by Teagan Kade
I look to the bag of designer clothes, smiling. “Are you sure you can afford me?”
*
I’m not ready for the explosion of sound and activity that is The Mall. Being the weekend, it’s extremely busy, people dashing to and fro, teenagers bent to their phones and mothers pulling screaming children from one place to the next.
“People come here for fun?” I ask Ethan.
“Not me,” he replies, weaving us through the crowds. “This is sort of like my idea of hell, actually.”
I smile to myself at the knowledge he was prepared to come down here to ‘hell’, simply to help me out.
“Here we are,” he says, opening out his arms in front of a large store called ‘Target’, though he pronounces it ‘Tar-jay.’
“Is this a fancy store?” I ask. “Because I was joking earlier, you know.”
He really laughs at that. “Well, it’s about as fancy as you’re going to get around here, I’m afraid. Though in terms of designer cred, it’s more like Burger King than Burberry.”
I look up at the sign. It doesn’t seem like it’s a designer store. More than that, it doesn’t seem a place I would frequent, or have in the past, though I’m not sure exactly why I feel that way.
Ethan offers his hand. “Shall we?”
“By all means.”
If I felt uncomfortable inside what Ethan tells me is a ‘big box store,’ Ethan looks like he’s in another world entirely, crossing and unfolding his arms, jumping from one foot to the other and scanning around. “You don’t like shopping?” I ask, looking over the racks.
“I’d happily take basic training over shopping any day of the week.”
“What about your clothes?” He looks like he dresses well.
“I order online.”
I take a floral full-sleeve dress from the rack, holding it against myself because it seems like the natural thing to do, even though this whole thing seems completely unnatural to me.
Ethan senses my confusion. “What is it?”
I look up to him. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever shopped for myself before.”
“You remember something?”
“It’s more of a feeling, a hunch.”
“No, it’s good,” Ethan enthuses. “Maybe you had a personal shopper, a stylist even? It would make sense.”
I place the shirt back. “Yes, perhaps you’re right.”
“Do you want to go somewhere else?” he offers. “There are plenty of other stores here. I just thought… I don’t know. There’d be more options here?”
I select a plain pocket half-sleeve shirt that seems my size and smile. “No, this is fine. Come on. Help me choose.”
“Just remember, you asked for it.”
After a while it actually becomes something of an enjoyable experience. It seems, contrary to his disdain for shopping, Ethan is actually pretty good at it. The sizing is always off, but the colors and patterns he mixes together, his eye, seems on point—at least I think so. For all I know I could be walking out of this store the laughing stock of the entire mall, not that I’d care, or realize.
I find a fedora in the men’s section and place it on Ethan’s head when he’s not looking. He spins around with his lip bent doing his best hard-boiled detective impression. “What’ll it be, ma’am? The street or the slammer?”
“The street?” I laugh, trying to stop myself crying he looks so damn ridiculous. He takes it off and places it on the nearest rack. “I’m more of a baseball cap kind of guy.”
“Where did you get your fashion sense?” I ask. “I’ve seen the way other women look at you around here… even back at the hospital.”
He turns as if one of those so-called shopping stalkers is right behind him. “Oh, really? You think it’s my dress sense they find attractive, not my dashing good looks?”
And darn it I’m heating up again, skin blazing away. I look down to the armful of clothes I’m holding, trying to change the subject. “I’ll pay you back for everything, I promise.”
“Even all that is hardly going to make me broke,” he muses. “It’s fine. I’m happy to help.”
“Why are you being so nice to me?” I ask, the question just kind of popping into my head.
“Why not?” he answers.
Satisfied, I look to the other end of the store. “You said something about toiletries?”
He straightens himself up and takes a step back from me. I hadn’t realized how close we’d been standing. “Right. Home’s where your toothbrush is, after all.”
“Funny,” I reply, “I thought it was where the heart is.”
He smiles. In it I see something I haven’t noticed before, at the way he looks at me. I don’t know what it is, but I think I like it.
No, I know I like it.
“That too,” he says. “That too.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
ETHAN
I snap awake.
At first I think I’m in a dream, that someone is screaming in the distance.
The alarm clock reads 3am, the screaming growing in intensity and volume.
Sofia.
I push the covers off and stumble towards the bedroom looking for the light switch, but I’m so sleep drunk I can’t seem to find it.
I manage to find the switch for the bedside lamp at least.
With light, I see Sofia thrashing in the bed, her face glossy with sweat, eyes closed. Her chest is an accordion, her mouth wide and open between screams.
Check your surroundings for any sign of danger—It’s first aid 101.
I scan the room but find no boogey man or open window. No, whatever she’s going through is internal.
Her fingers pull at the sheets, her legs splaying open and snapping shut.
I come to the side of the bed and place my hands on her shoulders, trying my best to fix her in position, but she’s strong.
“Sofia,” I tell her using my EMT voice—loud, clear. “Sofia. You’re having a bad dream. You’re okay.”
She’s practically hyperventilating with terror. “No,” she starts to say, eyes squinting harder closed. “No, please! Please, please!” she begs, reaching up to tug at my arm.
I hold her head. “It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re safe,” I repeat. “It’s me, Ethan. Listen to my voice.”
She starts to relax.
“Just follow the sound of my voice. That’s it.”
Slowly, her body softens and sinks back to the bed, the fight gone. Her eyes open slowly, blinking once, twice. I see the last strands of the nightmare pulling away in them. “Ethan?” she asks.
Her hair is stuck to her forehead. I drag it back behind her ear. “There you are. You were having a nightmare, that’s all.”
I see her trying to recall it. “There was a man, I think. I could see the barrel of a gun, so, so close.”
Her eyes grow glassy and I don’t want to push it. I want to consider this is a coincidence, but she was shot in the head and dumped under a bridge after all. No, this is her starting to remember.
She sits up, the Mickey Mouse nightshirt she chose at Target hanging loosely over her breasts. Being this close to her, so near… It’s too much to handle this time of night.
A siren goes off in the distance. She jumps forward into my arms.
It’s unexpected, but my first instinct is to hold her there tight, to never let her go no matter what kind of professionalism protocol demands.
You’re taking advantage of her, a distant voice whispers. She’s got a fucking head injury. She’s not thinking straight.
Her body’s warm against mine, the soft pillows of her breasts flattened out against my chest and her nipples, firmer, pressing deeper.
She’s breathing hard against my shoulder, a steady pull and push of air. Her hair’s in my face. I’m caught in the silky web of it, the heady scent of her.
Suddenly, she pulls herself back, staring at me in that short limbo between us, her eyes wet and wide and a whole world within them.
I respond. It’s instinct.
I’d thought about this moment, of course. I’d thought about it constantly ever since I looked down on her in the back of the bus, but now it’s happening it’s more than I ever could have imagined.
I bring my hand up her side. She deepens the kiss, her mouth going wider and mine moving to match, the heat and intensity turning my cock to steel.
But it’s there at that precipice, hovering at the edge, the self-talk amplifies to unbearable levels.
I’m more surprised at myself when I’m the one who pulls back, breathing downwards. I cannot believe I’m saying these fucking words, but they come out broken and rushed all the same: “We shouldn’t.”
I thought I’d seen pain in my line of work before, but the pain that folds over her features now threatens to tear my heart in two.
Frantically, I try to work out what the hell I was thinking.
“You didn’t like it?” she asks, voice unsteady, cracking like a crystal glass. “You don’t like me?”
I exhale and can’t bring myself to maintain eye contact. I force my eyes upwards. “I don’t think you’re ready,” I don’t know how to phrase it, “for something like that. I don’t think we are ready,” I correct, trying not to make this about her. “I don’t want you to mistake gratitude for attraction. It happens.”
She nods and swallows, taking it in, but I can see she’s disappointed. She wipes away a tear and tries to smile. It’s so beautiful I immediately reconsider my actions.
Still, she doesn’t argue. She backs up a little and brings her knees to her chest, rocking there. “How are we going to find out who am I?” she asks, no doubt doing her best to change the subject even though I can still taste her on my lips, still feel my cock straining for attention.
I shift to hide my erection and try to snap my brain back to logical thinking. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought,” I start.
She seems surprised by this. “You have?”
I nod once. “I think we should go to the media, have them do a story on you. After you’ve been on the news, word will circulate, social media might kick in…. Someone has to recognize you, right?”
“Shouldn’t the police do that?”
The police had to spoken to Sofia, but naturally she couldn’t provide them with any information. I overheard the officer in charge talking to Doctor Grant in the hallway. They had nothing—no witnesses, no fingerprints, tread marks, footage… Worse, they didn’t have the resources to look into it much further unless Sofia started to remember. No, I don’t think the police would be much help here. We have to do this ourselves.
I had considered the possibility going to the media might attract attention of a different kind, the wrong attention from the wrong people—those individuals who harmed Sofia to begin with. I don’t think it was a random shooting at all. The pieces didn’t fit, not that I’d studied criminal psychology, but the Army does tend to provide you with a sixth sense about such things—a ‘shitdar’ as one of my old medic buddies used to say.
In the end, I knew Sofia would be here with me and that anyone trying to hurt her was a) going to have a hard time getting in here and b) a hell of a lot harder time again trying to get through me. You can leave the military, but the military never leaves you. Every backfiring car, every plane overhead… You’re wired for the rest of your life whether you like it or not.
In some ways that’s why I think I was drawn to being a paramedic after I came home. I still needed that adrenaline hit, that step outside the normal. Nothing else comes close.
I bring my attention back to Sofia and my boxers stir again. Almost nothing.
“I think it’s a good idea,” she says, yawning.
“We’ll go in the morning,” I tell her, “but for now you need to rest.”
She lies down without protest.
I pull the quilt back over her, the briefest glimpse between her legs before they’re covered completely. “Get some sleep, okay? I’m just in the lounge if you need me.”
But her eyes are already closed.
I shut the bedroom door, leaving it partially open just in case.
She may have found sleep easily again, but I spend the next hour tossing and turning on the sofa bed, pulling the sheets this way and that and doing my best to keep my erection from trying to dig its way to China.
What the fuck were you thinking? comes the voice from downstairs. You were fucking in and you pull out?
My old man thought of himself as something of a Casanova. I don’t know if his four wives were a good measure of his prowess, but he loved to hand me advice about the fairer sex.
‘Don’t be a pussy,’ he told me once. ‘Make the first move and never back down. Girls don’t want weakness, son. They want a good, hard dicking from a man who knows he’s the boss. It’s primal,’ he told me, tapping his head, ‘evolution. It’s built into their brains, the need to be taken. Use it.’
Yeah, Pop had plenty of that material on hand. Perhaps I bought into it a bit, but I never wanted to be a chip off the old block. I’d see the way he burnt my mother, the pain it caused and the subsequent fallout. The wives that followed were clones of her, at least on the outside, but it was never the same. Dad would always be looking for something better. When he found it, they’d be gone.
Maybe that’s why I’ve always stayed clear of long-term relationships. I’ve seen first-hand the damage they can cause. Better to fuck and forget than settle down.
I kick the blanket off and lie spread-eagled staring up at the light fixture. Even its phallic shape seems to be taunting me tonight.
Fuck this.
I get up and make my way to the bathroom, closing the door and turning the shower on. I strip and step inside with one hand on the wall and the other on my dick, lightly stroking it.
I let it go and pound my fist against the tiles, unable to shake these sexual thoughts and know full well a quick jerk in the shower is only going to be a temporary measure.
Instead, I shut the hot tap off and turn to the cold tap to full, the water moving from warm to cold and then shrivel-your-balls-into-your-body freezing.
But it does the job.
If only for a minute.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SOFIA
The leather in Ethan’s truck is warm thanks to sitting out in the sun. It stirs a memory I can’t seem to catch hold of.
I hold the locket in my hand, rolling it around in my fingers. I don’t know how many times I’ve looked at it now. I feel like I know every surface and blemish, every contour of the mystery woman’s face. I look outside the window expecting to see her walking down the street, but it’s only someone jogging or walking their dog—normal people doing normal things.
We pull up outside the studio building, Ethan switching off the engine. “Are you sure you’re up to this?”
He managed to call in a favor with an old friend from college who knew a reporter. But now we are here, I can’t help the nerves that are telling me to run away and go back to the safe sanctuary of Ethan’s apartment. “Yes,” I reply, far from resolute.
“I’ve called ahead, so she’ll be waiting. I’ve been assured it won’t take long. The girl I spoke to almost sounded excited about it.”
“Excited?”
He shrugs. “Apparently, amnesia stories are big news. Who would have thought?”
I don’t know if I want to be ‘big news,’ but Ethan hasn’t let me down so far. I need to trust him again.
“Come on,” he says, all enthusiasm, “let’s get you inside.”
The studio building is a towering structure of metal and glass, the atrium with its projected screens and sounds is like something from the future.
“Wait here,” says Ethan, looking over to the front desk. “I’ll be right back.”
I see him wander over to the desk and talk to the young brunette behind it. She smiles back accordingly
and brings a phone receiver to her ear, smiling at Ethan again.
I hold myself. Even having him this far away is hard.
I’m relieved when he returns. “It shouldn’t be long.”
I watch the screens.
A news story about a derailed train runs, followed by a missing child, a drug bust…
“Is the news always this glum?” I ask, unsure where I found that particular word in my head.
“Well, I wouldn’t recommend it for a date night.”
“I’m curious. What would you recommend?”
He has his hands in his pockets, a simple navy Harrington jacket unzipped down the middle. For some reason I think it’s the kind of jacket an old man would wear, but Ethan’s pulling it off somehow. Again, I don’t know where this information comes from. Maybe I was in the fashion industry? A designer? That would be impressive. I look down at my ‘Target’ clothes. What would designer me think of them?
“Sofia and… Ethan, I presume?”
We both turn to face a young woman wearing a bold blue blouse, her platinum hair pulled into a ponytail so tight I’m pretty sure it’s keeping her eyebrows in a constant state of surprise.
Ethan extends his hand. “Yes, and you must be Abbey Coffman, the reporter.”
Abbey’s beaming, but unlike other women, it’s directed at me. She’s looking at me like I’m a meal. “Sofia,” she says, like we’ve known each other forever, “so pleased you could make it. I’m going to take you right up to the studio. Follow me.”
Ethan nods, smiling. I follow the two of them.
Abbey snaps around while we’re waiting for the elevator. “I can’t wait to share your story, Sofia. It’s got a bit of everything, don’t you think? Mystery, intrigue,” smiling at Ethan, “a knight in shining armor.”
Ethan looks uncomfortable. “I wouldn’t say—” but he’s interrupted by the ping of the elevator doors opening, Abbey jetting inside and waving me forward. “Aren’t you excited?”
I’m not sure if I’m headed up to an interview or a pep rally. Once we step out, following Abbey down a maze of corridors to arrive at the news studio, I know it ain’t no pep rally.
There are people everywhere, panels of lights beaming down from above. I thought the lighting in the hospital was bright, but this is like the Second Coming.