Forget Me Always

by Sara Wolf

“Isis—”

  “There’re some people digging around in your past. Other than me, I mean. I saw them at the lake.”

  Jack’s eyes narrow.

  “I’m sorry, I went to see Tallie again, because Sophia—she asked me to, and—”

  He starts walking away, to the elevator.

  “Hey! Wait! I’m not done talking to you!”

  “Get in.”

  “Uh, no? Have you not seen any Japanese horror movies? Getting in elevators after dark is asking for the voodoos.”

  “You either get in this elevator and come back with me to the room, or you leave.”

  I puff my cheeks out and agonize for four whole seconds.

  “Fine! But I’m leaving right after!”

  “I’ll kick you out promptly,” he promises. Somehow, it makes me feel better, but in a weird twingy-gut way. The doors close and he hits the button for floor eleven. There are approximately thirty seconds of us standing together in a closed space. He smells like mint and sweat in the best way. I mash myself into the farthest corner and think about how much he and Sophia like each other, and it works, keeps my head above the swirling memories lurking just beneath the surface of that smell.

  The elevator opens and he leads me to room 1106. It’s not a big room, but it’s beautiful, and the queen bed is perfectly made. I expected it to be messy and full of sex, whatever that looks like. Not that I’d know, and I really have to stop thinking about sex while I’m facing down my nemesis, who I incidentally do not like in any way, I am just concerned about various creepy suited men in my neighborhood because I am a Good Samaritan, that’s all—

  “Stop thinking out loud.” Jack takes off his shoes.

  “I am overwhelmed,” I say. “By certain recent events.”

  “You were thinking out loud. About sex. Has it been a recent event for you? Congratulations. Who’s the lucky man?”

  “Sea slug,” I correct, and sit on a chair. Warily.

  “I was trying to be nice.”

  “Don’t. You suck at it.”

  Jack’s lips quirk in the shadow of a smirk, but it’s gone quickly.

  “Did you cut yourself?”

  I follow his finger pointing to my jeans. A massive tear along the thighs shows an angry red cut, the blood staining the fabric around it.

  “Aw, man! These were my favorite jeans! I saw my first concert in these!”

  “I’d be a little more concerned about the gaping wound in your flesh,” he snarls.

  “Well, that’s your deal. Personally, I’m okay with blood. Happens every month. Also you should stop rolling your eyes that much because I read somewhere that really hurts your eyesight and you wouldn’t exactly be as aloof and enigmatic if you’re running into walls all the time now, would you?”

  “Get in the shower.”

  “You get in the shower!”

  “You smell like skunk. And you’re bleeding. You need a shower.”

  “There was quite a large skunk. But really this will only take two seconds and then I’ll be out of your duck-butt hair, so listen up—”

  He crosses his arms over his chest.

  “Unfortunately, my powers of immense concentration are compromised by the stench of wildlife and the sight of blood. Take. A. Shower. There are towels, and a robe, and I’ll have room service wash and dry your things.”

  “You’re being nice, dude. It’s sickening. The color does not match your eyes. Zero out of ten would not buy that nicey-nice makeup again.”

  “I’m being practical. I have work to do that’s important, anyway. I’ll have finished by the time you come out, and I’ll be able to devote my full attention to your apparent chaotic experience involving my past. Now go.”

  “Oh, I hate you so much.”

  “Good. I prefer it to the silence.”

  He turns to the laptop on the bed and types away, lost in it. The guilt solidifies, clamping down on my chest. I move mechanically into the bathroom and wince as I peel off my muddy jeans and jacket. I’ll have bruises for millennia. Thanks, Small-Nuts. The knock on the door makes me jump into the ceiling.

  “Give me your clothes,” Jack says.

  “Thanks, thanks a lot. Now I have a lightbulb for a head.”

  “What are you babbling about? Just give me your clothes.”

  “Go away! I’ll drop them on the floor! I can’t risk your cooties infecting me!”

  “Fine. Just hurry up.”

  “You hurry up,” I grumble wittily. The truth is my heart is pounding. Everything in me is pounding, bashing against my skeleton and skin to escape and slink away like a fleshy, independent meatbag. I’m naked. I’m naked and a boy is within ten feet of me and I am panicking, but I don’t let it leak through anywhere, not in my voice, not in my choice of words, because panic is normal, panic is what I’ll always do when I’m naked and a boy is around, and I’m shaking suddenly as I open the door when I’m sure he’s gone, and I drop the clothes on the floor and lock it behind me.

  My underwear is stupid. It’s pink with a panda on it. He’ll think I’m a kid. He’ll think I’m immature.

  Stupid little girl. You’re ugly. Do you think anyone on this planet would want to go out with a fat, ugly girl like you?

  I shake my head. Why the hell should I care what he thinks about me? He’s Jack Hunter, the greatest douche who’s ever douched. Or not douched, because he’s a guy. Ugh, I really do gross myself out sometimes.

  I decide to wash myself clean in the waters of Jesus and emerge as a less gross, more mature girl. The hot water is a luxurious relief and helps with the shaking in my hands, and the fancy shampoo and soap smell like milky almonds. The adrenaline of my escape winds down, and when I exit and tie the robe around myself, I feel like a new person. A person who’s not-me. And that’d be nice right now. Any other girl wouldn’t shake. Any other girl wouldn’t be panicking that I have to walk out there in only a robe. Any other girl would be calm and collected and know exactly how to act and what to say in this “hotel with a boy” situation. There’s another knock on the door.

  “What is it?” I snap.

  “I’ve got clothes for you. They aren’t yours, but they’re better than a robe. And there’s a box of Band-Aids.”

  I deflate a little. He even thought of Band-Aids?

  “Just drop them outside.”

  I peek out and pull the clothes in quickly. It’s a soft skirt, long and shimmery and black, and a white dress shirt. The shirt is obviously Jack’s; it smells like him. And there’s a pink lip imprint on the collar. I roll my eyes. No wonder he has a lady’s skirt on him, and he’s holed up in the Hilton. I put a Band-Aid on my cut and walk out of the bathroom.

  “Just got done working, huh?” I ask. He looks up from the laptop briefly, pauses as his eyes find the shirt and skirt, and nods.

  “Yes. For the last time.”

  “You mean, your last appointment? Ever?”

  He nods.

  “That’s great!” I clap my hands. “Jesus, that’s— That’s really great. Congratulations on not being a sex slave anymore!”

  He curls his lip. “Oh, be quiet.”

  “How’s it feel? To be free and all?”

  “It’s riotous fun,” he deadpans.

  “Ah! You’re distracting me!” I point at him. “Listen, some guys were looking around the woods where Tallie is. I overheard them talking, and they were looking for a body. A baby’s body.”

  Jack closes the laptop. “What did they look like?”

  “Two guys in black suits, lackeys obviously, and one huge guy in a tweed suit. He had like, white hair and a really jerk-y presence, like he owned the place. Superrich watch. Superrich in general.”

  “Did he say who he was? Any hint at all?”

  “No. Just that you were going off to Harvard and he wanted to recruit you for his company before all the other scouts. And he called you brilliant and ruthless and some other such nonsense, but I forget most of everything after that because I always tend to z
one out when people start complimenting you. They were looking for Tallie’s body.”

  Jack’s eyes narrow. “What happened after you overheard them?”

  “Well, they overheard me. Specifically, my feet on the noisy ground. So I ran. Threw one guy down a hill and kicked the other in the balls. Not a bad night, if I may say so myself.”

  “And you just…got in your car and came here right after?”

  I hold up the bag of fries. “Refueled a bit.”

  He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Dammit.”

  “Something wrong? I mean, other than the corporate dudes after your neck? Protect your neck, by the way. That’s a Wu-Tang song. Also it’s a mildly good neck. I’ve stared at it many times while considering choking it.”

  He chuckles. I cross my arms over my chest.

  “What’s so funny?”

  He shakes his head, a bit of his stupid hair glancing across his stupid eyes. His bruises are faint but still there, like inky imprints of a harder time.

  “It’s nice. Having the old you back.”

  “Oh.”

  “I missed it,” he continues. His eyes are softer, but all at once they become hard. “Never mind. Forget I said that.”

  There’s a silence, and suddenly I’m blindsided by a headache. It throbs, sending lances of white-hot electricity up and down my spine. It’s the same pain I felt in Mernich’s office. Shit, shit shit. Not now, brain, not now—

  I’ve worn his shirt before. The smell is the same. He gave it to me to wear for bed, because my Halloween costume was too tight, and I was drunk, and the room had pictures of the sea in it and smelled like lavender, and I was happy; for a few seconds he was leaning over me and kissing me and I was happy. We sat on a bench once, our backs pressing against each other as the stars watched and a party raged on around us, and yet we were an island of quiet, of peace. I felt at peace with him. Reality and my memories blur together. I’m in the hotel room but I’m in the seashore room all at once. The shirt is soft. The smell of him is the same. Except the Jack now is sitting at his computer, staring at me with concerned eyes, and the Jack of the past is leaning over me, his lips on every part of my neck, my collarbone, my mouth and the corner of my mouth, and—

  “Isis, are you all right?” Hotel Jack asks. “Forget what I said. I’m trying to let the past go. Sometimes it’s difficult, and I say ridiculous things. You’re not a part of my life anymore, just like you wanted. I’ve blocked you off. I promise.”

  I like you.

  Something painful and monstrous opens up in my chest, like a massive, shadowy Venus flytrap. The two me’s reach for his hand at the same time.

  “I remember,” I whisper. His fingers are long and delicate, but I can feel the strength in them. “I remember the Halloween party. I said I liked you. You— You kissed me. We—”

  Sophia’s words reverberate in my head.

  That’s why he kissed you. That’s why he even bothered getting to know you. Because you’re exactly like me. Hopeless like me.

  I drop his hand like it’s burned me.

  “I’m sorry. Shit. I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” Jack murmurs.

  “I’m assuming things! My memories are back, but I know the full story now, too, so I’m sorry for even bringing it up!”

  “Your memories are back?” His voice is strangled, but he clears it. “That’s— That’s good. You don’t have to be sorry for—”

  “I just mean that wasn’t— Obviously that night wasn’t a real, uh, kiss thing. I mean, we were both pretty drunk! You didn’t really mean it; you were just being weirdly nice like you sometimes are once in a blue-ass moon, and I was super drunk, so when I said I liked you I just meant as a nemesis, you know? As a friend I could fight with verbally and stuff! Yeah. I really did like you. As a nemesis. Man, fighting you was fun!”

  I laugh, but it sounds hollow even to my own ears.

  “And, you know. I remind you of Sophia. We are kind of similar, deep down, so it makes sense you’d get confused and kiss me! Totally cool. Totally understandable. Man, I’m just sorry I drunkenly forced myself on you like that, and then did a total one-eighty and got scared like a little bitch. Like, wow, nobody deserves that ever, you feel me? I’m really sorry you had to go through that.”

  I’ve wanted to hold her for months. It’s a need I’ve tamped down, a carefully controlled fire kept locked in the center of an iceberg. And she’s unknowingly tested me, over and over; she’s prodded and poked and sometimes taken a chain saw to the ice, but she’s never gotten through because I am Jack Hunter, and I am in control of myself at all times.

  Except that one time, in the seashore room. The time she thinks was false. The time she is heaping piles of guilt on herself for. Guilt that’s coming from her past and from Will Cavanaugh. If I don’t stop this now, she’ll hurt herself with it. The cycle of Will’s damage will only dig its thorns deeper into her. If she can’t do it, it has to be stopped now, by someone. By me.

  “I don’t want to scare you,” I say finally. She looks up, warm cinnamon eyes surprised.

  “What?”

  “And I don’t want to make you uncomfortable—”

  “Um—”

  “—but you are nothing like Sophia. You are Isis Blake—stubborn and ridiculous and kind and strong. You are exactly you. And that’s why I kissed you that night, because I wanted to kiss Isis Blake. And I did. It was uncalled for. You had every right to stop and every right to pull away. You were afraid, and I exacerbated that fear by trying to kiss you, and it’s my fault. Not yours.”

  Her face goes blank with shock, and she’s silent for once in her life.

  “Yes, we were drunk,” I continue. “You were, more specifically, and I was a little. So I’m the one who should’ve known better, and I apologize. I went too far, too fast. I was happy.” I chuckle darkly. “For once in my life, I was happy. It’s no excuse, but I hope it helps you understand my actions that night.”

  Her shell-shocked expression doesn’t change.

  “I’m sorry.” I smile. “It won’t happen again.”

  She doesn’t say anything. I have to break the tension. I get up and stretch, cracking my neck and wrists.

  “You should go. It’s getting late, and I’m sure you’re tired. You need to get some rest. Thank you for telling me about the men. I’ll look into them—”

  Something crashes into me from behind, and it takes me a second to realize it’s her, wrapping her arms around my stomach and pulling my spine to rest against her chest. She buries her face in my back.

  “I want it,” she whispers. “I…I want it to h-happen again.”

  The web of anxiety in me snaps, thread by thread, and every muscle in my body relaxes. It is relief, pure and bright, coursing through me. I’m not the only one who wants it. I am not the only one, and my skin warms and my breathing comes easier as that knowledge sinks in with each passing second of silence. What she said that night in the seashore room wasn’t just a drunk babble. She likes me. And I soak in that realization for as long as I can, before she rubs her face against my shirt like an animal, something wild and used to marking others with its scent.

  “I want to show you something,” she says.

  “All right.” I keep my voice carefully even and low.

  She puts her arms out on either side of me and pulls up the shirt on her right arm. She’s always, always kept that arm covered. She’s never worn short-sleeved T-shirts, and even when I saw her in that blouse, she kept the sleeve carefully covering it and her arm faced downward. It’s almost a reflex with her, to keep the arm out of sight.

  My breath catches.

  There, on the delicate underside of her wrist, are the marks. Round, puckered white scars. Dozens of them. They molt her skin, the pockmarks overlapping like a dappled pond. Cigarette burns.

  “How—” I stop myself, even though I know the answer already. “I’m sorry. It’s not my place to ask.”

  Her arms tremble as sh
e speaks. “Nameless.”

  I close my eyes. Hearing the confirmation from her is more infuriating, more heartbreaking than any conclusion I reached on my own.

  “It’s ugly, I know.” She laughs shakily. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to gross you out.”

  I turn and lace my arms around her, careful not to put too much pressure or squeeze tight to the point she’d feel trapped. Her mouth against my chest makes me shiver, but I suppress it at the last second. I can see her scar on the top of her still-wet head. She smells like almonds and forest pine.

  “There is nothing about it that’s ugly,” I say. “Can I?”

  She hesitates, then nods. I reach around and bring up her wrist, gently running my fingers over the marks. The raised ridges are rough, but in other parts, silky. I trace around each circle with my thumb.

  “It looks like a galaxy,” I say. “Full of stars and supernovas and conductive cryogeysers and a lot of wonderful science things I could go on to list that would probably bore the hell out of you.”

  She laughs, the sound vibrating in my ribs.

  “I have another one.” She gestures to her head. “It’s not as ugly, but it’s a lot bigger. Just call me Scarface. Head. Cranium. ScarCranium is definitely a Swedish death-metal band.”

  I lean in and kiss the top of her head, the scar smooth under my lips.

  “We’ll have to listen to them someday,” I say. She makes a sound halfway between a squeak and a sigh. “Something wrong?”

  “N-No. Just…having someone—kiss—um— Having someone…doing that—um—”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “No! I-I do. It’s really—um, just really, it’s nice. It feels nice. Um.” She buries her face in my shirt like she’s trying to disappear, but I can see the red flush creeping up her forehead.

  I feel like I’m melting. My insides are warm, and I’m all weirdly relaxed. And I don’t ever want it to stop.

  I feel safe.

  For the first time in a long time, I feel really, really safe. Like nothing can get to me. Like, for once, Nameless can’t reach in his fingers and get to me through my memories.

  “I was scared,” I murmur. “When I was running from those guys. And I’m scared they saw my car.”