Unremembered (Unremembered #1)(20)

‘Me too.’

A loud voice comes from a speaker above our heads, announcing the arrival of bus 312 to Los Angeles. ‘Well, that’s us,’ Cody says. ‘Should we go find that lost mind of yours?’

I gaze out the window at the large silver-and-blue vehicle pulling noisily up to the kerb. There’s an illustration of a dog on the side. He’s running. To where? I don’t know.

I wonder if he does.

There’s a sign on the front of the bus that reads LOS ANGELES.

It’s a start. I suppose I can’t ask for much more at this point.

‘Yes,’ I reply to Cody, taking a deep breath. ‘Let’s go.’





13


GRUDGES


The bus isn’t smooth like the car we took from the hospital. It’s jerky and smells funny. And there are no buttons to make the windows go down. As soon as we sit, Cody takes his phone out of his pocket and I get excited because I think he’s going to show me more about the Internet. But instead he holds the phone close to his face and becomes incredibly absorbed in running his fingertip across the screen in rapid motion, causing images of small animals to move around.

I face forward and allow my eyes to drift shut.

But the second they close, he’s there. The boy. His mouth is curved in that easy smile. His eyes gaze at me with an undeniable longing.

‘So you do remember . . . At least some part of you does.’

My eyes flutter back open. I stare at the seat in front of me. Blue cloth. A fold-up table. A pouch made of string. I try to distract myself by counting the threads in the fabric, but it doesn’t work.

My mind still wanders. To him. His smooth, settling voice speaking such jagged, unsettling things.

I wish proving or disproving his claims were as easy as solving Goldbach’s conjecture. A few lines of formulas on a whiteboard. A few calculations and it’s done. Circled. Disproved. Moving on.

But it’s not.

So here I am. On this bus. Travelling one hundred and seventy-five miles to try to refute something I’m unable to refute on my own.

Maybe then it will go away – this feeling I get every time I see his face in my mind. It starts deep in my stomach and spreads quickly. Growing stronger by the second. And if I focus on his eyes, it becomes unbearable. It’s like a sickness. A prickle just under my skin. A clenching of muscles.

And the worst part is, I don’t know what it is. I can’t label it. Is it simply because I’m a girl and he’s a boy? Some kind of biological, hormonal reaction to the opposite sex that I have no control over?

But if that’s the case, then I should feel the same sensation when I’m around Cody. Who’s also a boy. However, when I turn and look at him, his face partially lit by the screen of his phone, the feeling vanishes. I stare longer, harder, waiting for it to return, but it doesn’t.

He looks up at me with a displeased expression. ‘Can I help you?’

I shake my head. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘What’s the matter? Spellbound by my irresistible good looks?’

I’m once again perplexed by his cutting tone. ‘What is that?’

He glances down at his screen. ‘A game.’

‘No, in your voice. Why do you talk like that?’

‘Like what?’

‘You say things you don’t mean.’

He chuckles. ‘It’s called sarcasm. You don’t have that in your little mental dictionary either?’

‘I do,’ I admit.

‘Well, there you go.’ He turns his attention back to the phone.

‘You don’t like me.’

He smiles but I can tell immediately it’s not the genuine kind. I’m starting to realize that there’s a difference. And it’s an important one.

‘That’s not true. I like you tremendously.’

And there it is again.

‘Why are you bitter?’ I ask.

‘Bitter?’

‘Sarcasm: bitterness. Used to convey scorn or insult. Why are you bitter?’

He sighs and places the phone down in his lap. ‘I’m not bitter.’

‘Then why are you conveying scorn or insult?’

He shifts in his seat. ‘OK, I’m not bitter at you, specifically. More at . . . I don’t know . . . girls like you.’

I struggle with this. ‘Girls like me?’

His face starts to turn that peculiar shade of red again. ‘You know –’ he glances out the window – ‘girls who look like you.’

‘What do I look like?’

He groans and peers back at me. ‘Are you really going to make me say it?’

I don’t reply.

‘Pretty!’ he finally says, the red deepening. He faces the window again. ‘OK? You’re very pretty. You should be a model. If you’re not already. There you go.’

I process this. ‘And you don’t like that.’

I can see his reflection in the glass. He’s shaking his head and closing his eyes. ‘No. I do. It’s just that pretty girls don’t normally talk to guys like me. Or if they do . . . Well, let’s just say they’re not very nice.’

‘So you’re bitter,’ I confirm. ‘At pretty girls.’