Mind Lies

by Harlow Stone

  She squints her eyes at me. “No, babe. You’re hurt. Don’t worry about me,” she replies before fluffing the pillow behind my head to busy herself with something monotonous and un-important. “We’ll get you fixed up in no time. You’re alive. What’s a little memory loss?” she jokes.

  I place my hand on her arm, giving it a little squeeze, stilling her movements so she’ll look at me again. “It’s everything. To you, it’s everything. I’m sorry I don’t remember.”

  Leaning her head onto her arm, she lets out a soft cry. “You’re everything, babe. You’re my best friend.”

  I watch her lips quiver before the man comes and puts his arm around her, offering a safe haven from the shitstorm around her. The shitstorm I’ve created. “I’m Cooper, Portia’s husband,” he says.

  I give a small smile. “The one she burns dinners for, I’m told.”

  He gives a small one back. “The one and only.”

  He doesn’t say it with any sort of contempt, or displeasure. He says it with pride because he’s clearly happy to be standing next to this woman. The brave and strong one who has kept me company, filling the role of best friend. The one he’d happily accept burnt dinners from.

  Portia pulls her head out of his chest. “You heard me?”

  I smile at her and nod. “I did.”

  She smiles. “I’m glad. Maybe once we get you home, things will start to come back.” She shifts nervously before asking. “Is there anything you remember? Anything at all?”

  Grateful she’s given me the chance to bring it up, I say, “Yes, but I don’t know his name. Who am I seeing? Or am I married? I can see him; I have memories of him.” I finish on a smile.

  Cooper and Portia share a look before she sits down in the chair beside my bed. “Jer, you’ve been single for years. Unless you’re thinking of someone you used to be with, I’m not sure who you’re talking about.”

  I avoid eye contact for a moment, wondering if I’m crazy when she asks, “What did he look like?”

  I smile, a little less hopeful this time, and tell her, “Dark hair. Sort of longer in the back. A Celtic tattoo—actually a lot of tattoos, but you can’t see them unless his shirt is off.”

  She’s shaking her head. “That’s not a description of the last guy you dated, Hun. But it could have been someone from before I met you.”

  “How long have we known each other?”

  Her face goes soft. “Ten years.”

  I shake my head at her. “This guy was no teenager, Portia. And I know in my heart that I know him. I remember eating with him, being on a bike with him, being—” I pause, glancing at the room of people before lowering my voice, “being in bed with him. I remember it all. There has to be somebody?”

  She squints, deep in thought. “You could have met someone new when you left for Salem last month.”

  “Sorry, where?” I interrupt.

  She shakes her head. “It’s okay. I guess we have a lot to go over. We live just outside of Boston, Massachusetts. We run a shop together. Mostly furniture. Every so often, you’ll take off for a day or ten to scout out new merchandise for the shop.” She pauses. I nod for her to continue. “So last month you left on one of your jaunts. You said you were heading north. Small towns around Salem and whatnot. We didn’t talk for a few days. And then when I tried, you were missing.”

  Squeezing Cooper’s hand to gather strength, she continues. “After a lot of phone calls, we finally found you in Brockton, which is south of Boston, not north. You’d been brought to the hospital here after a car accident in a small, nearby town. They figured you must have swerved to avoid hitting something because it was the middle of the night, and nobody else was on the road.”

  Leaning back on the pillow, I run everything she told me through my head. I said I was going one place, but I ended up in another. I live near Boston and run a furniture shop. “You said I could have met the guy I remember when I left?”

  “Could have. You left on the third of April; the car accident happened on the seventh. I didn’t find you until the eighteenth.” She cries, “I’m so frigging sorry, Hun.”

  Shaking my head, I reply, “I don’t get it. What do you have to be sorry for?” Cooper answers for her: “We were on our honeymoon, Jer. Normally you guys talk all the time, but we agreed no contact unless there was an emergency. When we got home and found out the shop hadn’t been open since we left, we knew something was wrong. That’s when we started calling the cops and then hospitals.”

  I’m not upset with Portia. I understand, after what Cooper had told me that it’s not her fault. It doesn’t sound as if it’s anyone’s fault. Some shitty circumstances and a lack of communication may be at play, but this is definitely not anyone’s fault. I reach out to take Portia’s hand. “I’m not angry with anyone. The only thing I’m angry about is that I don’t remember much of anything. I just want to get out of here.”

  My hand in hers, she squeezes back. “You just need to rest for a while. Once your scans come back, we’ll figure out when we can take you home. Okay?”

  I nod, not sure if I’m more worried about where home is or the fact that I feel completely alone. Portia’s phone rings. It breaks the moment. She says that it’s Cory. “One of our employees,” she tells me. “He’s been keeping the shop going since we’ve been here. I’m going to go give him an update.”

  I watch as she leaves the room. Cooper takes the seat at my bedside. He glances around the room—half uncomfortable, half curious—before asking me about the man I remember.

  “Can you tell me what else you remember about the man? Perhaps I can help.”

  I nod. “You seem stronger than she is at the moment. I don’t know if she’d tell me anything, but you need to let me know if there’s something she left out. You look quite curious.”

  He gives me a small smile. “Neither your attitude nor your forwardness have changed, Jerri.” I smile back. “Wish I could say I’m glad, but I don’t know who, or what, I am right now.”

  He nods in acceptance. “There’s a lifetime she left out then. And I’m sure over the next days or weeks she’ll have a lot to fill you in on. But for the time being, I think it’s most important that you focus on getting better. Let the rest fall into place.”

  Cooper shifts uncomfortably in his chair, avoiding eye contact when I scowl in his direction.

  “That’s not what I asked,” I begin. “I don’t know you, but obviously I did at some point. I truly hope I’ll remember. But I feel like you’re leaving something out, that same something that I feel like she’s not telling me. Am I dying or something?”

  His heads snaps up. “Jesus no, Jer. It’s not like that.”

  “Then tell me what it’s like if you don’t think she will.”

  Scrubbing his hands down his face, he takes a quick glance over his shoulder before looking back at me. “The guy you’re remembering,” he says. I nod. “Maybe he is real. I don’t know, Jer. But it seems like every time you take off to look for furniture, you come home a different person. Sometimes you’re happy. Sometimes you’re pissed off. If you’re pissed, you say it’s about the lack of good merchandise to be found. But I’ve been around you for a long time, and I think it’s something more than that.”

  I mull over his words. “And Portia? What does she think?”

  “She brought it up a few times. If she gets pissed enough because you’re not telling her something, you take her with you on the next trip.”

  “And am I to assume correctly that when she comes with me nothing is amiss? No strange men or new friends I introduce her to?”

  He nods. “You’d assume right.”

  Chapter Five

  Cooper and Portia went home for the evening, leaving me to a restless night.

  The next morning was not welcome.

  I have more questions than answers. No matter how hard I push to remember the answers, the only thing I receive is a pounding headache in my forgetful brain.

  “That’s i
ncredibly normal for this type of trauma,” the Doctor assured me. Not the same man who was originally in my room when I woke up, but the Doctor who specializes in head trauma and memory loss. Nice woman. Late forties, I would guess. She’s dressed casually in black slacks, a pale-purple blouse, and chunky jewelry.

  “Do people in my position ever remember?” I had asked her.

  She gave me a kind smile. Not a sympathetic one I would have hated, but one that said, I’m here to answer your questions, and there is no such thing as a stupid question.

  “I truly hope you do regain your memory, Jerri. And it is absolutely possible. Why don’t I explain some cases to you? I can tell you that memory loss is different for everyone. It very much is. But I don’t think that’s the answer that you’re looking for.”

  I shake my head. “No, it’s not.”

  Crossing her legs, she moves forward. “I’ll give you some past examples: One of my patient’s brain had swollen so badly that a portion of the skull needed to be removed in order to compensate for the amount of swelling. He’d been in a coma for months and had broken half the bones in his body. And when he opened his eyes to see his wife of two years, he had no idea who she was.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  Nodding, she confirms, “It is. But as soon as that man saw his brother, his parents, and his best friend, he knew who all of them were—just not his wife.”

  I squint at the familiar pull. “I think I’ve heard a similar story to that. It sounds familiar.”

  She smiles, and I can’t help but smile back. “You’re right,” she says. “There is a movie about something similar, but we’re talking a true story, in this case. And in this story, the reason the man didn’t remember his wife was because she was the one he was trying to forget in the first place.”

  I wave her on to continue.

  “He found her cheating on him. So he went on a bender and crashed his car,” she said.

  I nod as it comes together. “So he didn’t remember her because he didn’t want to. Whether he knew it or not.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So, because I remember nothing, really, are you saying maybe I don’t want to remember at all?” I ask. That would be awful, and after meeting Portia and Cooper, two incredibly kind people, I can’t see that being the case.

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying. Let’s go with story number two. Patient was in a work accident. She was a quiet gal who kept to herself. But when she woke up, she knew nothing—not even her name. She didn’t remember a movie, like you may have just remembered. She didn’t have visions or memories of a man, like you do. She had absolutely nothing.

  “Turned out, her life was more traumatic than her head injury. She’d been abused her entire life in ways neither of us want to imagine. There were no signs of permanent damage to her brain, and although we still discover new things about the brain and memory loss every day, I don’t think there was anything physically wrong with her. I think her brain was just filled with so much horror that it wouldn’t let her remember, more or less.” She pauses to take a breath. “I could be wrong; we all mistreat and misdiagnose. But I’ve been doing this for twenty years, and sometimes I think there’s a reason the brain keeps us from remembering.”

  “Do you think that’s what my brain could be doing? Blocking me from remembering something?”

  Folding her notebook, she shrugs. “I don’t know, Jerri. It sounds like the past ten years of your life haven’t been too bad. You have great friends and a sound business. And you’re an attractive thirty-two-year-old single woman. The only thing we don’t know is what happened in your first twenty-two years. Portia said you didn’t talk about them much. I could be wrong, off my rocker, out in left field. But maybe, just maybe, there’s something in there that’s keeping a wall up. I also think it’s too soon for us to make assumptions.”

  She could be right, and I’m no expert. So I’m not about to argue with her. “What should I do?”

  Throwing her Kate Spade bag over her shoulder, she says, “I’d see what you can find out at home. Live in it. Try to make yourself comfortable in the space, and look through whatever you can get your hands on. Your home is what you made it. Start there and see if you can find any clues, something that will spark a memory. Maybe it will come. Maybe it won’t. You have my card. Call me and we’ll go over things again when you get settled.”

  “Thanks, Doc.”

  “No problem, Jerri.”

  * * *

  “Jerri?” the barista shouts from the end of the counter. Locklin squeezes my hip before getting our order as I claim the love seat by the window. It’s a beautiful spring day outside. The sun is shining, trees are in bloom, and the man I am absolutely infatuated with is spending the day with me.

  Bliss.

  “Here, babe.” I eagerly accept my latte and settle in so I can enjoy the view. Not the scenery, not the cafe, but the view beside me. His face is shadowed, giving me little to remember him by. But that’s how dreams go, right? They give you so much and yet nothing at all.

  I see his hair, its usual raven color showing burnt-copper highlights in the sun. I see his jaw. Strong, masculine, with full lips.

  I see his build. Broad shoulders, muscular thighs. Hands resting on them that show signs of use. Small calluses and a few scrapes.

  Working hands.

  His smell. It’s clean and woodsy with notes of leather and spice.

  It smells like home.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” he asks.

  I quirk a brow. “Just a penny?”

  Moving his hand from his thigh to my arm, he traces it lightly with his fingers all the way up until it rests on the back of my neck. Pulling me forward until his lips are touching mine, he tells me, “A monetary value cannot be placed on a woman like yourself. Because you, Lass, are priceless.”

  I whisper back against his lips, “Smooth talker.”

  He grins before pressing his lips firmly to mine. Reaching out with the hand not holding my morning brew, I grab hold of his leather jacket to keep him close. If we weren’t in a public place, I would already be in his lap, and his tongue would have invaded my mouth—perhaps other parts of me as well.

  Breaking the kiss, reluctantly, we settle in to a comfortable silence for a while. He rarely takes his eyes off of me. But when I turn to stare back, his face is blank, blurry, as if a fog keeps me from seeing exactly who he is.

  “How’s the shop doing?” he asks.

  Twining my fingers through his, I tell him, “I’m sure you already know the answer to that, but I’ll humor you by saying it’s doing well.”

  He casually runs his thumb over the palm of my hand, back and forth, back and forth. It’s hypnotic, and I close my eyes to absorb the feel of him beside me; if I can’t see his face, I’ll take the most of his presence and inhale as much of his scent as I can.

  He is truly a beautiful man, both inside and out. Sometimes I think he’s just lost his way. Or maybe he’s stubbornly set in his own way. Locklin is a mystery that you can’t help but want to decode. But regardless of how little time we get to spend together, I do my best to enjoy and savor the moments we have.

  Like this one in the cafe.

  I shift on the sofa, cringing lightly at the soreness between my legs. He smirks at me in a way that says, “You will still be feeling me for days, Jerri girl.”

  One thing: Locklin is not is a selfish lover. He consumes you, owns you, and makes you crave every bit of contact he gifts you. I watch his hands. Strong fingers that are capable of such wonderfully depraved things caress my own.

  “Have you thought anymore about what I asked you?” I ask.

  His thumb stops its movement.

  “You know I can’t,” he firmly replies.

  Frustrated and disappointed, I tell him, “You won’t. You can, but you won’t.”

  Giving my hand a squeeze, he then pulls me up off the love seat and tosses our empty java cups in the trash on his way out of the
café. “I’m not the man you think I am.”

  I shake my head at him. In defeat? In disappointment? I don’t know. “And apparently I’m not the priceless woman you make me out to be.”

  Slamming his hand against a nearby news stand, he shouts, “Dammit, you know I can’t change anything now. I care for you, Lass, deeply. You know I do. But this changes nothing. It can’t.”

  Passing me my helmet, he mounts his motorcycle. After I’ve fastened it, I reluctantly take his hand to get on behind him. The engine revs and rumbles beneath us as he maneuvers the streets on our way out of town. I rest my cheek on his back, tighten my hands around his waist, and pray that my desperate whisper is taken with the wind.

  “Stay.”

  The wind took nothing, because he answer’s back. “I can’t.”

  Chapter Six

  “We already know she can wipe her own ass, Doc. That’s not what we’re asking.”

  I laugh. It’s been a long three days, but they’ve been made shorter by Portia’s antics. How she makes me laugh, I don’t know. But I am incredibly grateful to have had someone like her by my side. She’s arguing with the doctor, in my defense of course, to get me the hell out of here and into the comfort of my own home, since I’m able to wipe my own ass.

  Embarrassment—albeit very little—aside, she has a point. I’ve done some walking, and the swelling in my brain is pretty much non-existent. Other than my useless left arm, everything is functional. Agonizing, but functional.

  There is more blue on my body than skin tone. The seat belt bruising. My bruised, swollen legs from their impact with the dash. Cuts, scrapes, and stitches mark around the blue. Small cuts all over my arms from glass. The stitches in the side of my head from its impact with the window. Lacerations to my neck from a tree branch. Thankfully, it didn’t hit a main artery.

  But I’m alive.

  Apparently, I wrote off my SUV.

  “What we worry about in these situations is basically an overload in the sensory department. You’re still in the fragile faze, Ms. Sloane. And although I can’t necessarily keep you any longer, I hope that if you experience any of the symptoms I mentioned that you will get yourself to a hospital immediately.”