Unremembered (Unremembered #1)(45)

‘My front yard,’ I reply.

‘And past that?’

I struggle to remember what was past the yard. But I can’t see much.

A tall concrete wall rising ten feet into the air blocks my view. There’s a narrow walkway that leads from the base of the porch steps and across the lawn but it stops at a thick steel gate that’s been set into the wall.

‘I don’t know,’ I reply, flustered. ‘There’s a giant wall. It circles the whole house. I can’t see anything over it.’

‘It’s all right,’ Zen assures me, resting his hand atop mine.

‘What is the wall for?’ I ask.

But to my surprise, it’s me who responds. Or some variation of me. Once again, I hear my voice drop into an unnerving, inflectionless drone as I callously repeat something I don’t recall learning. ‘It’s for my own protection.’

A debilitating chill runs up my arm. Zen strokes my fingers. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he says. ‘Focus on what happened next.’

I nod, forcing myself back into the scene.

My eyes scan the length of the wall, searching for the source of the strange noise I heard from inside the house. I notice something move off to the side.

‘I saw something,’ I tell Zen.

‘What did you see?’

My gaze whips to the right and lands on a pair of hands that are gripping the top of the wall. I hear a grunt as someone struggles to pull himself up. A head appears a moment later. I can’t make out the features of his face but I can see that he’s young. My age. Maybe slightly older.

‘A boy,’ I reply, my excitement growing. ‘He was climbing the wall.’

He swings one leg carefully over the top, followed by the other. Then he sits perched on the ledge, staring down. Gauging the distance to the ground. After a moment, he pushes himself off, free-falling for a second, before landing in a crouched position on the other side.

My side.

He stands and dusts himself off. I can see his face now. He has thick, dark eyebrows that are pinched together to form a crease above the bridge of his nose. His eyes are a rich brown. His hair is almost black. It sweeps across his forehead, a few strands tickling the tips of his eyelashes. He shakes his head to brush them away as a single drop of sweat falls from his forehead.

‘It was you,’ I say quietly, opening my eyes and gazing into the same oval-shaped face.

Zen grins. ‘It was me.’

‘You climbed the wall?’

He shrugs. ‘What can I say? I was curious. You put a giant concrete wall in front of a guy, he’s gonna try to find out what’s on the other side.’

‘I guess I wasn’t the only one who was bad at following rules,’ I point out playfully before shutting my eyes again.

The sight of the trespassing stranger brings about an ambush of emotions. Terror. Exhilaration. The unyielding urge to run.

I pivot back towards the house, my gaze immediately landing on a flashing red button that is secured to the wall just inside the front door.

‘What is that?’ I ask Zen.

‘What is what?’

‘The red button on the wall. What’s it for?’

But before I even finish asking the question, the answer has already been triggered in my mind.

It’s in case of emergency.

A shudder overtakes me and I mutter, ‘Never mind,’ before Zen has a chance to respond.

But evidently I didn’t consider the appearance of this boy an emergency because as I fall back into the scene, I find that: I’m still on the porch. I didn’t run back inside. I didn’t hit the flashing red button. I’m still hiding behind the same pillar. Watching him. Trying to figure out where he came from. Who he is. How old he is.

I open my eyes and look at Zen. ‘How old are you, by the way?’

‘I was seventeen when this took place. I’m eighteen now.’

Content to have something concrete to add to my meagre list of facts, I close my eyes again.

From my hiding spot, I watch the boy as he stares at the house in wonderment. He gazes up and down the facade, his face revealing a dazed, almost endearing curiosity. His presence both fascinates and frightens me at the same time.

‘What do you see?’ I hear Zen ask from beside me. I think he’s moved closer.

‘You,’ I say, allowing myself just the hint of a smile.

‘What am I doing?’

The boy takes a few steps forward but then stops. Very abruptly. He clearly sees something. And it only takes a moment for me to realize what it is.

Me.

I tentatively peer around the pillar and our eyes meet.

‘You’re looking at me,’ I reply.

He laughs softly. ‘It’s hard not to.’

He’s definitely closer now. I can feel his gaze on me. His breath. It’s warm and sweet.

My heart starts to pound.

And at this exact moment, I honestly don’t know if it’s because of the girl in my memory, standing on her front porch, frozen in fear of the stranger who has just unexpectedly infiltrated her life. Or if it’s because of me now. Sitting next to that very same stranger. Paralysed by feelings I don’t understand.

All at once, everything is tangled.

I can’t tell the memory from the reality. I can’t separate the emotions.