Unremembered (Unremembered #1)(14)

He reaches towards my face. I panic and pull away. My breath quickens and despite my efforts I can’t seem to get it under control.

I see the supermarket doors open. Heather exits, carrying a small plastic tub in one hand – the sour cream she mentioned, I presume – and a receipt in the other.

This time I really do want him to leave and I know that she will make sure he does.

He follows my gaze across the parking lot and I watch his expression shift. His palpable calmness suddenly turns to alarm. Which only confirms what I’ve been trying to tell myself all along.

He’s a fraud.

‘OK,’ he says hurriedly. ‘I was hoping to have more time, but apparently I don’t, so please listen.’

He focuses back on me, his gaze gripping mine so intensely it stops my breath. ‘Sera, you’re in danger. You’re not who you think you are. There are people looking for you, and trust me when I say, you do not want them to find you.’

I shake my head dazedly. What is happening? Why is he saying these things? Why do I feel so woozy?

I don’t know him. I don’t remember him. I can’t trust him.

I repeat it over and over again. Like a mantra.

‘Which is why,’ he says emphatically, ‘it’s very important you don’t attract any attention to yourself. And especially not any press. Or photographers. Keep wearing the hat. Do whatever you need to do to conceal yourself.’

What is taking Heather so long? She should be here by now.

I look up to see that she’s stopped halfway across the parking lot to talk to a woman carrying a baby. Judging by their body language, I assume they know each other. Heather reaches out to tickle the small child, who laughs giddily in response.

‘I know you won’t believe anything I say,’ the boy continues, pulling my attention back to him. ‘At least not until you figure it out on your own. And I know you’re going to try to talk yourself out of whatever you’re feeling right now. That’s simply the way you are. But I also know the memory is in there somewhere. I’m in there somewhere.’

I drop my gaze to the ground, but he bends his head to catch it.

‘You just have to find it,’ he urges.

His voice is grave. Pleading. It makes my hands shake.

Heather has finished her conversation and is making her way towards us. She studies our interaction carefully, seemingly noticing the boy for the first time. She doubles her pace.

He glances in her direction, then back at me. ‘Sera, you need to try to remember.’

I can’t take it any more. The tingling skin. The heat. The eyes. It’s too much. I turn away from him and grab the last bag from the cart. I place it in the trunk, trying to block out the sound of his voice. But it continues to infiltrate all my mental barriers.

‘Don’t trust anyone,’ he urges. ‘Try to remember what really happened. Try to remember me.’

I focus on a box of frozen pizza that’s peeping out from the top of one of the bags.

290 words.

1,432 letters.

The counting seems to be working. I can no longer hear him. My forehead is starting to cool.

108 instances of the letter A.

87 instances of the letter—

‘Who was that?’ I hear Heather’s voice behind me and I swivel around.

‘Who?’

‘That boy who was just here talking to you.’

I think about telling her the truth. Repeating everything he said to me. But his voice still rings in my ears.

‘Don’t trust anyone.’

I peer up at Heather’s kind, gentle face. I may not remember much about anything, but I have a hard time believing she could possibly be dangerous.

Still, for some reason I find myself saying, ‘He recognized me from the news. I told him to leave me alone and he left.’

Maybe it’s because that’s what I want so desperately to believe myself.

She seems satisfied with my response and reaches up to close the trunk. I subtly scan the parking lot, searching for some trace of the boy, but I don’t see him anywhere. If Heather hadn’t asked about him, I might finally have been able to convince myself that he never even existed.

But he did.

And more than that, he knows about the locket.

Heather opens the car door for me and I nearly fall in, grateful to have something sturdy underneath me.

‘Well, Violet,’ Heather says with a chuckle as she gets in on the driver’s side and fastens her seat belt, ‘you survived the supermarket. You can pretty much conquer anything now.’

I smile politely and turn to gaze out the window. Violet, I repeat silently, the temporary name suddenly feeling as ill-fitting as my borrowed clothes.





10


WRITTEN


Heather and Scott’s son is home when we return from the supermarket. He’s smaller than I thought he would be. His photograph made him appear bigger somehow. But standing up, he’s only as high as my shoulder. His arms are skinny. His face is young. Childlike. Although I don’t technically know what thirteen is supposed to look like, Cody does not strike me as someone who is only three years younger than me. But perhaps a person does a lot of growing between the ages of thirteen and sixteen. His hair is dark blond. It sprouts in many different directions. Round wire-rimmed glasses sit across a round face that’s pocked with brown and orange freckles.