Inching forward, watching the stage, watching him watch her.
And for the whole last act, I can’t breathe.
Because he’s holding his breath.
AFTER
January
I can’t breathe.
Are you following me?
Zach’s—the real Zach’s—words hang in the air between us.
“No. Yes. Maybe.” My words tangle together.
“I was pretty sure it was you yesterday,” Zach says, arms folded over his chest. Oh crap. They did see me. “And I was definitely sure today.”
“I’m sorry. I just need to talk to you.”
He nods, but he’s frowning, staring at me. “So you remember me?” His words are laced with bitterness, his posture still rigid.
“I don’t,” I admit. “It’s kind of a long story. Can we talk?”
He doesn’t answer right away, just holds my gaze, and then his expression softens the slightest bit. “I might be able to take a break now. Let me ask Mrs. Gupta.”
I watch him disappear into the kitchen, already peeling off his apron. I think about running away, think about leaving before I open another can of worms, one I might not be able to close again. One I apparently couldn’t live with.
Zach comes back and I follow him out of the restaurant. It’s chilly despite the sunlight that’s making us both squint. I breathe in and face him, and I want desperately to know everything. To start fresh. I feel like we should introduce ourselves.
“Hi,” I say at last. You’re real. We’re having a conversation. I smile at him and he hesitates but finally, finally smiles back. This time, his teeth show. And his smile is bright. And it is beautiful, but still reserved, stiff. Memory Zach smiles at me with his whole face. He fidgets less than the real-life boy in front of me. I almost wish I was telling my Zach about this, explaining how it went and watching his reaction, rather than living this moment. I know he’d laugh at the part where I ended up stuffing my face with Indian food instead of confronting Zach.
“Where do you want to go?” Zach asks. “My car’s still a piece of shit, but it’s probably warm.” Still. He’s watching me, wondering whether I get the reference, whether I remember ever being in it.
When he first got on the bus, Memory Zach said his piece-of-shit car wouldn’t start.
My ears ache from the cold. “Sure.”
Zach unlocks his car and we slide in.
I glance around. It’s a mess, full of film magazines and old bottles and DVDs. A koala dangles from the rearview mirror. I want so desperately for something to be familiar. The smell, the warmth, anything.
“What are you doing here?” Zach asks, and behind the defensiveness, I hear the genuine curiosity in his voice. I think his eyes look a little bit sad. “Katy told me you had gotten the procedure done.”
“Katy told you? She said no one else knew.” Did she think I’d be angry that she told Zach?
“I guess she felt she had to tell me to keep me from bothering you. She told me what you’d done, that you would never remember…”
“Us,” I offer, and he nods. “I don’t. But I found out about the”—I swallow—“memory splicing.”
“I didn’t know about it at first. You didn’t even tell me when…” He shakes his head, and the hurt in his voice is palpable. “You just did it without saying anything. Like everything that happened between us didn’t matter.” He runs his hand through his hair. “I still don’t understand.”
That’s why he’s been so cold to me. For erasing him.
I suddenly feel ashamed. Because he cared about me. It’s obvious that he did. So why would I do it?
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He shrugs. “Katy said you wanted me to stay away from you, that I needed to act like we didn’t know each other if I ever saw you. I tried calling you anyway, and I even came to see you at school, but Katy threatened to beat my ass if I didn’t leave you alone.
“She said this was your way of trying to let go, and that I didn’t have to like it, but I had to respect it. So Raj—he’s the only person I told—and I weren’t sure what to make of it when you suddenly started following us.” Most of his anger seems to have dissolved now, to have been replaced by hurt. “And it’s one thing if we’d run into you, but I don’t understand what kind of sick game you’re playing. Is Katy behind it? I know she’s not my biggest fan. You’re coming into Mrs. Gupta’s restaurant, and to my school, just to what? Show me I still mean nothing to you? That I never will again?”
It feels like he’s pushing pins into my chest. “That’s not why I came. I would never do that.”
“Well,” Zach says, and runs his hand over his head like he’s expecting for there to be more hair. “I’ve seen you a bunch of times since…we broke up.” He glances at me. I stare back. “And since the procedure. Usually you don’t even look at me.”
“At all?” I ask, a little incredulous. Because even if I didn’t know Zach, surely I would still notice him. That smile, those eyes. I guess maybe with the shorter hair, but…“I feel like I’d still notice.”
His cheeks get a little pinker and he laughs. “Thanks, but no. It’s been”—he searches for the right expression—“kind of a mindfuck. And now you’re…here.”
“I was in an accident almost three weeks ago,” I say. “On a bus from Raddick.”
“Oh my God,” Zach says, his eyes widening. “I heard about that. Are you okay?” I see his hands twitch like he’s tempted to reach out, but they stay put on his lap. And all his concern remains on his face.
“I’m fine,” I say. But then I tell him what happened after. About the boy on the bus who’s more than a boy on the bus now—who’s him—and his face goes ashen.
“That is a mindfuck,” he remarks.
I tell him about the brother I never knew I had, about how figuring out that the apparition I was seeing was a memory led me here.
“Sorry about stalking you,” I finish.
“Yeah, likewise,” Zach says, looking spooked, and we both laugh awkwardly. He seems—looks—older than the Zach I’ve been seeing, and I feel a twinge of sadness, realizing I know neither of those Zachs. It’s funny how the way I remember him is both different from and completely the same as the real him.
“All anyone keeps saying is that I was”—I pause—“like, depressed after whatever happened with us.”
Zach looks at his hands. “Yeah, I heard. I mean, Katy sent me some pretty strongly worded death threats.”
I give him a smile, but it is a small one.
“The whole thing was…I mean, I got why you did it, why you hated me. But even if things were reversed, I would never want to forget you.” His voice is deep with hurt, but insistent, like he’s wanted a chance to tell me this for a long time. “I still can’t believe you went through with it. It just seemed like such a cowardly thing to do. And I’d always thought of you as brave.”
My face is burning now with embarrassment, with anger at myself. Having no memory, no context, I can’t defend myself.
I am a coward.
Was.
Am?
“What happened?” I press after a moment. “Why did I do it?”
Zach’s expression is wary as he appraises me. “I don’t know if…I mean, I’m probably not supposed to tell you. And I’m not sure I want to.” His face is a deep red now.
“Zach,” I say, feeling a surge of anger rising up in me. I’m sick of people keeping things from me, lying to me—myself included.
“Did something happen?” I ask him.
“Um, yeah?” he says, like he’s not entirely sure what I’m asking.
“Was I there?”
“I…yeah, of course you were.”
“Then you don’t get to be angry with me without telling me why, without letting me understand. Tell me everything. Please.”
BEFORE
Late November
“Do you like the idea or not?” I ask Katy the day after sitting through
Lindsay’s Thanksgiving production.
“Yes, yes, I love it. I bow to you. The only conceivable way you could be a better girlfriend would be if you cloned another version of yourself and both of you banged Zach at the same—”
“Ugh, okay. Stop!” I say. “Help me carry this thing.”
“That looks like one heavy-ass overhead projector,” Katy says, blowing on her newly manicured nails—short, though, so they don’t affect her playing—as she steps around me. “I’ll bring the popcorn.”
I sigh and carry the projector by myself all the way to the front door of Zach’s house. I set it down on the ground and go back for the nine DVDs I picked up at his father’s store this afternoon, then shut the door of Katy’s car. I enlisted her help to set up, Mrs. Dubois’s to borrow the projector that sits in the corner of the music room but nobody ever uses, and Zach’s family’s to use the basement. Kevin has even put sheets over the furniture, just like the old days. All I have to do is set up the projector, and Zach’s perfect night will be a go.
I am doing it partly because, between play rehearsals and performances, I’ve hardly seen him the past week and a half. It feels longer than that, since we’ve both been busy the past month with the things we always seem to be busy with that aren’t each other. I am also doing it because of my promise to unstick him.
“Eww,” Katy crows when I tell her this.
“Get your head out of the gutter,” I laugh. “I mean inspire, motivate, encourage.”
“Whatever,” Katy says, slurping on the milk shake she insisted we get from Shake Attack on our way here. (I’d snorted when she said, “That’s what you get for making me drive. And though all signs point to my being spectacularly lactose intolerant, I need sustenance for all the heavy lifting we’ll be doing.”)
It turns out the only person doing heavy lifting is me.
I pull down all the Ciano posters from Zach’s room—twelve—and with them line the walls of the basement.
Katy waits with me for Zach to arrive. The performance is supposed to finish at eight, with the cast party going till nine, but Zach told me in his last text that he’s exhausted and doesn’t plan to stay more than a few minutes or he’d have taken me.
“So, Katherine,” Kevin says, sitting on the couch next to Katy. “If I were to pick up a musical instrument, what would you recommend?”
Katy shoots me a skeptical look. “Um, I don’t know. What kind of music do you like?”
“All kinds,” Kevin says, wriggling his eyebrows. “And personally, I think I’d be fantastic at the harmonica.”
“Kevin,” I say in that warning voice I’ve heard everyone use so often with him, even though I’m not a hundred percent sure where he’s going with this.
“Or should I say,” Kevin continues, “the mouth organ.” He makes loud kissing sounds, then throws his head back and releases riotous laughter, slapping the arm of the couch.
“My God,” Katy whispers to me. “How old is this kid?”
“I’m fifteen literally in two weeks,” Kevin supplies. “Old enough to date.”
“Good Lord,” Katy says with disgust, and I laugh. I would tell her she’s finally met her match, but then Kevin would probably take that the wrong way, and the last thing I want is to encourage his out-of-control flirting.
“Where is your boyfriend?” Katy asks after a minute. “There is a world of post-pubescent boys waiting for me.”
I check my phone again. Still no message from Zach. I’ve sent him a couple of texts, but I don’t want to send too many or he’ll suspect something is up.
“It’s eight-thirty,” I say. “He’s probably on his way as we speak.”
“Hey, Raj left his Dungeon World 2 here. Do you wanna play?” Kevin asks all of a sudden.
“What’s that a euphemism for?” Katy asks me.
“I don’t think anything.”
“Fine,” Katy says to Kevin. “But I don’t actually know how to play.”
“I’m more than happy to show you, babe,” Kevin says, and proceeds to explain the game quite patiently. The three of us take turns playing for about half an hour, and then we are all bored again.
“Where is he?” I say out loud, and send him another text asking just that. Five minutes and zero responses later, Kevin pulls out a tray of face paint he got recently and convinces Katy it will be hilarious for her to jump out at Zach looking like a zombie when he arrives.
So we sit mixing colors, Kevin relishing the opportunity to touch Katy’s pimple-free face, for about another half hour.
And then it is nine-thirty and Katy is stretching and saying, “I love you, Sullivan, but Gilbert has to go. I don’t know what convinced me in the first place that it would be cute to watch you two suck face when he sees your surprise, anyway. And you know that is what all this is an excuse for.”
I scoff. “As if I need an excuse to suck face with my own boyfriend.”
“Ew,” Kevin says, sounding tired, too.
“Thanks for helping me out,” I say, hugging Katy.
I glance at the time again. The plan was for Zach and me to pick a movie and then spend a couple of hours watching it (or not watching, as the case may be) and then come back tomorrow and continue the marathon, but soon I will have to leave. My mother is at a dinner party tonight and I’ve been counting on making it home before her, but I’ve also been counting on Zach showing up before ten.
“Let me walk you out,” Kevin says, rushing ahead of us up the basement stairs.
“That is quite okay,” Katy says. “Seriously, kid, hit on people your own age.”
Kevin just snorts and disappears down the hall.
Katy and I continue out the front door and start toward the driveway. Katy is the first one to freeze. She goes completely rigid beside me.
I stop because she has and then follow her gaze, follow her eyes to the driveway, where a car I’ve never seen before is parked.
And inside it is Zach.
And I can see her hands in his hair, her fingers sifting through it, her fingers all over him. She has his back against the passenger side door, and she is basically in his seat. She is kissing him.
He is kissing her.
There is a frenzy of motions, an urgency. They are never just doing one thing: not just kissing, but kissing and touching each other’s hair. Or touching each other’s hair and talking, their lips shivering as they say something only they can hear.
I watch them for days.
I drag one of the couches from the basement and fall into it and watch Lindsay kiss Zach. Watch Zach kiss Lindsay.
Watch Katy grab hold of my elbow, like she has to stop me from running, like I am going to move. Like I am going to leave this couch that I’ve fallen into and am watching them from, two people removed from my world. Strangers.
One I love.
One I love oh God so much.
“Those sluts, those sluts, those sluts,” Katy says under her breath now, or maybe she’s screaming it, because Lindsay seems to respond to those words. She jumps away from Zach, her eyes wide, and then he’s scrambling out of the car, moving toward me.
Oh God.
I want to close my eyes so I won’t see.
See his gray eyes filling, hear him promising he is sorry. She was just giving him a ride because his car wouldn’t start.
See my fists pounding his chest, once, twice, over and over again.
“You are un-fucking-believable, Lindsay!” Katy is shouting at her ex-friend, and Lindsay looks startled, terrified, since Katy looks like a zombie. “How are you even a human being?”
Lindsay wraps her arms around herself, safely behind her steering wheel, and stares down at it.
Katy keeps shouting.
Suddenly Lindsay slams on the horn, making us all jump. “Leave me alone!” she yells now. Which just makes Katy start yelling all over again. Which makes Lindsay yell back.
Zach and I stand off to the side of the car, a foot apart, dazed, watching Lindsay and Katy h
ave the altercation we should be having.
My voice is hollow when I finally speak. “You told me you weren’t in love with her anymore. You told me it was over. And like an idiot, I actually believed you.”
“Addie,” Zach says taking a step toward me. I take a step back. “I made a mistake. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
His voice is thick and muffled. In the wind, his hair, his puff, rattles and dances. Mocks me.
The terrible thing is that I still want to kiss him, even as I want to kill him. I want to scream at him, but I want to do it close to him. I want to tell him I love him.
But what I say is, “I hate you, Zach.”
He shakes his head, pained, willing me to take it back.
I don’t. I won’t.
The world is blurring around me now and I start to walk toward Katy’s car. I can hear her wrapping up her argument with Lindsay, and by that I mean they are still screaming strings of obscenity at each other but without referring back to past events or even current ones. Just “bitch,” “slut,” “ho bag,” “assface.”
Zach is following me toward Katy’s car now, still pleading.
Maybe there’s an alternate version of this where I take him back, where I hear his remorse, where I forgive him. Maybe it doesn’t matter that all his films include her or are about her or that I played a thinly veiled Lindsay in one of them and possibly all along. Maybe I’m so desperate to love someone, to love Zach and have him love me back—so desperate to be pried awake by how I feel about him—that I can forget this.
But no.
I can’t.
I whirl around and face him, not caring if tears are streaming down my face, not caring that tears are streaming down my face.
“Stay the fuck away from me,” I say, pulling open the door of Katy’s car and climbing in.
AFTER
January
It doesn’t feel like it belongs to me. He tells me the start, the middle, and the end as he remembers it, but it could be the story of any two strangers, two people I don’t know and never will.
Even when Zach says, “I’m sorry, Addie. Really sorry,” it feels like it belongs to someone else. I nod vaguely, blankly. “I know you didn’t want to hear it before, but I am.”
Everyone We've Been Page 24
