Henry Franks(28)

“Any bands you like?” she asked.

He rubbed his palms up and down his thighs, then froze as a blush crept up his cheeks. The scar on his wrist itched despite the numbness spreading over his arms and he tensed his fingers out against the mattress to keep from scratching.

“You don’t remember,” she said as she sat on the only chair in the room and wheeled it closer to him. She picked up his right hand, rubbing her thumb over the skin. “It’s all right, Henry.” She stroked his palm until he relaxed and their fingers intertwined.

“It’s over there,” he said after a number of deep breaths.

“What?”

“The scrapbook.”

She pulled him with her as she scooted back to the desk and kept his hand in hers as she flipped open the album.

The first picture showed Henry as a young boy, portrait-posed with his hair combed down and hair-sprayed. A fake smile creased his face and he’d tilted his head as though listening to someone telling him how to sit properly.

“School pic?” she asked.

He nodded, and she turned the page.

A series of portraits, one a year, scrolled across the double page as he aged to early teens.

“Nothing more recent?”

“No,” he said. “This last one here was a few years ago, I think.”

She turned another page, one after the other. Standing beside her, Henry kept silent.

On its very own page, the picture he’d brought to Dr. Saville’s office once upon a time: his parents’ smiles as they held him between them.

“Your mom?” she asked, looking from the picture to Henry, then back again.

“Her name’s Christine,” he said. “I don’t remember her, though. Only what my Dad says.”

“And?”

Henry was silent for a long time, his eyes restless, moving back and forth between his mother and Justine. He shook his head, then closed his eyes to block both views. “I think he’s lying to me,” he said.

“About?”

“I don’t know.” He opened his eyes. She was watching him and the sensation was unlike anything he’d ever known. “It’s just a feeling, when I think about her name, and my dad’s.”

“What kind of feeling?”

“That the names are wrong.” He shrugged. “I don’t know how to describe it. When I say her name, it feels right.”

“And his doesn’t?”

He sighed. “Only her first name feels right.”

“And her last name?”

“He’s lying,” he said and then fell silent. “It’s my last name too.”

“Does your name feel right?” she asked.

“Henry does.”

“And the rest?”

“Is wrong somehow.”

“Your mom?”

“He doesn’t talk about her much. Just that she died in the accident that took my memory. He’s sad a lot, I think.”

“Are you?” Justine asked.

“Sad?” He looked at her, the curls of hair escaping down her neck, the steady gaze from honey eyes, and shrugged. “Sometimes, I guess. Isn’t everyone?”

She looked away, back to the scrapbook, and turned another page—to the picture of his birthday party with the strangers who should be friends watching him blow out candles in a park he should have recognized.

“Henry,” she said, her fingers resting on the picture. “When’s your birthday?”

“November 19th. Why?”

Justine looked up at him, squeezing his fingers. “It’s not fall.”

“So?”

“In this picture. It’s doesn’t look like autumn. Those trees should have shed their leaves by November, even here in the South. They should at least be a different color.”

He stared at the photograph. In the background, behind the picnic table they were gathered around, trees filled with green leaves shaded the park. One of his friends, standing to the side, was in shorts, and all of them were tan.

He’d never noticed anything else before, beyond the faces he couldn’t remember.

“Henry?”

With a sigh, he touched the picture, resting his finger on his own face.

“Who am I?” he asked, the words barely more than a breath of air.

His fingers fell limp in her hand and slipped away as he backed up to his bed. He sat, hunched over and rocking back and forth.

“Breathe,” he said.

She was on her feet in front of him, her fingers on his arm.

“Henry?” She took his hand and squeezed it between both of hers.

He shuddered at the touch, then looked up at her from behind his hair. A thin trail of blood leaked from his nose, staining his lips a violent shade of red. He smiled at her touch.

“The medicine,” he said, barely a whisper, reaching a hand to his nose.

“It’s all right, Henry.” She wiped his face off with the bed sheet, pressing her palm against his cheek as her fingers ran over his skin. She sank to the floor in front of him and reached out to him. His head rested against her shoulder as she hugged him.

He rocked in her embrace, whispering “Breathe” over and over into her neck.

When he opened his eyes, he watched the pulse in her throat beat in time with his. Sweat glistened on her skin, so very close, and with each deep breath he inhaled her, sweet and feminine and intoxicating. Her fingers ran up and down his back, warm and comforting, and her head rested lightly on his. For a moment, he couldn’t even remember his name and didn’t care.