The Girl In Between (The Girl In Between Series Book 1)

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  ***

  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. 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 thumb. 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 palm. 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 w
hat?”

  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, 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, sun 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.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not offended. Shit’s disgusting. I only drink it for nostalgic purposes. Oh, and you like the bass.”

  “I do?”

  “You were tapping along with it on every song which isn’t normal. Most people follow the drums, lead guitar. Hey, maybe you play the bass.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I sort of have this feeling that I’m not all that coordinated. I mean I was checking myself out in the hall mirror while you were gone and it definitely doesn’t look like I play sports or anything.”

  “You were checking yourself out. While I was gone.”

  “I was just, you know, looking for clues like you said.”

  “By looking at yourself naked.”

  “I wasn’t naked. I was…never mind.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “If it turns out you play an instrument you won’t need muscles.”

  He cocked an eyebrow.

  “Focus. Enough about your body. Have you checked the beach?” I asked.

  “The beach?”

  “Something could have washed up with you.”

  I headed for the door but he hesitated. The sun was still stalled in a dark red sunset and he still looked afraid.

  “The light should last,” I said.

  “How do you know?”

  I looked up at the sky, shook my head. “I don’t know but sometimes when I want it to last, it does.”

  He gave a slight nod and then we headed for the sand. We walked along the tide, foam lapping against my bare feet. I’d never seen anything on the shore here. It was untouched, clean. But I’d also never seen another person here before. There could have been something, a piece of a boat, some kind of time travel machine, a cell phone from the future, anything.

  “Quick-fire round,” I said after we’d been walking for a while. “If you could go anywhere in the world where would you go?”

  He chewed on his bottom lip, the skin there starting to peel. “Um…”

  “The whole purpose of the quick fire round is that you don’t have time to over-think your answers. Just say the first place that comes to mind. We’re looking for clues, remember?”

  “Okay. I don’t know...”

  “First place.”

  “The moon.”

  “Bending the confines of my question. I like it. Okay, if you could have a million dollars or lifelong happiness which would you choose?”

  “Is that a trick question?”

  I shrugged.

  “Neither.”

  “Neither?”

  “Money isn’t everything and happiness is relative. Next question.”

  “Okay…” I chewed on the inside of my cheek, thinking. “Summer or winter?”

  He looked back toward the hill. “I like the cold,” he said, trying to shake the uncertainty from his voice. “I feel like I can barely breathe here.”

  “The h
umidity. Maybe you’re not used to it.”

  “Maybe. Like I’m an Eskimo or something.”

  “Maybe you’re a professional dog sledder.”

  He laughed. “I think I like dogs.”

  “What about cats?”

  He shook his head. “Cats are gross.”

  “Fish?”

  “Pointless.”

  “Birds?”

  “Annoying.”

  “I guess we know you’re not exactly the outdoorsy type.”

  He stared past me into the waves. “I wouldn’t rule it out. Although almost drowning doesn’t really help.”

  “Do you remember that part at least?” I asked.

  He looked at me. “I remember waking up.” He shifted, shoes sinking in the sand. “I remember you.”

  “And then I blinked,” I breathed.

  “You woke up?”

  “I can’t really control it.”

  “So that’s what that trial was about?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “But not a cure,” he said.

  “There isn’t one, not yet, so in the meantime I’m just trying to find something that’ll…”

  “What?”

  I sighed. “Let me be normal.”

  He stuffed his hands in his pockets, smiled. “I know I can’t really remember reality right now, but I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing.”

  “Try convincing the rest of the world.”

  “If I ever see it again.” He was quiet, still staring at the water.

  I inched closer, trying to think of something to say, anything to sever his doubt. I stared into the sun, still hanging in the same spot it had been earlier. “What’s your favorite time of day?”

  He narrowed his gaze on the horizon. “Dusk. I like being able to see the sun and the moon at the same time. It makes me feel small.”

  “That’s…” fucking beautiful “interesting.”

  We stopped walking and he knelt down, picking through a pile of sand. There were a few seashells but nothing more. He stood up, wiped his hands on his jeans.

  “What’s your favorite color?” I said.

  He scanned the landscape, eyes flitting from the water to the field of sunflowers, then back to me. His eyes roamed my face then grew still. “Green.” He took a step closer, lowered his voice. “That trailer in the woods…”

  “Found it while you were exploring today?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Did you used to live there?”

  “With my dad.”

  “Before he left?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I have to warn you,” he said. “I did read some pretty revealing things about you in that diary.”

  “Oh yeah?” I swallowed, bracing myself. “What else did you read?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Everything. Who’s Drew?”

  “A boy. Next question.”

  “Nah-huh. Quick-fire rounds over, Bryn.” My name spilled out of his mouth. It was warm.

  “Sorry,” he said. “You don’t seem like the type who gets embarrassed.”

  “I don’t.” Usually. “He’s someone I dated.”

  “Past tense. So he’s a jerk.”

  “You gathered that much, I see.”

  “By the third break-up, yeah.”

  I let out a long breath. “Actually, that is embarrassing. I’m not that girl.”

  “What girl?”

  “The girl who has a shitty boyfriend because it’s better than being alone. The girl who needs people.”

  “So you’re the solitary type.”

  “No, I’m the ‘has no friends because she’s asleep all the time’ type.”

  “Friends. Who needs ‘em?” he said. “I don’t have any and look at me.”

  I laughed. “I’m sure you had a lot. I’m sure you were like, president of the French club and wrote these insanely poetic music reviews for your school newspaper. And I bet you were captain of the rugby team or some other obscure, totally cool, non-American sport.”

  “Again. No muscles remember?”

  I stuck a finger in his gut and he coughed.

  “Are you kidding me? Those abs are practically made of steel.”

  He caught his breath and stood there, just staring at me. “You’re strange,” he said, smiling.

  “I told you this place was strange.”

  He smiled. “And beautiful.”

  “Right,” I said. “That too.”

  Chapter 14