by Jaime Reed
I nodded in agreement, and glanced down at the manuscript on my bed.
She followed my gaze. “Is that his book?” she asked.
Her question took me by surprise. “How did you know?”
“He told me. He was going to give up on it, but I told him to keep going. I think he needed to get it all out of his system. You know, put the old Ellia to rest.”
“You think it worked?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“That seems to be the answer of the day.”
“The answer to life,” she said.
“Someone needs to tell Kendra that so she can stop wondering,” I joked.
“I’ll send her a text.”
“Speaking of texts.” I sat back on the bed and grabbed my phone from my nightstand. “Cody asked about you.”
Stacey raised her eyebrows. “Really?”
“Yes. You want his number?” I scrolled down my contact list.
For the first time in ages, she seemed to be at a loss for words. “Um, sure. I figured he was more interested in Trish. Wait. If he has amnesia, then how does he even remember me?”
I texted her Cody’s number. “Repetition,” I explained. Stacey furrowed her brow, but I added, “You’ll see,” and I gave her a small smile. Maybe she and Cody would actually get along.
“I really am sorry, El. About Liam,” she said.
“I think I know that, deep down. Anyway, I’m gonna get back to reading.”
“Okay.” She moved to the door and opened it. “It’s a good read, isn’t it?”
“It’s my third read. I can’t put it down,” I said, flipping to the place I’d dog-eared.
“Well, maybe one day you’ll tell me how the story ends.”
I looked up at her, confused. “Don’t you know?”
“Nope. And neither does Liam.” She blew me a kiss then closed the door behind her.
I continued reading late into the night, laughing and crying, reliving the experience that was once mine all over again. Then I came upon a passage that made me flip back. It was the moment where I told Liam I loved him.
LESS THAN THREE | Page 200
“I love you. I’m telling you now because at exactly 5:28 this morning, I woke up with that awareness and I knew I had to tell you. ’Cause honestly, I never felt … It feels weird and exciting and I’m scared and it’s okay because that’s how people act when facing a phenomenon, like a UFO or Bigfoot. But I can’t capture this on film. I have to tell someone or else it doesn’t exist. And who better to tell than the person it’s about, so … there it is. It’s out there in the ether. Ignore it, reject it, or explore it, but you are now accountable for that reality, too.” She checked her phone again. “It’s now … 8:04 and I still love you. And I don’t think it’s going away.”
* * *
I closed the book then fell back onto my pillows. I turned my head toward the alarm clock—my enemy for so many mornings. It was five thirty in the morning. Of course it was.
Amnesia or not, I was just a girl, fully aware of what was going on, but not knowing how things got that way. But at least the most important question had been answered. My memory wasn’t gone, just hidden. And maybe my feelings for Liam were the same.
Double-checking the phone strapped to my arm, I reset the stopwatch then began the countdown.
Thirty seconds.
I shook my legs loose, rolled my shoulders, and got into position.
Fifteen seconds.
I knelt low—head down, back up, with my fingers planted into the sand.
Ten seconds.
Sweat ran over my nose, itching the skin, but my eyes stayed glued to the marked line spaced exactly four hundred meters away. The runner’s app would automatically track the distance, but I needed a focal point, a tangible goal. In that moment, with dawn closing in on the quiet beach, that thin line was my world, my life’s purpose.
The timer beeped and I pushed off the ground, sending wet clumps of sand flying in the air. Swinging arms propelled me forward, fighting traction and the reinforcement weights on my ankles. Every muscle in my body screamed in collaboration with the rock blasting from my earbuds. The bass line became a second heartbeat.
The clock stopped at the same time I crossed the crude finish line: 58.8 seconds. And that included the sand resistance and ankle weights. Good, but not great. I needed to shave off three seconds from my sprint time to make it to the state competition. If I could reach that goal on sand, I’d be a flying ghost on the asphalt. I saved the time and then restarted the stopwatch for the fourth drill this morning.
Wade said I was pushing myself too hard, but was that really a surprise? This was how I rolled—always moving, always taking things to the extreme—because that was the only way things got done. There was power in movement. That part of my nature would never change, but at least now I used that energy for something constructive.
I had my mother to thank for my renewed enthusiasm. We’d talked well into the early morning and once the serious stuff was put to rest, we had trouble getting off the phone. There were apologies all around and crying from both ends and I felt cautiously optimistic when we hung up. One phone call wouldn’t erase the hurt and distance between us, but I had a better understanding of her. A little.
As much as I hated when people used the line, “It’s not you, it’s me,” the phrase fit in her case. I was never the problem, and that truth was just now sinking in. That fear had saddled me down for so long that I’d forgotten it was there. The second that burden lifted, I went flying and hadn’t touched the ground since.
When I reached the starting line again, I noticed someone jogging along the water’s edge. I’d know that clumsy gait anywhere, and I froze.
It had been a week since I received her voice mail, which was the full extent of our contact. How funny was that? I saw her less now without the restrictions than I did with them.
It would appear that Ellia decided to take matters into her own hands. Typical. But I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t happy to see her.
She could pass for an active runner in black leggings and a running jacket, but I knew this was a one-time event. Memory loss or not, there were elements of a person’s internal makeup that never went away.
Ellia slowed her pace and then came to a full stop a yard away.
“Ellia,” I said and pulled the buds out of my ears.
“Liam,” she gasped and clutched her side.
“What are you doing out here so early?”
“I knew you’d be here. You’re always here. You’re kinda predictable that way.” Her words came out in short bursts as she tried to catch her breath. “I read your book. It’s good. You’re talented. It’s a little rusty, but it’s definitely there.”
“Thanks,” I said, and I meant it. No matter who read my work, be it a teacher or someone else, only Ellia’s final verdict would make it fact.
She bent forward and rested her hands on her knees. “Ever think about getting it published?”
I shook my head. “No way. It’s private. No one else will ever see it.”
She smiled. “Good answer.”
The writer in me wanted to know more: what she liked, what she didn’t like, her favorite chapter. But I pushed my ego aside to get to the most important question. “Did it help you?”
“Yeah. It answered a lot of my questions. And I learned a lot of truths about myself.”
“Me too, believe it or not,” I said.
Just the night before, I’d stayed up late reading the story again. And I began to see my relationship with Ellia in a clearer light. Our relationship hadn’t been perfect. We had been happy, but there’d been problems all along. It wasn’t something I’d been able to understand while living it in the moment. But when read in sequence, the flaws and dysfunction were glaringly obvious.
“That’s good to know. I hear that writing is therapeutic,” Ellia said. She got quiet for a minute and just stared at the sand between her parted
feet. She waited until her breathing slowed before speaking again.
“I know you blame yourself for the accident. I read the pain on paper, but I’m gonna need you to not do that anymore. I was out there with you that morning. You didn’t drag me from my house and force me on the beach. I did that and I ran too close to the edge and fell. That’s on me. It’s done now.”
I exhaled slowly and could almost feel the poison draining out of my system. Just like with Mom, I’d heard this line of reasoning before, but it was a whole other situation, a whole other world, when it came from the person directly involved.
Getting a bit choked up, I cleared my throat then said, “All the same, I really am sorry for what happened.”
“Yeah, there’s a lot of that going around. So how have you been?” she asked.
“Better, kind of,” I said, kicking at the sand. “I called my mom last week.”
“Oh, that’s great!” She smiled. “Did you guys work things out? How did that go?”
I remembered how I’d told Mom about Ellia and her condition. Then Mom brought up a disturbing parallel that left me reeling.
“This Ellia girl sounds a lot like me at her age,” she’d said. “Disobeying her parents, running wild just because, and having big ideas with no follow-through. Your father loved that about me. Next thing I know, I wake up one day in my thirties, wondering ‘who am I?’ In a way, it was like amnesia of my identity, and it’s taken me years to get to know the real Diane. At least you and Ellia have time to figure it out. The words I love you are worthless when you don’t know who the I is in that statement.”
It was an eye-opener to say the least, and one day I just might share that discovery with Ellia. Today wasn’t that day. “It went okay,” I said.
“Good.” Her nod continued well into the silence that followed. Her hands fidgeted inside the pockets of her jacket and her feet spread out the sand between us.
I’d suddenly run out of words and kept busy by stretching—first the left arm and then the right. The tension between us was gelatin thick.
Suddenly, Ellia perked up. “Oh! I got an email from Wade. He asked me to tell Cody he was sorry for what he did at the concert, but Cody can’t remember that part and he deliberately chose not to jot it down, so it’s best to leave it forgotten, right?”
“Right,” I mumbled. Cody’s condition was serious, and I knew I shouldn’t laugh at something like that, but it slipped out in a loud spit of air. “I kinda envy that ability.”
“Don’t. Trust me,” she assured with the wide-eyed conviction of a person who’d seen way too much. “Good, bad, or ugly, knowledge is far too precious to let slip out of your hands.”
I nodded. I didn’t know what else to say. Finally I settled on, “Well, this has been nice and I’m glad you’re doing better, but I need to practice.”
Before I turned to leave, she stepped forward. “I was wondering if we could talk.”
“About what?”
“Your bad attitude, for one thing,” she said.
I stopped and glanced at her from over my shoulder. “Now why would I have an attitude?”
Her eyes lowered to the sand and her feet did that windshield-wiper sweep again. “You’re right. You have every reason to be mad, and I’m sorry for hurting you. I can’t even find an excuse for it that doesn’t sound stupid or selfish.”
“That’s because there isn’t one,” I answered.
“There isn’t one for you kissing my best friend, either, but I’m not getting all up in my feelings about it.” The reply was pure attitude laced with arsenic. “We’re both to blame, so get over yourself. You weren’t exactly the best boyfriend, either.”
Oh, this I had to hear. I crossed my arms and waited.
“I’ve been thinking about a whole lot of things,” she said. “At first, I thought you dated me to get back at your parents. But now I think you went out with me to forget your parents. I was a distraction, something to take your mind off your real problems, your real emptiness, and you wanted me to fill that void. For you, I was an escape, an epiphany that would change your outlook on life and help you take risks and spit on the status quo. It’s okay, because I think I was using you for the same reason.”
If she was trying to pick a fight with me, it worked. “Okay, fine,” I snapped. “Maybe I didn’t try hard enough to get through to you. Maybe I got high off the nonstop thrill ride that was Ellia Dawson. Those legends in school are all people know you for because you rarely showed another side of yourself. If you had, people wouldn’t have to speculate on who you are! You were unavailable in every sense of the word.”
That shut her up. A remarkable feat, all things considered. I usually had to kiss her quiet whenever we fought, but this would work just fine for the point I needed to make.
“You’re right,” I admitted. “In the beginning, I did use you to escape my own problems. But eventually I got to see every selfish, petty, bossy, passive-aggressive flaw you had. And I loved you. I loved everything about you that mattered. Whatever you were sad about. Whatever you were afraid to tell me. Whatever thoughts that kept you awake. Believe whatever you want, but you need to know that that part was real and it hasn’t changed. Love is seeing someone at their worst and sticking around anyway. That’s what I’ve been doing all this time.” I paused and took a breath. “I might wear glasses, but I’m not the only one with vision problems around here, El.”
“I call that a read,” she said with a wry smile, but then she grew serious. “Look. I like you. I like you a lot. I’m just starting to get to know you, though. What we had? Those two people don’t exist anymore. Even if I get my memories back one day, that crazy Ellia isn’t coming back. Quiet as it’s kept, it was a blessing in disguise. I got past my own drama and hurt to see other people.”
I nodded and shuffled my feet. I had to let go of the old Ellia. And it was an interesting idea, to think of this as a fresh start.
“Friendship is where real love starts,” Ellia went on. “It’s one thing to love someone, but the question is: Do you like them? As a person? Do you care enough to not be selfish?”
Rolling waves and squawking seagulls filled the air while I gave the question serious thought. The whole situation felt like a backward marriage proposal. My answer didn’t help in that regard. “I do.”
She grinned. “Okay. So … ” She traced her toe in the sand. “What do we do now?”
I took a long moment to study her face. “Now … I guess we work on being friends. And we see what happens from there. Deal?”
“Deal.” Ellia took a step back and lingered for a moment, unsure whether to go or to stay.
I realized that she was waiting for me to decide for her. I didn’t want her to go.
“I was going to watch the sun come up. You want to join me?”
She smiled. “Sure.”
We sat on the sand and watched the water grow lighter as the sun rose. She scooted closer to me and laid her head on my shoulder and I wrapped my arm around her back. Silence fell again, but this time around it suited us just fine. We made no plans, no promises, and had no expectation of what would happen next. The urgency that had been prevalent throughout our entire relationship was gone and the what-ifs weren’t dire enough to ruin a perfectly good morning.
Sunlight and pink clouds rolled across the sky, putting a long night of stargazing to an end. The pushing, the rebelling, the fighting, the hiding, the running: It all had to go. The only thing I hung on to now was her soft hand. It was the start of a new day—a new chapter in the story of me and Ellia.
Hopefully this one would have a better ending.
JAIME REED is the author of The Cambion Chronicles series. She studied art at Virginia Commonwealth University. She now lives in Virginia, where she works part time as a line producer for a small independent film company. But mostly she watches 80s movies and writes. You can visit her online at at www.jaimereedbooks.com.
Copyright © 2016 by Jaime Reed
A
ll rights reserved. Published by Point, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, POINT, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Reed, Jaime, author.
Keep me in mind / Jaime Reed.—First edition.
pages cm
Summary: Sixteen-year-old Ellia Dawson wakes up in the hospital with retrograde amnesia, unable to remember Liam McPherson, the boyfriend who insists that they are in love—Liam is devastated, and, desperate to reawaken her memories, begins to write the story of their relationship, convinced that it will somehow recreate their relationship.
ISBN 978-0-545-88381-8 (jacketed hardcover) 1. Amnesia—Juvenile fiction. 2. Memory—Juvenile fiction. 3. Falls (Accidents)—Juvenile fiction. 4. Interpersonal relations—Juvenile fiction. [1. Amnesia—Fiction. 2. Memory—Fiction. 3. Love—Fiction. 4. Interpersonal relations— Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.R252314Ke 2016
813.6—dc23
[Fic]
2015031159
First edition, May 2016
Jacket Image © 2016 by Michael Frost
Jacket Design by Elizabeth B. Parisi
e-ISBN 978-0-545-88383-2
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
