Unremembered (Unremembered #1)(31)

‘Whatever,’ is his reply.

At the restaurant, Heather shows me how to order from a menu and recommends a few items she thinks I would like. I finally decide on something called baked ziti because Heather says it shares an ingredient with the delicious sandwich she made for me a few days ago.

And although the dish is very good – unbelievably good – I can’t fully enjoy it. My mind is distracted. The events of the day are replaying on an endless loop.

‘Did you have fun shopping today?’ Scott asks me after he sucks a long noodle into his mouth.

‘Yes,’ I lie.

I seem to be doing a lot of that lately. I wonder if it’s somehow indicative of who I used to be.

‘We got some really adorable stuff,’ Heather adds. ‘It was so much fun to be able to shop for a girl for a change.’

Across the table, I see Cody roll his eyes. He’s fully engaged with something on his phone.

I’m not very talkative and soon the conversation shifts to the topic of Scott’s work. I’m grateful to have the time to myself to think.

Why am I reciting poetry from the year 1609?

Why do I have a locket with that very year engraved on the back?

Why is it the first thing I said when they pulled me from the ocean?

And why is that boy – Zen – the only one who seems to know anything about any of it?

I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know who to trust. I can’t even trust my own mind. I want to crawl under this table and never resurface. I want to swim into the sea and never turn around. I just want to escape.

After dinner, we step out into the warm summer-night air. It feels fresh and rejuvenating on my skin. The sun has already set and I can smell the faint traces of the ocean a few miles away. Scott takes Cody in his car, saying something about making a quick stop at the drugstore, and I go with Heather.

She navigates the twisty dark road that leads to the house, the headlights illuminating only a few feet of the way ahead of us. As we near the driveway, I notice a man walking up the hill from the other direction. Heather spots him a good five seconds later and slows the car.

I find it odd for someone to be walking alone in the dark but it doesn’t seem to bother her. She simply smiles and waves. The same way she always does when she passes pedestrians. On the way to the supermarket the other day she explained that it’s something people do in small towns: they wave to each other.

But the man doesn’t wave back.

As the car comes closer, his eyes lock on me and my heart leaps into my throat.

I recognize him.

He’s tall, with bright auburn hair and a matching beard.

I saw him yesterday. He was on the bus Cody and I rode from the airport to the bus station.

In Los Angeles.

Nearly two hundred miles away.

So what is he doing here? In this town? On this street?

Heather seems completely oblivious to my reaction and the strangeness of the situation. Meanwhile my brain is scrambling for an explanation. When I saw him staring at me on the bus, I assumed he recognized me from the news. So I lowered my baseball cap and turned around.

But I can’t do that now.

I can’t just turn away and ignore him.

I observe him carefully until we pass and then I whip my head around and continue to study him through the back window. He’s stopped walking. He stands in the middle of the road, watching Heather’s car as it turns into the driveway.

I fumble with the ramifications. Whoever this man is now knows where the Carlsons live. Where I live.

Chances are, he’s just another one of those media-hungry people that Kiyana warned me about in the hospital. Chances are, he just wants a photograph of the girl who fell from the sky and lived to tell the tale.

But it’s not these options that cause my stomach to tie in knots.

It’s those other options. The ones I don’t know about. The ones my imagination creates.

‘There are people looking for you, and trust me when I say, you do not want them to find you.’

A strange sensation floods through my body. My muscles are tingling. Almost as though they’re warming up for something. Anticipating. My arms and legs vibrate. My head feels light. Almost dizzy. My fingers twitch.

I eye the car door, feeling a sudden urge to shove it open, leap from the moving vehicle and run. Run until I’m far away from here.

I grow antsy. Jittery. My legs burn. Like there’s a fire lashing inside them. I can’t make sense of what I’m feeling. I can’t think. All I know is I have to get out of here. I have to get out of this car. Now!

My breathing has become ragged and fast. But Heather doesn’t seem to notice. She continues to steer the car down the long driveway towards the house. We’re almost there. Only a few more seconds. My whole body is trembling now. I rest my shaking hand on the door.

When the car finally pulls to a stop, I yank swiftly on the handle and kick open the door, readying myself to run. But I’m stopped by a startling noise. A horrible crunching, grating sound. Like metal ripping and glass shattering.

Heather gasps and drops the box of leftovers she brought home from the restaurant, splattering red pasta sauce everywhere.

I glance down. The entire car door is lying on the asphalt driveway.





20


DEPARTURE


Night has long since fallen but the house is still awake.