by L V Chase
Hate to Forget
Marshall High Society Book Two
L.V. Chase
Copyright © 2020 by L.V. Chase
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to names, characters, businesses, events, incidents, and locations are products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
About the Author
1
Sadie
When I was six or seven, my parents took me to a secluded beach. On the shore, I found a broken bottle, sheathed by sand and entombing mud and water inside it. While trying to look closer at it, the jagged edge cut my hand, reminding me that even the most mundane things can turn into a weapon.
The migraine throbbing in my head right now reminds me of that bottle—busted, stuck, and waterlogged—while my body feels like it’s trapped in the undertow.
I open my eyes. I’m staring up at a bright blue diamond. A wispy white cloud drifts into the blue diamond, followed by a smaller cloud. I blink. It’s not a diamond. It’s a skylight.
I sit up. A rolling pain crashes in my skull. Wincing, I cradle my head in my hands. As the pain starts to subside, I find myself looking down, where a red plastic cup is tipped over near my feet. I lift my head slowly.
The room is a public health crisis.
More red plastic cups, several beer bottles, straws, and cocktail umbrellas litter the floor and the furniture—the coffee table, the leather armchair and ottoman, and the marble mantelpiece.
I check under me. I’m lying on a sofa matching the armchair and ottoman. A maraschino cherry is squished under my ribs.
I don’t remember this party. I don’t remember this house. I don’t even remember these jeans and the t-shirt I’m wearing.
I run my hands through my hair, thinking that I got drunk. It’s not a huge deal. It’s likely my grandmother didn’t even notice that I’d been missing. As long as I didn’t do anything embarrassing, I can recover from this. It’s a simple act of shedding off the previous night and forgetting about it.
I stand up, my feet and legs wobbling underneath me. I didn’t think alcohol could wreck me this much, but my experience with it is limited. If this was me experimenting, it was an astounding failure.
“Hello?” I try to call out, but it comes out like a croak. I clear my throat, taking a few steps. It’s bright enough outside that dozens of people could have fallen asleep here and left. Or they all left the previous night, and, for some reason, I remained.
Shame burns in my cheeks. I run my hands over the button of my jeans. It doesn’t feel like anyone put them back on me, but it would be difficult to tell. I adjust my weight, testing to see if I have any pain that could indicate some kind of assault, but the ache in my body is evenly distributed throughout my body. It has to be the alcohol. I only overslept while everyone else left.
I reach the threshold of the room. The room leads out to a long hallway, decorated by a beautiful rug covered with dirty shoe prints. Toward the right, a rolled-up newspaper lies next to an ornate door.
I unsteadily walk toward it. None of my friends live in such a luxurious house, and they definitely don’t read the newspaper. I don’t even remember what day today is, but from the thickness of the newspaper, I guess it must be Sunday. I pick it up, rolling off the rubber band. I unfurl it.
I skim over it, letting the print unscramble in my head as I search for the homeowner’s address, hoping the name will trigger a memory about what happened last night. I stop at the date on the top right of the paper.
This has to be a typo. Somebody is hoping it’s two years in the future. I’m sixteen. If the date is right on this paper, I’d be eighteen.
I flip through the paper. Half the stories don’t make sense to me, but the year pops up a couple of more times. Not a typo. And it’s September, so it’s not an April Fool’s joke.
It can’t just be alcohol. Somebody must have slipped me something at the party. It’s messed up my head. Or I’m still in a dream. Or someone is messing with me.
Nobody still gets a newspaper. Someone printed this out to make me think I’d lost my mind.
I turn around, looking for someone waiting to laugh in my face. Nobody. But I hear the faintest rhythmic beat, pulsing from the other side of the house.
I follow it.
The sound warbles, a mix of rock and trap music. I backtrack a few times, making my way through the maze of rooms. This house would make a labyrinth look like a walk to my mailbox.
I stop in the kitchen. Someone is facing away from me. His height and broad shoulders remind me of a football player, but his polo shirt and khakis make me think of someone who’s never been tackled or dived for a football in his life.
I know I shouldn’t judge someone by his appearance, considering I don’t have the quick-temper people attribute to the red tinge of my hair or the sensuality men assume from the size of my ass, but this guy is the only clue I have as to where I am.
He turns around. He’s around my age. His brown hair is long enough in the front to sweep over his forehead while it’s cut short on the sides and the crown of his head. He almost looks cute until he notices me, scrunches up his nose, and frowns in distaste.
“Sadie. You’re still here,” he drawls. “Always the last whore to leave the whorehouse, aren’t you?”
Heat flares in my cheeks. I turn away, excusing my sensitivity as an after-effect of my confusion.
“I was just going to leave,” I say. “Did everyone else already go?”
“No idea,” he says. “Nearly everybody else left last night, but you might find another dick to ride if you look hard enough.”
My face is so hot now that sweat is starting to gather near my hairline. I’m a virgin. I can’t imagine I slept around at this party, but I don’t want to deny it and have him prove me wrong.
“Right,” I say. “I’m going to go.”
“Good,” he says. “Make sure the door hits your fat ass on the way out.”
I quickly turn away, walking back toward the front door. He doesn’t appear to be playing a joke on me. He didn’t ask me if I’d seen the newspaper. He didn’t bring up the year. He didn’t seem to want to talk to me at all.
Did I do something to offend him last night? A weird thought scratches at the back of my head. Or in the last two years?
I need to play along with this until I figure out what’s going on. I’ll pretend that everything is normal until it is or until somebody ends this prank.
I open the front door. When I step out, the sun is glaringly bright. As I look up at the sky, the sweet scent of autumn mixes with the warm breeze. Somebody comes bounding up at me.
If I hadn’t caught her small stature in the corner of my eye, I would have run in the other direction. Instead, I let her embrace me so tightly, that she cuts off some of my oxygen.
“Sadie!”
As she pulls away from me, her hand still resting on my arm, I can see her more clearly. The combination of her golden blonde hair, swept back into a ponytail with a slight curl at the end, and her round face would normally make me think she’s a couple of years younger than me, but she’s as confident as an upperclassman.
“Are you okay? I thought you’d gotten home fine, but I called your house and—well, you weren’t there. I’m glad you’re safe. Did something happen? You look like you just saw Tommy Doane eat his foot callous again.”
“No, no, nothing like that,” I say. Either she’s part of the prank, or I’m missing a whole friendship worth of memories. I shake my head. “I’m just tired.”
She squeezes my arm. “Sadie. You don’t seem okay. You’re acting like…I’m a stranger. You know who I am, right?”
Her forehead scrunches up as she gazes at me with a level of concern that’s hard to ignore. Or lie to. So, I keep my eyes on the stone path that leads to the paved driveway.
She thrusts her hand in between the two of us. I flinch, surprised by the abrupt movement. “Hello, Sadie. I’m Emmy, your best friend of nearly two years. If you don’t remember me, something’s wrong, and we should go to the hospital right away. What could possibly make you forget who I am?”
My mind pulls up the image of a hospital. The hundreds of windows flicker like eyes. The ambulances scream. The red emergency sign is more of a warning than a designation.
“Sadie, you’re shaking,” Emmy says, grasping my hands. I pull my hands away from her.
“Not the hospital,” I mumble. “Please.”
She nods several times. “Of course. If you don’t want to, we won’t go. I can’t force you to accept medical treatment anyway. Just let me drive you home. Since Roman seems to be fulfilling his role as a class-A dick, and it doesn’t look like he cares whether you get home or not. I’ll make sure you get home in one piece.”
Roman? That was his name. The one in the house.
“Yeah,” I say, but I’m barely paying attention to her words. I follow her to an orange Fiat. With every step, the pressure in my head pushes against my temples. The pain is compounded by the sunlight and the turbulent sensation that I’m leaving a part of myself behind in this house.
Something happened here that my brain doesn’t want to let go of, but it can’t remember anything.
“Sadie?” Emmy touches my arm. “You going to be okay?”
I force a smile. “Yep. Just taking some time to breathe.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?” she asks. “My mom is a nurse there. She’ll make sure you get good care.”
“Nah,” I say. I open the passenger door of her car. “I’m good.”
I sit down in the passenger seat as Emmy walks around the car. By the time, I’m buckled up, taking in shallow breaths to relieve some of the pain, Emmy is pulling out of the driveway.
“Do you remember anything?” she asks. “What’s the last thing you remember? We’ve known each other for a long time. I can’t believe you’ve actually forgotten everything.”
“Sorry,” I mumble, closing my eyes. “I don’t know. I remember—”
Someone. A boy. The image in my head resembles looking through a kaleidoscope. His hair is different triangles of brown. His eyes are a dozen different shades of brown as well. A devil’s grin appears in several different variations.
“Do you remember what Monday is?” Emmy prompts.
I press two fingers against my temple. “School?” I ask.
“Not just school. It’s Spirit Week,” she says. “I helped create the themed days. Hippie Monday, Punk Tuesday, Pajama Wednesday, Heaven or Hell Thursday, and, of course, Marshall Pride Friday. But nobody is going to care about that because everybody is going to be thinking about the football game or the dance on Saturday. Maybe once you get to school, you’ll remember everything. Or maybe you just need some rest. We’ll fix you up, Sadie. You’ll be blooming in no time.”
I let myself get lost in Emmy’s chatter as it alleviates some of the pressure punishing my brain. When she pulls up to my grandmother’s house, I’m a little sorry to leave the confines of her car. She’s a beacon of carefree joy.
“Thank you so much, Emmy,” I say, unbuckling my seatbelt.
She waves away my gratitude. “Lovely, you’ve been there for me through ten times worst things than this. Remember when I tried to dye my hair pink? Sorry, of course, you don’t remember. But it was a mess. My forehead looked like I was turning into a flamingo.”
I laugh but stop as the headache worsens. “Well, thanks anyway.”
“Try to get some rest,” she says as I get out of her car.
I give her a thumbs up and walk up to my door. As I open it, I try to think of a hundred different excuses for my grandmother: Emmy and I lost track of time and fell asleep, I thought I’d told you we were going to have a sleepover, my phone died—
I run my hands over my pockets. My phone. It’s not on me. I have no idea if I even had it at that party.
“Morning, Sadie.”
I spin around as a woman walks out of the living room. Her curly blonde hair sways as she walks past me to the kitchen. She has to be in her late 30’s or early 40’s, though the jeans and vintage t-shirt would fit in at any high school.
“I’m surprised you’ll still get in a car with Emmy,” she says, scrounging through my grandmother’s mail. “Isn’t that the third car her parents have bought her? If my child had crashed two cars, I wouldn’t be in a hurry to buy her a third one.”
“Maybe,” I say, drawing out the word as long as I can. She must be friends with my grandmother. I just don’t remember her like I don’t remember anything else.
“Next time you tell me you’re going to go to Emmy’s, you need to tell me if you’re staying the night,” she says. “I know you’re eighteen, and I’m not technically your guardian, but it’d still be courteous to tell me. I kept the outside lights on until midnight.”
“Sure. I’m sorry,” I say. “Uh, is my grandma around? I need to talk to her about something.”
The woman crinkles her nose. “What? Sadie, I told you yesterday. I tried to convince your grandmother’s psychologists to let you talk to her, but they won’t budge. They want at least a week for her to get used to the inpatient program. After that, they’ll see if she’s in a stable enough place to let her talk to you. I tried to tell them it would be good for both of you to talk to her, but they wouldn’t listen. I think she scared a lot of people with her breakdown. They just want to do what’s best for her recovery.”
I stare at the woman. My hands are trembling. My memory is so messed up.
What the hell happened with my grandmother? She recently had a breakdown, and I don’t even remember it. Did Emmy know about it and not want to tell me? Did I get too drunk because I couldn’t handle what happened to her?
“Thanks,” I say, quickly running up the stairs. As I burst through my bedroom door, my chest clenches. For a moment, I think it’s not even my room, but everything is in exactly the same spot, and it has all of my things. It’s just unnaturally clean compared to my usual mess.
I collapse down on my bed. I can only hope that Emmy is right. A nap will fix my brain. Whatever happened to my grandmother, she’ll get out of it soon enough. I’ll figure out whatever issue I have with the other guy in the house. Soon, my only problem will be keeping my room this tidy.
2
Sadie
Needless to say, my plan failed. I woke up five times, and my memories of the last two years remained a black hole, sucking awa
y the last of my sanity. At least I had a newfound respect for the dangers of alcohol.
Getting ready for school was punctuated by surges of anxiety. I pull on my jeans, wondering how I’m going to get past the woman who’s replaced my grandmother. I brush my teeth, the bristles flattening as I plot how I’m going to make it through the school day, knowing nothing about my schedule or any of the lessons.
The migraine is gone, but I still feel like I’m missing more than my memory.
I navigate down the stairs, listening carefully for the woman. I check each room, but I don’t find her. She must have left already. I grab a granola bar. I can’t be certain when the bus is going to stop at the house, so I’ll have to wait for it outside.
I step out of my door, my bag over my shoulder. My bag had a biology textbook and a US government textbook, so I know two things: I’m taking biology and US government, and the high school hasn’t upgraded from textbooks to e-books.
I sit down on a brick wall, creating a border between the driveway and a small garden. I take small bites out of the granola bar, keeping my eyes on the road. When I’m finished, I shove the wrapper into my pocket. I tap my feet against the cracked blacktop.
If I had my phone, I could have figured out significantly more about the last two years, but I couldn’t find it anywhere in my room. It could still be at that asshole’s house, but getting it from him will be my last resort. If there’s one blessing of this memory loss, it’s that I likely forgot several other conversations I had with him.