Never Never: Part Three

by Colleen Hoover

  Landon laughs. "We sort of wrecked it last night. Tearing down a gate?"

  I remember. I was there. "It might still drive okay, though. It's worth a shot, and I can't keep using...whose car is this, anyway?"

  "Mom's," he says. "I texted her this morning and told her yours was in the shop and that we needed hers today."

  I knew I liked this kid.

  "So...Janette, huh?" I ask him.

  He turns toward the window. "Shut up."

  The Land Rover's front end was a debacle of twisted metal and debris. But apparently the damage was only cosmetic, because it cranked right up.

  It took all I had not to go inside the gate again and scream at that psycho woman for leading us in the wrong direction, but I didn't. Charlie's dad has caused enough of a shit storm in her world.

  I calmly drive my car to Charlie's house and wait for her at the end of the road like I said I would. I text her to let her know I'm in a different vehicle.

  I begin to turn theories over in my mind while I wait for her. It's hard for me to suspend belief in order to give our circumstances an explanation, but the only things I can come up with are otherworldly.

  A curse.

  An alien abduction.

  Time travel.

  Twin brain tumors?

  None of it makes sense.

  I'm making notes when the passenger door opens. A rush of wind follows Charlie inside the car, and I find myself wishing it would push her all the way to my side. Her hair is damp and she's in different clothes.

  "Hey."

  She says, "Hi," and pulls the seatbelt into place. "What were you writing?"

  I hand her the notebook and pen and then back out of the driveway. She begins reading over my summary.

  When she's finished, she says, "None of it makes sense, Silas. We got into a fight and broke up the night before this started. The next day we can't remember anything other than random stuff, like books and photography. It keeps happening for a week, until you don't lose your memory and I do." She pulls her feet up on the seat and taps the pen against the notebook. "What are we missing? There has to be something. I have no memory before this morning, so what happened yesterday that made you stop forgetting? Did anything happen last night?"

  I don't answer her right away. I think about her questions. How all along, we've been assuming other people had something to do with this. We thought The Shrimp was involved, we thought her mother was involved. For a while, I wanted to accuse Charlie's father. But maybe it's none of that. Maybe it has nothing to do with anyone else and everything to do with us.

  We reach my house no closer to the truth than we were this morning. Than we were two days ago. Than we were last week.

  "Let's go through the back door in case my parents are awake." The last thing we need right now is for them to see me sneaking Charlie into my bedroom to stay the night. The back door won't take us past my father's study.

  It's unlocked, so I make my way in first. When all is clear, I grab her hand and rush her through the house, up the stairwell, and to my bedroom. By the time I shut the door behind us and lock it, we're both breathing heavily. She laughs and falls onto my bed. "That was fun," she says. "I bet we've done that before."

  She sits up and brushes the hair out of her eyes, smiling. She begins to look around my room, through eyes that are seeing it again for the first time. I immediately get that longing in my chest, akin to how I felt last night at the hotel when she fell asleep in my arms. The feeling that I would do absolutely anything to be able to remember what it was like to love her. God, I want that back. Why did we ever break up? Why did we let everything that happened between our families come between us? From the outside looking in, I'd almost believe we were soul mates before we let it all fall apart. Why did we think we could intervene with fate?

  I pause.

  When she looks at me, she knows something is going on in my head. She scoots to the edge of the bed and tilts her head. "Do you remember something?"

  I sit in the desk chair and roll toward her. I take both of her hands in mine and I squeeze them. "No," I say. "But...I might have a theory."

  She sits up straighter. "What kind of theory?"

  I'm sure this is about to sound crazier coming from my mouth than it does swimming around in my head. "Okay, so...this might sound stupid. But last night...when we were at the hotel?"

  She nods, encouraging me to continue.

  "One of the last thoughts I had before we fell asleep was how--while you were missing--I didn't feel whole. But when I found you, it was the first time I felt like Silas Nash. Up until that point, I didn't feel like anyone. And I remember swearing to myself right before I fell asleep that I would never allow us to drift apart again. So I was thinking..." I release her hands and stand up. I pace the room a couple of times until she stands up, too. I shouldn't be embarrassed to say this next part out loud, but I am. It's ridiculous. But so is every other thing in the whole world right now.

  I rub the nerves out of the back of my neck while I lock eyes with her. "Charlie? What if...when we broke up...we screwed with destiny?"

  I wait for her to laugh, but instead, a rush of chills covers her arms. She makes to rub them away as she slowly takes a seat back down on the bed. "That's ridiculous," she mutters. But there's no conviction in her words, which means maybe a part of her thinks this theory is worth exploring.

  I sit down in my chair again and position myself in front of her. "What if we're supposed to be together? And messing with that caused some sort of...I don't know...rift."

  She rolls her eyes. "So what you're implying is, the universe wiped away all of our memories because we broke up? That seems a little narcissistic."

  I shake my head. "I know how it sounds. But yes. Hypothetically speaking...what if soul mates exist? And once they come together, they can't fall apart?"

  She folds her hands together in her lap. "How does that explain why you remembered this time and I didn't?"

  I pace the room some more. "Let me think for a minute," I say to her.

  She waits patiently while I rub the floor raw. I hold up a finger. "Hear me out, okay?"

  "I'm listening," she says.

  "We've loved each other since we were kids. We obviously had this connection that has lasted our entire lives. Up until external factors started getting in our way. The thing with our fathers, our families hating each other. You holding a grudge against me for believing your father was guilty. There's a pattern here, Charlie." I grab the notebook that I wrote in earlier and look at all the things we naturally remember and all the things we don't. "And our memories...we can remember things that weren't forced on us. Things we had a passion for all on our own. You remember books. I remember how to work a camera. We remember lyrics to our favorite songs. We remember certain things in history, or random stories. But things that were forced on us by others, we forgot. Like football."

  "What about people?" she asks. "Why did we forget all the people we've met?"

  "If we remembered people, we'd still have other memories. We'd remember how we met them, the impact they've had on our lives." I scratch at the back of my head. "I don't know, Charlie. A lot of it doesn't make sense still. But last night, I felt a connection with you again. Like I had loved you for years. And this morning...I didn't lose my memories like you did. There has to be significance in that."

  Charlie stands up and begins pacing the room. "Soul mates?" she mutters. "This is almost as ridiculous as a curse."

  "Or two people developing in-sync amnesia?"

  She narrows her eyes at me. I can see her mind working as she chews on the pad of her thumb. "Well then, explain how you fell back in love with me in just two days. And if we're soul mates, why wouldn't I have fallen back in love with you?" She stops pacing and waits for my answer.

  "You spent a lot of your time locked up inside your old house. I spent all that time looking for you. I was reading our love letters, going through your phone, reading your journals. By the tim
e I found you yesterday, I felt like I already knew you. For me, reading everything from our past somehow connected me to you again...like some of my old feelings had come back. But for you...I was barely more than a stranger."

  We're both sitting again. Thinking. Contemplating the possibility that this might be the closest we've come to any sort of pattern.

  "So what you're suggesting is...we were soul mates. But then external influences ruined us as people and we fell out of love?"

  "Yeah. Maybe. I think so."

  "And it'll keep happening until we set things right again?"

  I shrug, because I'm not sure. It's just a theory. But it makes more sense than anything else we've come up with.

  Five minutes pass while neither of us says a single word. She finally falls back onto the bed with a heavy sigh and says, "You know what this means?"

  "No."

  She pulls up onto her elbows and looks at me. "If this is true...you only have thirty-six hours to make me fall in love with you."

  I don't know if we're on to something, or if we're about to spend the remainder of our time chasing a dead end, but I smile, because I'm willing to sacrifice the next thirty-six hours for this theory. I walk over to the bed and fall onto it beside her. We're both staring up at the ceiling when I say, "Well, Charlie Baby. We better get started."

  She throws an arm over her eyes and groans. "I don't know you very well, but I can already tell you're gonna have fun with this."

  I smile, because she's right.

  "It's late," I tell her. "We should try to get some sleep, because your heart is going to get a serious workout tomorrow."

  I set my alarm for 6:00 a.m. so that we can be up and out of the house before anyone else wakes up. Charlie sleeps closest to the wall and is out cold in a matter of minutes. I don't feel like I'll be able to fall asleep anytime soon, so I pluck one of her journals from the backpack and decide to read some before I fall asleep.

  Silas is crazy.

  Like...legit crazy. But my god, I have so much fun with him. He started a game he forces me to play sometimes called Silas Says. It's exactly the same as Simon Says, but...you know. With his name instead of Simon's. Whatever. He's way cooler than Simon.

  We were on Bourbon Street today and it was so hot and we were both sweating and miserable. We had no idea where our friends had gone off to and we weren't supposed to meet them for another hour. When it comes to me and Silas, I'm always the whiney one, but it was so hot this time, even he was whining a little.

  Anyway, we walked past this guy who was propped up on a stool and he had painted himself silver, like a robot. There was a sign leaning against his stool that said, "Ask me a question. Get a real answer. Only 25 cents."

  Silas handed me a quarter, so I dropped it in the bucket. "What's the meaning of life?" I asked the silver man.

  He made a stiff turn of his head and looked me square in the eye. In a very impressive robot voice, he said, "That depends on the life of which you search for meaning."

  I rolled my eyes at Silas. Just another hack job scamming the tourists. I clarified my question so that at least the quarter wouldn't go to complete waste. "Fine," I said. "What's the meaning of my life?"

  He took a rickety step down from his stool and bent at a ninety-degree angle. With his silver robot fingers, he plucked my quarter out of the bucket and placed it in my palm. He glanced at Silas and then to me and smiled. "You, my dear, have already found your meaning. All there is left to do now...is dance."

  Then the silver dude started dancing. Like...legit dancing. Not even in a robot style. He just had this big, goofy grin on his face and held his hands up like a ballerina and danced like no one was watching him.

  At that point, Silas grabbed my hands and said in mock-robot voice, "Dance. With. Me." He tried to pull me into the street to dance with him, but hell no. Embarrassing. I pulled away from him, but he wrapped his arms around me and did that thing where he puts his mouth right on my ear. He knows I freaking love that, so it was really unfair. He whispered, "Silas says dance."

  I don't know what it was about him in that moment. I don't know if it was because he honestly didn't care that anyone was watching us, or if it was because he was still talking to me in that silly robot voice. Whatever it was, I'm pretty sure I fell in love with him today.

  All over again. For like the tenth time.

  So I did what Silas said. I danced. And you know what? It was fun. So much fun. We danced all around Jackson square and we were still dancing when our friends found us. We were covered in sweat and out of breath, and if I were watching us from the sidewalk, I would probably be the girl crinkling up my nose, muttering "gross" under my breath.

  But I'm not that girl. I never want to be that girl. For the rest of my life, I want to be the girl dancing with Silas in the street.

  Because he's crazy. That's why I love him.

  I close the journal. Did that really happen? I want to read more, but I'm afraid if I keep going, I'll come across things I don't want to remember.

  I set the journal on my nightstand and roll over so that I can wrap my arm around her. When we wake up tomorrow, we'll only have one day left. I want her to be able to let go of everything that's going on between us so that she can genuinely focus on me and our connection and nothing else.

  Knowing Charlie...that's going to be hard. It'll take some crazy skills to be able to accomplish that.

  But luckily...I'm crazy. That's why she used to love me.

  "Okay, so how does this work exactly?" I ask as we walk toward his car. "Do we float down the bayou in a rowboat while little critters sing 'Kiss the Girl'?"

  "Don't be a smartass." Silas grins. Then he stops me before I reach the car, grabbing my hand and pulling me back. I look up at him in surprise. "Charlize," he says, looking first at my lips, and then in my eyes. "If you give me half a chance I can make you fall in love with me."

  I clear my throat and try not to look away even though I want to. "Well...you're off to a good start. So there's that."

  He laughs. I feel so awkward, I don't know what to do with myself, so I pretend to sneeze. He doesn't even say bless you. He just smiles at me, like he knows it was a fake sneeze.

  "Stop it," I say. "You're staring at me."

  "That's the point, Charlie. Look into my eyes."

  I burst into laughter. "You've got game, Silas Nash," I say, walking toward my side of the car.

  When we're both buckled in, Silas turns to me and says, "According to a letter you wrote, the first time we had sex was--"

  "No. I don't want to go there. Where did you find that letter? I thought I hid it."

  "Not well enough." Silas grins.

  I think I like flirty Silas. Even if we forget everything again tomorrow, at least I'll get one good day out of this. "Let's go somewhere fun," I say. "I can't remember the last time I had fun."

  We both start laughing at the same time. I like him. I really do. He's so easy to be around. He laughs too much, maybe. Like, we're totally screwed right now, and he's still always smiling. Worry a little, dude. He makes me laugh when I should be worrying.

  "Okay," he says, glancing at me. "I really would rather go to that place in the letter where I did that thing with my tongue, but..."

  It's automatic--it must belong to Charlie--but as soon as the words are out of his mouth, my hand reaches across the space between us and I slap his arm. He grabs my hand before I can pull away and holds it to his chest. This too feels like something that's been done before, something that belongs to them--Charlie and Silas, not me and this guy.

  It makes me feel tired to be held against him like this, even if it's just my hand. I can't afford to be tired, so I tug away from him and look out the window.

  "You're really fighting this," he says. "That kind of defies the point."

  He's right. I reach over and grab his hand. "This is me falling in love with you," I tell him. "Deep, soul love."

  "I wonder if you're less ridiculous when you ha
ve your memory."

  I turn on the radio with my free hand. "Doubt it," I say.

  I like making him smile. It doesn't take much to make the corners of his mouth twitch, but to actually get his lips to curve all the way up, I have to be extra sassy. His lips are fully curved now as he pulls into traffic and I am able to watch him without him watching me. We're acting like we know each other even though our conscious minds don't know each other. Why is that?

  I reach for the backpack, to search for the answer in their letters or journals.

  "Charlize," Silas says. "The answer isn't in there. Just be with me. Don't worry about that."

  I drop the backpack. I don't know where he's driving. I don't know if he knows where he's driving, but we end up in a parking lot just as it starts to rain. There are no other cars around and it's coming down too hard for me to see what's in the buildings around us.

  "Where are we?"

  "I don't know," Silas says. "But we should get out of the car."

  "It's raining."

  "Yes. Silas says get out of the car."

  "Silas says...? Like Simon says?"

  He just stares at me expectantly, so I shrug. Honestly, what do I have to lose? I open the car door and step into the rain. It's warm rain. I tilt my face up and let it hit me.

  I hear his door slam and then he runs around the front of the car and stands in front of me.

  "Silas says run around the car five times."

  "You're weird, you know that?" He stares at me. I shrug again and start running. It feels good. Like with every step some of the tension is leaving my body.

  I don't look at him when I run past him; I stay focused on not tripping. Maybe Charlie ran track or something. Five car laps later I stop in front of him. We are both soaked through. Drops of water are dangling from his eyelashes and running down his tanned neck. Why do I have the urge to touch my tongue to those lines of water?

  Oh, yeah. We were in love. Or maybe it's because he's freaking hot.

  "Silas says go into that store and ask for a hotdog. When they tell you they don't have hotdogs, stomp your foot really hard and scream like you did in the hotel this morning."

  "What the--"

  He crosses his arms over his chest. "Silas says."

  Why the hell am I even doing this? I give Silas the dirtiest look I can and stomp off in the direction of the store he pointed me to. It's an insurance agency. I swing open the door and three grouchy-looking adults raise their heads to see who has walked in. One of them even has the audacity to scrunch up their nose at me, like I don't already know I'm dripping water everywhere.