The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  They were high school sweethearts. Or maybe they’d met in college, both of them working off their student loan debt in some dive bar that was famous for their margaritas. But they didn’t drink. Well, maybe my mom had a glass of wine on Sundays but that was it. And maybe my dad sipped on a beer during a game. Maybe he’d even let me sneak a taste once when my mom wasn’t looking. I’d wrinkled my nose, spit it out. He was glad.

  He coached my youth football team. My mom brought snacks. She showed up still in her slacks and blazer, high heels biting into the grass. She was project manager for some environmental firm. Or maybe she was an artist, old jeans covered in dried paint, a few drips at the edge of her hairline. My dad would clean it off with his thumbnail and then he’d kiss her. He’d kiss her and she’d kiss him back.

  I was an only child, spoiled rotten. I had grandparents who came over on Saturday mornings and maybe I had cousins like Dani. Maybe they lived down the street and we ran barefoot down the sidewalk, a pack of adorable heathens with our late great grandmother’s thick eyebrows. She was an immigrant. From Italy. Maybe Spain. I stared down at my arms. They were dark, even my palms were a light russet color, the pigment hiding in my DNA and not from spending every summer day out in the sun.

  Who are you?

  I waited for the answer to finally hit me, for all of the daydreaming to weave itself into something real. I tried not to hold my breath but my lungs were tired of the silence, every inch of me tired of feeling empty. But the quiet lingered. My memory still lost. So I turned to the next page in Bryn’s diary, sifting through her past while trying to snuff out the ache for my own.

  13

  Bryn

  I hated hospital gowns. The strings cutting into my shoulders, the incessant draft, the self-imposed shame of wearing a giant baby blanket complete with ducks in sailor’s hats all because, technically, I was only seventeen and therefore still belonged in the children’s ward.

  My mom was downstairs looking for something to eat, no doubt trying to decide between the hamburgers that tasted like greasy cardboard and the chicken strips that tasted like greasy cardboard. She’d go with the chicken.

  We’d developed a routine a long time ago. Turn the TV to some awful reality show, open the curtains, and pretend we were on vacation instead of in the hospital. In fact the word hospital was not even allowed to be uttered in the midst of our little game. Instead, we’d say resort or timeshare or hotel or we’d skirt around the specifics of the location altogether and just not say anything at all.

  I usually preferred the silence, although it never lasted long. My mom would always start rambling about something and it didn’t take long for me to absorb her nerves and do the same. I hated being tethered to her like that but it had always been that way, two mirror reflections on the opposite end of the emotional spectrum, her fear sneaking up on me when I was trying my hardest not to let it. Because I was her daughter.

  And that day as I lay in that hospital bed, trying to bury the hope and the anxiety and all of the other things pricking at my skin, I just couldn’t bury the fear. So I was afraid. Because I was sick. Because I was Elena Reyes’ daughter. And as she slipped back into the room clutching a greasy bag of hospital take-out she looked scared too.

  Dr. Sabine finally came in, eyes scanning a clipboard. She was flanked on either side by two strange men in identical lab coats. The older one stepped forward, one hand steady against his cane while reaching out to my mom with the other.

  “Ms. Reyes, this is Dr. Banz and his associate Gregor Vogle,” Dr. Sabine said. “They’re two of the specialists behind this latest drug trial.”

  “Good morning. It’s nice to meet you both,” Dr. Banz said. His voice was thick and muddled. Definitely German. He stopped, scrubbed his glasses, and then he smiled at me. “Good day today, Miss…”

  “Bryn,” his associate offered. He was younger, maybe early-fifties, his coat buttoned and his hands stiff at his sides.

  I felt someone stick me with the IV, the liquid running hot in my veins.

  “Bryn,” Dr. Banz continued. “Yes. Very exciting day.”

  I managed to croak out a, “Hello.”

  “It’s so great to finally meet you, and under these circumstances…”

  I wasn’t sure what circumstances he was talking about but I tried to smile anyway, to absorb his sentiment somehow even though my eyes were already fighting to stay open. He said something I couldn’t make out, patted my foot. I tried not to look at his associate who’d retreated to the corner, though his eyes were still trained on my face. His own looked pained and it made me feel cold.

  Dr. Sabine stepped forward again, reiterating everything we’d been over the weekend before. The treatment’s experimental. Results are subjective. Might induce an episode. Blah blah blah. This might sting a little.

  They finally left the room and my mom settled in a chair by my bed. She looked tired and it made me tired. So tired. I heard her say my name. She looked at me, stars cutting across her face, her features bleeding into static, and then I felt the light pull of the breeze as it rippled off the ocean.

  I saw his silhouette through the window and I felt a surge in my pulse. Still here. I stood there, watching him, waiting for some false move that didn’t feel intrinsically human. If he was born from my own psyche, wouldn’t there be holes? Cracks in the design? Subtle fallacies you’d never notice unless you were looking?

  But I was looking. I was looking right at him and there was nothing—not yet—and he seemed so perfectly human.

  I opened the door and I saw him slip something between the couch cushions. He froze and for a while neither of us moved, both waiting for the other to disappear.

  “What was that?” I finally said.

  “You’re back.” He stood. “That was…How long were you gone?”

  I reached under the couch cushion, pulling out the diary.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have…”

  I sat down, my thumb marking the page he’d been reading. I heard the window slide free. He was still in his uniform and he smelled like mints and sweat.

  “Really? You couldn’t find anything more interesting to read?”

  I slammed it closed and put it back on the shelf, facing the wall until the heat left my cheeks. He just kept standing there, watching my every move. In the quiet I heard the low whirr of the record player.

  “So…” I turned around, slow, desperate to change the subject. “What were you listening to?”

  He exhaled, probably grateful. “I’m not sure. It was already on there.”

  I glanced back at him. “Did you like it?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  I crawled to the bottom shelf, thumbing through a few of my grandfather’s records before settling on one of my own. I slipped it from the sleeve and placed it on the table, watching his face as I lowered the needle.

  “What about this?” I asked.

  Robert Smith’s voice cut through the small speaker, an LP of The Head On the Door spinning under the needle.

  “This is good?” He pursed his lips, listening.

  I nodded. “Just let it simmer for a little bit.”

  In Between Days faded into the next track and I could feel him watching me again. I let my hair fall in front of my face, desperate to cut the quiet.

  “I’m in the hospital,” I said.

  His eyes snapped to my face. “Did something happen?”

  “No, I’m undergoing an experimental treatment. They’re trying to find a way for me to manage it.”

  “Your Klein…”

  “Klein-Levin syndrome. KLS for short.”

  “Did it work?”

  I looked down at my hands, my legs curled under me, then back at him. “Not exactly.” I shrugged. “But eventually. Maybe.”

  “How long were you gone?” he asked. “I feel like I just saw you this morning.”

  “Two weeks.”

  He narrowed his eyes at the
floor. “So it doesn’t stop.”

  “What doesn’t?” I asked.

  “When you’re gone,” he clarified. “Time doesn’t stop here when you’re gone.”

  I shrugged. “I…guess not.”

  We both grew quiet, just listening to the music.

  “Do you remember anything yet?” I asked. “Your name maybe?”

  He chewed on his bottom lip, staring at his hands. He shook his head. Another song started.

  “Oh, what about this one?” I asked.

  We sat there, letting the song play. I watched his fingers dance along the top of his knee.

  “Maybe…” He shrugged again, defeated.

  I flipped through a few more records, looking for something simple, universal, and freed an old Sinatra album. It started to play and I watched him sink against the couch, head spilling back.

  I was still waiting for some hint of definition, a personality that I couldn’t have created. But he was still so confused, his face pained every time the song changed. I wondered if a little coaxing might help, if he might finally let himself take a deep breath.

  “You like this,” I said.

  “I do?”

  I moved next to him on the couch, watching the way the cushion dimpled around his legs. I thought about finding him tangled in those sunflowers, his cheek giving way under my touch. He’d felt real but so did everything else here.

  I watched his face, his jaw tense, a vein carving a thick line down from his temple. And it was pulsing. I felt myself reaching for him, wanting to feel what was inside him. Wanting proof that he was real and not just some part of my disease.

  I took his hand, the weight startling in my own. But he was wary, flinching. Then I pressed his hand over his chest, my thumb still buried under his palm, waiting for a heartbeat. It was shallow. But it was there.

  “My heartbeat?” he said, staring down at our hands. “At least that’s still there.”

  I nodded, his pulse drumming against my thumb. He found my eyes and I let go.

  “You like this,” I said, trying to maneuver his attention back to the music. “Everyone likes this.”

  “Do you?” he asked.

  I leaned back against the couch, still watching the way the cushions puckered against his back. “Yeah. It’s pretty.” I nodded to the stack of LPs. “You pick one.”

  He grabbed a copy of Blonde on Blonde by Bob Dylan. I bit my lip, waiting as he fit it under the needle. Here was his first test. Dylan was a global institution. People died for his drab acoustic rants and pretentious lyrics. Except me. Dylan’s voice cracked through the old brass speaker and the boy grimaced.

  “This is awful.” He lifted the needle.

  “Tell that to the rest of the world,” I said, not looking at him. Shit. Someone else who thought Bob Dylan sucked? What if I had made him up?

  “People like this?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “People love this.”

  He flipped through a few more records. “Well, at least I’m not average.”

  He loaded a copy of 2112 by Rush. An acquired taste, not necessarily mine. The track started and when the thrum of a bass finally bled through the speakers he smiled.

  I sunk there, just watching him. “No,” I said. “You certainly are not.”

  He gripped his knees, tapping his thumb against his shins. We sat there just listening. Him watching the needle. Me watching him. But even though I’d just felt his heartbeat, I was still afraid. From the way his shoulders bristled, his grip tightening, I could tell he was too. The needle scratched off and it was quiet.

  He looked at me. “Do you think maybe I’m sick too?”

  I picked at the fraying cuff of my jeans. “I don’t know.”

  “But I could be. I mean that’s why you’re here. I could be sick too.”

  “Maybe, but…”

  I didn’t know what to say. KLS could have been the explanation we were looking for but I didn’t want it to be. It was awful and lonely and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I watched him sink against the wall in the corner of my eye.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ve never lost my memory before.”

  “Then maybe it’s not KLS but it could be something else.” He exhaled. “Something worse.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “How else do you explain what I saw today? I’m messed up. I’ve got to be.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “The shadows.” He cracked his knuckles, shaking his head.

  “The shadows?”

  “I was…something was following me but before I could see what it was I blinked and I was back on the porch.” He gripped his pant legs. “Something moved me.”

  “Something.” He looked afraid and I steadied my voice. “Not something. It’s—”

  He cut me off. “Something’s out there.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “What do you mean something?”

  He was quiet for a long time and then, “I think I saw something. No.” He closed his eyes. “I think something saw me.”

  “Like what?”

  He glanced out the window. Condensation stuck to the glass and he traced a circle into the fog, two drips migrating toward the center. “I don’t know.”

  “Nothing lives here,” I tried to reassure him.

  “Except you.”

  “Yeah…”

  “And now me. What if…?” He stopped himself.

  “What if what?”

  “What if there’s something else?”

  I tried to picture what he might have seen but the landscape was constantly shifting, moving like some living thing. Even though it really wasn’t. Even though it was really just trapped like everything else. Including me.

  “Do you think it’s, like, some kind of head trauma?” he asked. “A concussion or some fucking brain tumor?”

  “No. You’re not…” But I stopped. Because I wasn’t sure.

  He reached for another LP, hands shaking as he slipped it out of the sleeve, and then he dropped the needle. We sat there, neither of us saying too much. He played the rest of the LPs in the living room and I could see the anticipation fluxing behind his eyes. He was waiting to remember. His breath hitching at the start of every song, shoulders slumping, deflated, every time he didn’t recognize it.

  He slipped the last record back into the sleeve and set it on the bottom shelf.

  “There’s more,” I said.

  His face lit up and I led him to the closet in the spare bedroom, my mom’s old room. I stood on a small end table to reach the boxes of my mom’s old records and then he carried them back to the couch, blowing off the dust and reading the inside covers. His eyes scanned the song titles but there was not a hint of recognition in them. We listened to The Black Crowes, Johnny Cash, Prince, The Who, and Otis Redding.

  “Oh, leave it here.” I was walking back to the couch clutching a cup of coffee as Love Man started to play.

  I watched him sitting there next to the record player, arms curled around his knees. Stiff, like he was still afraid to disappear.

  I set my cup on the shelf and then I reached for his hand, the weight just as startling as the first time.

  “Oh no,” he said. “That I definitely don’t remember how to do.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  I started to sway, keeping an eye on his face. He was awkward and still stiff, his fingers sweaty. Not at all how I’d expected boys in dreams to be.

  “You’re serious,” he said.

  I grabbed his hand, my thumb slipping down to his wrist and finding his pulse again. But this isn’t a dream.

  “Dead serious,” I said. “An advantage to losing your memory, you get to stop giving a shit.”

  “Is that what you do?”

  I nodded in time with the music. “Pretty much on a daily basis. And seeing as I’m still not sure whether or not you’re just a dream, I’m not going to bother wasting my time trying to impress you.”

  He
smirked and finally gripped my hand, spinning me. I stumbled against the ottoman, landing against his chest.

  He looked down at me. “I thought you don’t dream.”

  I could see the horizon line in his eyes, the sun’s reflection sinking low. The needle spun to the edge of the record, lifting with a crack. It was quiet and I could feel his pulse again, riding there under mine until they were tangled and loud. I let go of him.

  “I don’t.”

  He stood there, looking at me. Then his voice trickled out, low, afraid. “If you find a cure…does that mean that I’ll disappear?” His question hung there in the silence. His eyes trailed down to the floor.

  “No,” I lied. “I don’t know.”

  “What if I can’t find a way back?”

  “You will. I’ll help you.” I took a step toward him, eyes tracing the lines on his shirt. “I’ve been drawing this,” I said. “I’ve been trying to figure out what it is.”

  He gripped the hem of his shirt, holding it out. “Me too. For a while I thought maybe I was some kind of alien.”

  “Crossed my mind. But aliens are usually pretty disgusting looking. Not to mention bald and like four feet tall. Oh, and usually they’re genderless and you, well…you’re obviously a guy.”

  He smiled. “You talk a lot.”

  “A side effect of being my mother’s daughter,” I mumbled.

  “So, you remember this when you leave?” he asked. “When you’re in the real world, I mean.”

  I nodded.

  “So, maybe you could try and figure out what this is. Maybe it’s like code or something. What if I’m from another dimension or a parallel universe? Or what if I’m from the future?”

  “Okay. Slow down. We’ll figure this out.”

  “Okay.”

  “But we need more clues,” I said.

  “We need my memory.”

  “Ideally, yeah, that would probably help,” I said. “But we’ll just have to make do without it.”

  “How?”

  “Well, we know you despise Bob Dylan.”

  He laughed. “And that I can’t dance.”

  “You don’t really like coffee either.”

  “You noticed?” he asked.