words “Seattle’s Best Moving” on their backs in bold, black letters. One man is ordering them around; he’s pointing and barking at his men.
“Work faster and smarter! Faster and smarter!” His spit launches into the air around him.
I’m off to the side, where I’ve found a spot near one of the trucks in the grass to play with my dolls. Their names are Eliza and Mary, and I can’t remember when I got them, but I know Santa brought them to me years ago.
It’s warm outside. Unusually wet and warm. Muggy. It’s May, and the spring rains have already started to retreat for the summer heat. Things are strange and fuzzy inside my head—it’s hard to focus.
“There you are!” a woman shrieks behind me before plucking me up from the ground. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you! Where’ve you been?” Her voice sounds funny. She’s not from around here; her accent sounds like Mary Poppins. “Your mother has been ill about you!”
She takes care of me, this woman. I can’t remember her name.
“Come on.” Her strong grip wraps around my tiny wrist. “You’ll get lost in all this ruckus. Are you hungry, dear?”
My stomach rumbles as soon as the woman stops to look down at me. Her eyes are big, round, and golden brown. They make me feel warm and loved despite the stern look on her face. I know she cares about me, but I don’t know who she is.
“Where did you find her?” A tall man bends down in front of me once the lady closes the front door of the enormous brown house behind us. “Where’ve you been, love?”
His accent is the same as hers, only a little rougher. “I don’t know,” I say. I’m not scared or sad; I feel nothing. The man accepts my answer as gold and winks at me, patting my head. His long, spider-like legs stand back upright, and he frowns at the lady still holding my arm. “You’ll do good to keep track of her, won’t you, Miss Claudine?”
Miss Claudine. That’s her name. She’s my nanny. But who is he?
“I will, sir.” She flicks the corners of her mouth up into a smile. “I was taking her in for lunch.”
The man nods and moves to the side, smiling at me as the lady gently pushes me past him. Miss Claudine was the one who told me we were moving here; she’s the one who flew on the plane with me, and she’s the one who gave me candies when I started to cry.
Yet I never hear anyone say my name in these dreams.
Miss Claudine sits me on a chair in the kitchen, then rummages through some boxes to produce a clean plate and utensils. “These will have to do for now.”
“Can we order a pizza?”
Her peachy cheeks brighten. “I think that would be just fine for today.”
Our moment is broken by the sounds of children screaming and playing outside. I race into the living roo
m to find the source from the open windows. Dozens of children, big and small, run wild around the yard of the big blue house across the street. Kids zip around each other, tossing footballs and throwing water balloons.
“Can we go over there?”
Miss Claudine puckers her lips. “We can’t just go barging into someone’s party, sweetheart.”
“It’s a kid’s birthday party.”
The look she gives me tells me that she’s giving in. “All right, then. Off you go to crash another child’s birthday party, you little social butterfly.” She laughs and follows me from the house and back into the front yard, where fewer movers are flittering around.
My stomach hurts from the nerves of not knowing anyone at the party and getting caught, but I pluck courage from somewhere and wear it proudly as we march across the street and enter the backyard of the party house with our heads held high.
Miss Claudine is able to snag us some birthday cake and grape soda, which makes her feel triumphant and useful. Loud music is playing over dozens of speakers around the extravagantly decorated backyard, and kids are everywhere I look.
“And who is this?” A woman stands next to the table we’ve sat down at to eat. “I don’t believe I’ve met you. Are you in my son’s class?”
Miss Claudine blushes red. “Oh, I’m sorry.” She sticks out her hand for the woman to shake. “My name is Claudine, and we’ve just moved in across the street. We didn’t mean to crash the party.”
“No, please don’t leave. You’re welcome to stay and enjoy the party. Why don’t you run along with the other children and play, dear?”
The two women stare at me, so I leave my half-eaten birthday cake and grape soda on the table and walk away so they can talk in private. The garden paths I find myself on wind around the backyard, and the screams get louder and things start to crash to the ground.
“That’s my piñata!” a boy shrieks.
I push a few bushes aside and see dozens of kids helping themselves to the contents of a broken piñata while the boy who’d just spoken stands with his hands in the air. There’s nothing he can do but watch his birthday fun being stripped from him by a litter of his savage friends. The bushes crinkle beneath my feet, and it catches his attention, but I manage to step back from them in time so he doesn’t see me.
A stone bench sits on the other side of the clearing, so I sit down and bring my knees up to tuck them under my chin while I wait for Miss Claudine to find me again.
“Hey, who are you?” The boy’s voice finds me. “I don’t know you.”
He walks into the clearing and crosses his arms over the chest of his blue t-shirt.
“I’m moving in across the street.”
“Why? What happened to Todd and his family?”
I shrug and look at the ground. “I don’t know who that is. Sorry.”
“Why are you so sad?”
“I’m not sad.”
The boy laughs, and his feet shuffle closer to me. “You look sad.”
“Mind your business.”
“This is my party!” He laughs at me again. “You’re pretty frustrating.”
I hear my dad call my mom that all the time. A warm feeling washes over me, and I know the dream is going to end soon—it happens every time. The boy smiles at me; his white-toothed grin gives me good feelings inside.
“I’m eleven today.”
“Happy Birthday.”
He’s tall for his age but bossy too. When everything around me starts to fade, I bring my eyes up to meet his so I can hold onto him for a little longer. He’s the first person that’s entered my dreams that’s given me this feeling.
“You and I are going to be best friends,” the boy announces with a smirk, shoving his hands into his pockets. “You’ll see.”
“I don’t even know you. How can you know that?”
He sits down on the gravel path in front of me. Miss Claudine calls my name in the distance, but time’s already run out.
“I just know.”
Chapter Four
Pizza, please
Tongue-and-cheek is always the best way to solve a problem.
The cheap, scratchy paper wrinkles in my fingers as I read the words over and over again. I never really believed in fortune cookies and their magic powers like everyone else. The thought of my entire future hanging on the balance of some pre-printed, mass-produced stale vanilla cookie is laughable.
Then again, I’d believe just about anything right now.
“What’s yours say?” Brant, who’s on duty in the weightlifting rooms today, hovers over me and snatches the paper from my fingers. “Oh, man. You know you’re supposed to put the words ‘in bed’ after each fortune, right?”
I shake my head and reach up to re-do the messy bun that holds my tangled mess of thick hair in place. I don’t care what he’s talking about. I just want to eat my lunch in peace and obsess about what I don’t know about my past and why Caitlyn hates Jake so much. I don’t care what anyone says; I know I’m right about this.
“No, I didn’t know that,” I dryly say, but he doesn’t catch my hint and go away.
“Yeah, so it’s ‘Tongue-and-cheek is always the best way to solve a problem…in bed.’” His smile matches his mental age, and I want to vomit. I can’t break free and run, though—he’s in my area, and I can’t leave the front desk. “Get it?” Brant snorts, and I can’t help but crack a smile at his stupidity. I actually like him a little—in a platonic way. He’s fresh out of high school, eighteen and bright-eyed, something I’m definitely not. I can never tell if he’s flirting with me or he’s just plain clueless, but either way I’m in no way interested.
“Go away, Brant.” I pretend I’m annoyed. “You’re immature.”
He winks at me and smacks the desk before turning to walk away, his tanned muscles bulging from the ripped tank top he wears. “Yeah, but that’s why you love me, Liv.” He pockets my fortune and waves at me but doesn’t look back. I have a few hours to kill before I can go home, and my lemon chicken is cold and rubbery, so I toss the takeout container and open up a new browser on the desktop computer. Googling my name, my parents’ names, and Caitlyn’s name turns up absolutely nothing. It’s almost like none of us even exist.
“So much for that idea.” My whisper turns the air bitter.
I barely notice that I’m five minutes late shutting the front desk down when Brant’s exhausted voice wafts down the hall. “Hey, get your head out of the clouds. It’s after seven already.” He yells so I’ll shut off the lights in the weight rooms and he can go home, too. I rush through everything and grab my stuff; he waits for me as I lock the door behind us. We start walking toward my car, like we always do when he closes with me.
“Oh, hey, man. We’re actually closed now, but we open at nine tomorrow, okay? You can come back then if you want to work out.”
A weird feeling pushes through my body when I reach into my bag to fish around for my car keys.
“Yo, man, I said we’re closed,” Brant says, his voice getting louder. “Did you hear me? You need to stay back.” I stiffen and fumble faster for my keys, though I can’t tell what direction this mystery person is coming from. “Hey, look, don’t come any closer, man…I’m warning you.”
The fear in Brant’s voice is finally enough for me to stop digging through my bag and look at the person he’s talking to.
I gasp loudly and blush the hardest I ever have in my entire life.
Jake.
Jake is here.
Jake is here at my job.
He. Looks. Pissed.
I feel his disappointment from the few feet away we are from each other. Clutching my chest, I tap Brant on the shoulder and laugh nervously. “It’s okay. He’s here for me.” Both of their sets of eyebrows rise in intrigue, and I realize what I just said. “No…” I shake my head, and my hair falls from the bun for the millionth time tonight. “I mean, I know him, he’s okay. You can go ahead and go home, Brant.”
�
��But—”
Jake clenches his jaw and glares at the poor kid. “She said to leave.”
Brant isn’t sure, but he eventually gets scared enough of Jake to bow out and practically run to his car across the lot. I shake my head at Jake and scowl; his temper is ridiculously out of control and seriously embarrassing to witness. “You don’t have to be such a jerk. You do know that, right?”
“You were supposed to have dinner with me tonight.” His voice is cool, and I can see the lost look on his face as he steps into the dimly lit space in front of me. “You should’ve told me you had to work. I would’ve waited and picked you up.”
“Well, I drove myself, so that would’ve been pretty hard.” I wink sarcastically and brush my body past his, touching his arm with my shoulder on purpose. “Thanks for running my bodyguard off; have a good night.”
It isn’t a surprise that his long legs catch up with mine in just a few strides, but then he turns me around and gently pushes me against the side of my blue, hand-me-down station wagon. I can feel his breath on my lips and they tingle; sparks of electricity run up and down each lip until he starts tugging at the ends of my hair and twisting them in his thick fingers.
“What am I gonna do with you, Olivia?” His whisper is rough and dirty. “You just keep trying to run from me, and I don’t intend to let anyone keep you from me again.”
I can’t breathe. My throat is dry as he clutches the sides of my hips and holds me in place, exactly where he wants me to be. What does he mean by someone keeping me from him…again?
“You know, some guys do know when no means no.” I breathe slowly. His eyes are hooded and on fire. “You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t want someone who slept with my sister, and trust me, that doesn’t leave very many men left in a close radius.”
Jake’s full lips turn up into a smile. He’s so damn close to me I can almost taste him.
Cinnamon and whiskey.
I let myself breathe him in, and the world melts into dark colors around me. “I never slept with Caitlyn…or wanted to, for that matter. I like my women feisty, disease-free, and strikingly beautiful.”
