The Complication

by Suzanne Young

  I shudder at the thought, like I’m some kind of Frankenstein’s monster. “And once you find this pattern, then what?” I ask.

  “We’ll apply it to Michael Realm. See if it works. And then move on to James and then returners. It’s our only hope at this point.” She presses her lips together. “But I can’t guarantee that it won’t harm you,” she says. “Going back to those dark memories is dangerous.”

  My breath catches, and she holds up her hand apologetically. “I’m not trying to scare you,” she says. “I’m trying to be up front.”

  But I’m worried she hasn’t researched enough. Hasn’t done enough to prevent a catastrophe.

  “Michael Realm dies if this doesn’t work,” I tell her.

  “Michael Realm dies if we don’t try,” she adds.

  I can’t be responsible for his death. Although I wasn’t the one who took his memories, gave him a Treatment pill, or caused his crashbacks—I have to weigh if it’s worth giving him this. Will I risk my life for his?

  But I know that Realm already risked his for me when we were in The Program. He helped get me out. He promised I’d be happy again.

  “I’ll do it,” I say. Wes shifts in his chair, nervous, worried, maybe a little disappointed now that he’s clear on all that’s at stake.

  We could walk out that door and start over, but I know that neither of us would actually do that.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I DIDN’T KNOW SEARCHING MY memory would be a spectator sport. Marie has me on the couch as she sits next to me in a chair. Sloane propped up my head with a pillow, while Wes sits at the other end of the couch for emotional support.

  Marie takes her time attaching sticky tabs and wires to my head, and then she removes a crude-looking metal crown from her bag. She tells me it was the prototype for the Adjustment, built by Dr. McKee himself, and sets it aside.

  Her hand is under my shirt, attaching wires to my chest, and I glance around the room, a little self-conscious.

  James sits at the kitchen table, his head down on his folded arms as he watches us. He continues to check on Realm in the bedroom, his concern giving way to panic. He also seems to be getting worse himself, and Sloane casts a cautious glance in his direction. At one point, James puckers his lips subtly to offer her a kiss, and she smiles and turns back to Marie.

  The only option is for this to work. For all of us.

  Marie takes out a syringe, and I gulp, a twitch of nervousness when she touches my arm.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  “Truth serum,” she responds. I dart a look at Wes and then back to Marie.

  “For what?”

  “It’s a high dose.” She pauses. “Extremely high. We have to find the point where Arthur Pritchard weaved you in. We can’t make a mistake.”

  “But you know—”

  “We have the basic idea, but we need the clearest memory we can get. Understand, you’re about to crash back . . . hard. You’ll relive the memories, Tatum,” she says. “I hope you don’t get lost in them.”

  Although I expect this memory to be shocking, or sad, I don’t get the grimness in her expression. Before I can think too much, she inserts the needle, and I feel the burn race up my vein. I wince, and Wes slides his hand onto my ankle.

  Marie removes the syringe, covering the needle tip, and slips it into her bag. She places the metal crown on my head, brushing my hair away from my face. The dose was definitely strong, because I feel the first wave of warmth splash through my chest.

  Things blur before getting clearer, still frayed at the edges. I sense it immediately: I can no longer lie. Not even to myself.

  James coughs at the kitchen table, and the sound of it is heavy and dry. Sloane gets up and goes over to him. She stands behind his chair as he tries to catch his breath. He swallows hard and looks up at her. Her expression shatters—all pretense of bravery gone—and he nods her toward him.

  “Come here,” he murmurs, and she wraps her arms around him, and he reaches up to rest his hand in her hair.

  I hear James whisper that he’ll be okay. He’ll never leave her.

  And I wonder if anyone has ever been more in love than Sloane and James. What would that be like, to have your fates be so completely and utterly intertwined? I glance at Wes, finding him watching with anticipation, worry.

  Warmth spreads over my skin, crawls up and seizes the back of my neck like a grip. I love Weston Ambrose, and he loves me. I stare over at him, the edges of my vision shading in, and Wes smiles encouragingly.

  “It’s your dimples,” I say out loud, making Marie look at me. Wes smiles wider.

  “What is?” he asks, his thumb tracing along my ankle.

  “The feature I love best,” I say. “You asked me once, and the answer is your dimples, every time.”

  He has no idea what I’m talking about, but he nods anyway like he does.

  “I see the medication is working,” Marie says to no one in particular, and takes out her laptop, her fingers clicking quickly on the keys. There is a buzz in my head, and it startles me.

  “Sorry,” she says. “Checking the connection.” She taps a few more times, and then she adjusts her chair next to me, computer balanced on her lap. “Are you ready, Tatum?” she asks.

  Sloane comes in from the kitchen, watching us intently, counting on me to be the cure. Her eyes plead with me to not fail.

  “I feel a little sick,” I tell Marie, looking up at her. And I do, a swirl in my stomach, nausea. Marie apologizes again and tells me it’s the medication.

  She poses her finger over a key but looks at me one last time. “I’m going to start mapping now,” she says. “I need you to focus. I don’t know what you’ll find, but we’re all here. You just need to remember.”

  “I will try,” I say, and close my eyes.

  “Now,” Marie says. “Think back to the very first time you saw your grandfather’s face. The oldest memory you have of him. Find it.”

  There’s a sting at the same time she hits the enter key, and I groan, a headache hitting behind my eyes. I keep them squeezed shut. Wes is still touching me, but the feeling of it fades.

  It’s like I’m falling backward, eyes up to the sky, plummeting. And then, suddenly, I crash like a meteor striking earth.

  “Now tell me what you remember,” Marie says, and the words drill straight into my head.

  • • •

  I was climbing out of the black car that had been idling at the curb for fifteen minutes. There was a black scuff across my white shoes, and I tried to keep up.

  “Cynthia,” the old man said as he tugged me toward the house. “I expect you to be quiet, understand? They need to get a good look at you.”

  I nodded that I did understand, but I was too scared to tell him that I just wanted to go home. My father would be waiting for me, and when I didn’t get off the bus, he’d be scared. He wasn’t well, but he was trying. Since my mother died, he’d been trying really hard.

  The man—Dr. Pritchard—had been meeting with me at school for the past few weeks. After my mother died, the counselor worried I wasn’t being properly cared for at home. They brought in this doctor, and he’d warned my father. After that, Dr. Pritchard would come talk to me every day, checking on our progress.

  But today he took me from school, and he brought me to this house in a town I’d never been to before. I’d never really been anywhere.

  Dr. Pritchard held my hand tightly as he rang the doorbell, and I looked up at him, my eyes wide. When he noticed, he pressed his lips into a smile and smoothed down my hair.

  The door opened.

  The man who opened it was older than my father, but he clasped his palm over his mouth the minute he saw me, his eyes watering behind his glasses. I stepped closer to Dr. Pritchard, using both of my small hands to hold one of his.

  “Now, now,” he said to me warningly. “This is Mr. Masterson. He’s your grandfather.”

  I looked up at the man in the doorway, and I k
new he wasn’t my grandfather. My mother told me a long time ago that all of my grandparents were already in heaven, and when she was in the hospital bed, she whispered that I shouldn’t be scared for her. I shouldn’t be scared because she was going back home to her mother. And that she’d take care of her.

  The man in front of me looked kind, and I did my best to smile. At that moment, a woman joined him, and she moaned when she saw my face.

  I tried to hide behind Dr. Pritchard, nervous, but he put his hand on my shoulder and pulled me forward. Put me on display.

  “It’s uncanny, isn’t it?” Dr. Pritchard said, and the older woman nodded her head. The man next to her couldn’t look at me anymore.

  “She’s perfect,” the woman said, shaking her head slowly. There was a soft flinch in her mouth, a twitch. “How did you find her?” she asked.

  “She was one of many candidates,” Dr. Pritchard told her kindly. “But I think she’s the best choice.” He looked down at me again, warmly. I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “I want to go home,” I whispered, and my lip jutted out. I wanted to see my father. My room. My dog.

  Dr. Pritchard tsked, but the woman stepped forward, holding up her palm. “It’s okay, honey,” she said to me. “It’s okay.”

  Her voice was soothing; I’d always wanted a grandmother—a sweet one. She squatted down in front of me and ran her palm over my arm, trying to comfort me.

  “You look just like her,” she said like I should be proud.

  The woman gently pulled me into a hug, and the second I was close, she started to cry into my shoulder. I hated watching adults cry. My father had cried every day since my mom died.

  But last night, after he tucked me into bed, he told me that he loved me. It was the first time he’d said it in a really long time. When I left for school in the morning, his car was already gone, and I walked to the bus alone.

  “I want to go home,” I repeated louder. The woman pulled back, brushing my hair, nodding like she understood. And then she looked up at Dr. Pritchard, and they were both quiet, staring at each other.

  The old man behind her walked back into the house. And the woman, my grandmother, leaned close to me and whispered, “You are home, Tatum.”

  • • •

  My eyelids flutter open, and the scene of the apartment floods in. There’s a buzz deep in my head, and Marie tells me not to move.

  “They kidnapped me,” I say out loud, and my breath hitches.

  “What happened after that?” she asks.

  But I don’t want to go further into the memory, don’t want to obliterate everything I know about my grandparents. My eyes well up, tears spilling over.

  “I can’t,” I murmur, a dam inside of me breaking and flooding me with warm water.

  “You have to,” Marie says.

  “Please,” I hear from behind her, knowing it’s Sloane. “Please don’t let him die. Don’t let any of us die.”

  She doesn’t even know if I’m really the cure, but we’re desperate, all clinging to this possibility. I can’t let them down. I have to try. Even if it means destroying Tatum Masterson.

  I close my eyes again, and Marie hits a key, causing a vibration in my temple. The room dissolves around me.

  • • •

  I didn’t stay at my grandparents’ house that night, although I wasn’t allowed to go home, either. Dr. Pritchard brought me to a place he called the grief department. In the back, there were toys, a small bed. I was the only one there.

  I took off the bracelet that my mother had given me and kept in my pocket, scared they’d take it away.

  I cried myself to sleep the first night, hugging a stuffed dog to my chest. The entire place smelled like rubbing alcohol, like the hospital where my mother had died. I didn’t mind the daytime at first, playing alone. But at each therapy session, I would dread going into the white room. Sitting with Dr. Pritchard as he told me about my life. About my grandparents.

  “They’re not my grandparents,” I said stubbornly.

  “Yes, they are, Tatum. And they love you very much. They—”

  “My name isn’t Tatum!” I screamed at him, and he reacted quickly, grabbing me by the wrist and setting me down in the seat. It startled me, and I began to cry, asking for my father.

  Dr. Pritchard stood up, staring down at me sternly. “Your father’s dead, Tatum. He didn’t survive the grief. And now you have no one but your grandparents. I expect you to appreciate that.”

  Just as my lip began to shake with my cry, he walked out and left me all alone in the room. I held my stuffed dog close to me, sniffling as I cried into his ears. My daddy was dead. I reached into my pocket and held the bracelet in my fingers, wishing my mom had come home to me instead.

  When Dr. Pritchard returned to the room a little while later, he brought a girl with him. She looked about eleven or twelve. She was plain with blond hair, blue eyes, and a tired face. Dr. Pritchard led her into the room and sat her down across from me.

  “Since you plan to be difficult, Tatum,” he said, calling me by the wrong name, “let Quinlan show you how that can work out.” Quinlan cursed at him, and he laughed and left us there.

  The girl turned to me, circles under her eyes. “My name’s Nicole,” she said, using a different name. “And when you don’t listen, they reset you. They erase you.”

  “I want to go home,” I told her.

  “I know,” Quinlan said. “But they won’t let you. You’ll never go home again. As long as they’re around, at least.” She leaned forward in her chair and reached to take my hand. It made me start to cry again because I hoped she would help me.

  “They might take it,” she whispered. “But the memories come back sometimes. You have to be stronger than those memories, otherwise, you’ll fall apart. You’ll be so angry, and you won’t be able to hide it. I haven’t been able to. I don’t even know how many times I’ve been reset at this point. How many more times they’ll erase. You have to learn to lie,” she said emphatically. “Don’t ever let anyone know the truth, or they’ll take it from you. Understand?”

  The door opened, and Arthur Pritchard walked back in with two sodas. He set them both on the table for us.

  “Quinlan,” he said, staring her down. “Are you ready to cooperate? Your father is worried.”

  She ground her teeth, stubborn like me. She wanted to shout that this wasn’t her life, but she just stood up and spun to face him.

  “Go fuck yourself,” she said, and brushed her hair over her shoulder. The doctor grabbed her arm and dragged her from the room. When they were gone, I was left in silence.

  Never let anyone know the truth, I thought. If they didn’t know my real past, they couldn’t erase me—the real me. But I knew I’d have to bury it deep. I’d have to lie to myself most of all.

  When Dr. Pritchard came back in with a pill in a small white cup, I took it from him, staring down at it. I didn’t want to take it. I wanted to go home.

  “After today,” he said firmly, “Cynthia Wilds never existed. You are Tatum Masterson. Your birthdate is . . .” I listened as Arthur Pritchard read off the facts of my life, my name, birthday, family. When he was done, he told me to take the pill, and I did, tears in my eyes.

  This went on for days, weeks. And even though I never gave him all of my secrets, Arthur Pritchard convinced me that my name was Tatum Masterson. And that my grandparents were the most loving people I’d ever known.

  He brought me back to them eventually, and clutching my stuffed dog, a bracelet from a person I couldn’t remember still hidden in my pocket, I ran into their arms. I’d missed them. My grandmother smiled down at me, told me she had baked me a cake. She was so happy, offering a watery smile. My grandfather watched me, and I couldn’t understand why he didn’t look happier to see me.

  But over time, he talked to me more and more. He grew to love me, not as the old Tatum, but as the new. I never once crashed back. I never once remembered, until now, the memory
stored away like a dusty box in a closet.

  • • •

  And when I open my eyes and find Wes sobbing, Marie with tears on her cheeks, and Sloane staring at me with pity—I know that I was finally able to tell all of it. Tell the truth.

  I was finally free from my memory.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  MARIE TAKES THE CROWN OFF my head, silent in words and movements. She sniffles several times as she types on her keyboard. I’m not sure if she’s crying for me, or possibly for Quinlan—I know she’s close with Nicole. Maybe she didn’t appreciate the true horror of what we’d been through with Arthur Pritchard.

  It must have been terrible as Quinlan, always remembering. Always being reset. It must have been torture. I wonder how Marie lives with that now. How she can handle knowing she was a part of it.

  “Did it work?” Sloane asks, biting impatiently on her thumbnail, pacing behind Marie.

  “I won’t know until we try it,” Marie says, watching her computer screen as lines begin to fill in a map of the brain, populating it with different patterns.

  I try to sit up, but my head feels foggy, my stomach sick from the medication. Wes comes over and offers me a bottle of water, helping me sip from it. He leans in, his forehead against my temple like he’s so sorry for me. I think my heart will be sore later, but for now, we just need to end this.

  “I have the pattern,” Marie says, simply at first. She looks up with wide eyes, tears glistening there. “I’ve got it.”

  Sloane turns to James, who’s watching her, head on his arms. A trickle of blood leaks from his ear, slides down his jaw. Sloane curses and rushes over to him. She grabs a napkin and wipes away the blood, and James follows her with his eyes, not moving.