Remember Me Always

by Renee Collins

  “I’m tired of arguing with you,” I snap.

  He pauses, and then his voice comes again. “Well, maybe I should leave you alone. Give you some space.”

  I spin around, glaring at him. “I wish you would.” The words fall from my tongue like acid. “I’m sick of this, and I’m sick of you.”

  The look of pain on his face brings instant regret. I want to retract my words. I want to press the rewind button and go back to the start of the night. Try again. But it’s too late. Swallowing the bile in my throat, I storm off and get in my car, slamming the door.

  Auden stands frozen in place. He’s a few yards back, but I can see him staring at me. I turn away, tears streaming down my face. I’ve never loved anyone as deeply as I love Auden. So why do I hurt him like this? Why does he hurt me? Why does it have to be like this?

  Part of me is begging to get out of the car. To let him hold me in his arms. I want things to be perfect between us again. But I know that’s guilt talking. I love him, and I don’t want to hurt him. I could get back out right now, and we would make up easily, but the problems would only come back later. They always do.

  An inescapable train of thought charges through my heart. For the first time, I stare in the face the fact that I really do need space from Auden.

  I have to break up with him.

  Heart pounding with pain, I start my car. And immediately, my phone starts ringing. Ignoring it, I pull out of the dirt lot. Auden runs toward me, phone to his ear. The ringing echoes in the car, screaming in my head.

  I keep driving. And the phone keeps ringing, ringing, ringing. And I cry. The road ahead blurs in a mixture of falling twilight and tears. Auden sprints behind me, almost keeping pace with my car.

  A strange, small light moves gently in my peripheral vision. Up and down, up and down. In the midst of my own distress, I give one single thought to that light. It’s too high to be headlights. It moves too strangely.

  Auden screams my name. My eyes flash to the rearview mirror. Both of his hands are outstretched. His eyes are wide with panic.

  I snap my gaze back to the windshield in time to see headlights illuminate a man. I slam on the brakes. But it’s too late.

  Impact.

  A scream rips from my soul and tears through me as the man’s body flies out of view.

  And then, as I swerve, the telephone pole comes toward me like a specter of death.

  • • •

  Images and sounds flicker in and out of focus.

  I stumble out of the car, sobbing and shaking. Auden catches me from falling. His face is white as a ghost.

  My words are slurred and frantic. “The man. The man. I hit him.”

  Then, I’m lying on the grass, trembling. So cold. So dark and cold. My head feels wet, and I know it’s from my own blood, because the iron tang burns my tongue even now.

  Auden’s bent over the crumpled body of the man. On the grass, that small white light glares blankly from an elastic strap. A strap that’s no longer around the man’s head.

  “I hit him. I hit him.”

  Auden’s dialing a cell phone. His voice is low and shaky. “There’s been an accident. Someone’s been hit.”

  He pulls the phone away and looks at me, his eyes wide. I can vaguely hear the buzz of a voice on the other end. But Auden doesn’t respond. With trembling hands, he sets the phone on the man’s chest.

  Then, I’m in Auden’s arms as he carries me to the car. “Stay with me, Shelby. Stay awake.”

  “I hit him,” I moan, quietly. “I hit him.”

  He shushes me and kisses my head. Blood stains his lips. He sets me in the passenger seat.

  Auden climbs into the driver’s seat. He stares forward for a long time. And then we drive away.

  • • •

  Auden’s hand is the first solid thing I grasp as I come to. But I’m not in the car anymore. I’m lying in a bed. An antiseptic smell lingers in my nose, and the soft, persistent beep of a heart monitor breaks the silence.

  Awareness of pain comes over me next. A throbbing, dizzying ache overwhelms every part of my body. I let out a weak moan. Auden’s hand tightens over mine.

  Auden.

  I crack my eyes open slowly. He watches me. His face is still pale, though his eyes are red. He kisses my hand gently.

  “Do you need more medicine? Are you in pain?”

  I manage a nod, and Auden calls the nurse to bring in more pain meds. Hanging up the phone, he turns back to me, stroking my hair. His eyes gleam with tears.

  “I’m sorry, Shelby,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

  My throat is dry as paper, but I croak out a few words. “What happened?”

  “We were in an accident,” he says, his eyes down. “I was distracted, and I lost control of the car. We hit a…” Tears stream down his face now. “We hit a telephone pole.”

  Searching the haze of my mind yields nothing but confusion. After the nurses administer more Vicodin, the haze only grows. As the pain melts away, so does my consciousness. The last thing I see before my eyes close is Auden’s weeping into his hands.

  • • •

  I’ve never seen Mama angrier. The fact that I’m bandaged up, lying in a hospital bed doesn’t stop her from practically screaming at me.

  “Will this be what finally makes you see the truth about this boy? Or will he have to kill you before you realize how dangerous he is?”

  I glare at the ceiling. “Accidents happen, Mama. He’s not an evil person because he lost control of a car.”

  She scoffs, and then blinks at me, frowning. “You mean…you don’t know?”

  Blake sits in one of the chairs by the window, stormy faced but quiet. Something in his expression makes my stomach knot.

  “Know what?” I ask, my voice small.

  Mama straightens. There’s righteous fury in her expression, but I swear I see a hint of triumph. “Auden is in police custody.”

  “What?”

  “Shelby, your life wasn’t the only one he risked. He hit a pedestrian when he swerved off the road. A jogger. A man Blake’s age. He hit him, and then he drove away.”

  Mama’s words flatten me. Because I remember. I remember my words, rasped over and over again as the tang of blood filled my mouth.

  I hit him. I hit him.

  “No…” I whisper.

  “I’m sorry but yes,” Mama says, misinterpreting my horrified expression. “The man died within hours of the accident.”

  Dead. An innocent man is dead. Because of me.

  Mama thinks I’m delirious when I tell her I was driving. And I am delirious. Weak with pain. Fragile from injury. Cloudy from pain meds. Spiraling from shock and revulsion at what I have done. I protest so frantically that the nurses come in and sedate me.

  • • •

  Auden visits me his first night of freedom after the arraignment. His dad paid bail, so he’s free until the trial. He comes to my window after Mama and Blake go to bed. I’d be furious with him if I weren’t so distraught.

  “Why?” I demand. “How could you do this?”

  “It was my fault. I upset you and distracted you.”

  Closing my eyes, all I can see is the man’s body, illuminated in my headlights, flailing through the air at impact, and then lying lifeless on the grass. My throat burns and I shake my head. “But I’m the one who hit him. I killed him. I killed an innocent man.”

  Auden pulls me into his arms. “Don’t think about it, Shelby. Put it out of your mind.”

  “I can’t.” Tears flow, and Auden’s grip tightens.

  “I know,” he says, his voice heavy with emotion. “I can’t either.”

  We stay that way for a long time, crying, lost in the anguish of genuine guilt and remorse. No one meant for it to happen, of course, but it did. And a man’s life
is over because of it. And nothing we do can ever give it back.

  “I deserve any punishment they give me,” I say.

  Auden shakes his head. “That’s not going to happen.”

  “I won’t let you take the blame for this.”

  He strokes my hair. “I’ll do it for you. I’d do anything for you, Shelby.”

  “Don’t you think I feel the same?”

  He’s quiet next to me, holding me gently so as not to hurt my injuries. His silence breaks my heart.

  “I won’t let it happen,” I say. “I’m going to the police tomorrow morning to tell them I was the one driving the car.”

  He grips my arms and looks hard in my eyes. “No you won’t. Swear to me you won’t.”

  “I absolutely will. I’m the one who was driving. Not you.”

  “Listen to me, Shelby,” he says, firmly. “I’ve given this a lot of thought. There’s too much at stake. You can’t throw your future away for this.”

  “And what about your future?”

  He shakes his head. “I can overcome this. For you, this is all your mother needed to keep you in her control. You’d never get out of this town.”

  I don’t know if what he’s saying makes sense or not, but in my weakened state, all I can do is melt in his arms and fight back tears.

  “Please, please let me do this for you,” he says, holding me tightly.

  “What will happen? You won’t go to jail, will you?”

  “No,” he says. “My mom’s boyfriend, Bryce, is a lawyer, and he thinks that since I’m a minor with no previous record, I shouldn’t have to do more than pay a fine and do community service.”

  I consider this for a moment, though the burden weighs on me, threatening to crush me. The image of the man lying on the road, his body limp and broken, flashes before me.

  “Promise me you’ll go along with this,” he says, gently. He hooks his pinkie finger with mine. “Promise me you won’t tell another soul what really happened.”

  My head hurts. I’m exhausted and broken. I know I should, but I can’t fight Auden on this, not now. Maybe later, when I have more strength, when I’m not crying every single night. Before the trail. Satisfied with the weak compromise I’ve made in my mind, I bring the linked fingers to my chest. “I promise.”

  • • •

  The days building up to the trial, and the trial itself, take a greater toll on me than I could have imagined as I watch the boy I love get dragged through the mud in the local news. There are accusations that he was driving drunk the night of the accident, that he saw Edmund Drake, but simply didn’t care. The prosecution paints the picture of a depraved, entitled city boy raising hell in our small town and killing a beloved father and grandfather. The papers have a heyday with it.

  Everyone treats me like a delicate flower who had barely escaped the grip of death. An Orchardview lily nearly crushed by the evil boot of big-city ways. The town circles their wagons around me. Mama leads the charge, all protective and righteous in her indignation. The guilt of knowing that I am the one who actually deserves their scorn weighs me down with iron agony.

  And every day, my anxiety builds as Auden is shamed and berated for the crime I committed. I can’t carry this secret. I can’t sleep at night. I break down crying. My hands shake. It’s the beginning of the panic attacks.

  I beg Auden to let me come clean, and he begs me to ride out the storm.

  “It will all be over soon,” he promises, again and again. “And it will all work out.”

  • • •

  On the day of sentencing, the judge throws the book at Auden. The judge is fifth-generation Orchardview stock, white haired, and eager to preserve our “sacred way of life.”

  Two years in a juvenile correctional facility.

  As I watch the police officer escort Auden, pale and wide-eyed, out of the courtroom in handcuffs, my throat closes with panic. Our gazes meet, and I try to call out, try to reach for him, but everything goes black.

  • • •

  Sobbing, shaking, I tell Mama everything. On my knees, I beg her to take me to the judge to the truth. She listens with an inscrutable expression.

  The next thing I know, I’m lying in bed again. Blake stands on one side, his face ashen. Mama’s holding my hand, and there are tears in her eyes.

  “Oh, my Shelby girl. Look at yourself. Look what he’s done to you.”

  “He didn’t do this to me,” I sob. “I did. I killed that man. And I’m the one who should be in prison.”

  Mama’s eyes flash. “Stop saying that!”

  Blake sets a calming hand on her arm, and then he moves a little closer.

  “Do you think Auden would want to see you go to prison, Shelby?”

  I stare at him, my frantic sorrow paused momentarily at the thought. Blake’s expression shifts as the realization comes to him.

  “He told you to let him take the fall, didn’t he?”

  The tears come in full force. “I can’t lie anymore.”

  Mama sweeps me up into her arms and shushes gently while I sob. “We’re going to fix this,” she says softly. “We’re going to make it all better.”

  • • •

  When Mama and Blake approach me about the memory erasure, I flatly refuse. How could I take the easy way out? Run away from everything I’ve done and not take responsibility? Let Auden suffer for two years in prison? And what about Edmund Drake’s family? Do they get to forget?

  But Mama doesn’t relent. Every day, she talks me through it. No more pain. No more nightmares. No more panic attacks. Something to help me get ahold of my own mind and control over my emotions.

  And eventually, she wears me down. It’s not too difficult. I’m weak, frayed mentally and emotionally from nightly panic attacks. Beaten down, body and soul. Sitting in Dr. Stevens’s office for the first time, I’m at rock bottom.

  “I want it all to go away.”

  Dr. Stevens folds his hands together on his desk. “Now, you understand that this memory erasure is permanent. There’s no going back.”

  I nod shakily, wiping my eyes. What will it be like to not have to live this lie? To not to have to see Edmund Drake’s body lying lifeless on the grass every time I close my eyes?

  “I want to forget him,” I say. “I want to forget everything.”

  Chapter 32

  The weight of so many memories coming back all at once flattens me in the seat. Thankfully I have the presence of mind to slam my car into park.

  I lift my hands to my face to make sure this is reality. In the present. The flashback was mere seconds, but I’m still spinning. Reeling. My hands shake on my cheeks. My skin feels ice cold.

  Through the windshield, Auden stares at me. His lips form my name.

  It suddenly strikes me as strange. We both wanted this moment for so long, for me to remember. Now I see what he didn’t want me to remember. What Mama didn’t want me to remember.

  What I didn’t want to remember.

  I meet Auden’s gaze. He’s tense, completely on alert. He senses something has changed. He comes to the driver’s side door. I stare at him, breathless, trembling, as he opens it.

  He falls to his knees beside me. Tears shimmer on his eyes. “Shelby.”

  My name is both a question and a declaration. I nod slowly. “I remember.”

  Auden draws in a sharp breath and grabs my hand. He’s squeezing his eyes shut, and his body shakes with a single sob.

  My own eyes burn. He’s carried this weight alone all this time. It’s unimaginable. Unthinkable.

  But I’m still overwhelmed. It feels as though I’ll crush inwardly from this pain. I pull away my hand gently. “I need to be alone for a little while.”

  Auden nods.

  I cast only one glance at him in the rearview mirror as I drive away. His tall fra
me stands in the road, bent with sorrow. I wait until I’m far away and parked the side of the road before I let myself cry.

  • • •

  It’s nearly three in the morning before I go home. There’s a police car in the driveway, and all the lights are on in the house. I expected it. After the fourth time Mama called me and the tenth text from Grace, I’d shut off my phone.

  When I walk into the house, Mama cries my name. But one look at my swollen, tear-stained face and her expression fades. I walk past her and the police officer without a word.

  “Shelby,” Mama says, her voice fierce. “Don’t you just walk by as if nothing’s happened.”

  “My memory has come back,” I say simply, though I can taste the venom in my tone. “I remember everything.”

  Mama is speechless, and I finish my march into my room. Locking the door behind me, I sit on the edge of my bed, though I won’t sleep. I can’t even lie down. I sit in the darkness and stare numbly out the window.

  One day bleeds into two. Two into three. Three into four. I lie in bed. I eat what is required, when required. I stand in an ice-cold shower. But I’m a zombie. Blank. Numb. Broken. Or so it seems to anyone who tries to come talk me out of my lifeless state. Inside, there’s only pain. And guilt. There’s only the man whose life I ended.

  Mama sends Grace to me. She knows better than to come in herself. Grace tries every tactic to get me up. Everyone’s so concerned about you. Your mama is just sick with worry. I’ve never seen her cry before. We all want Shelby back.

  It’s an ironic statement. So many people, included myself, have talked about how they want me “back.” Well, I’ve gotten myself back, in a way, and I hate what I’ve found.

  “You can go back to therapy,” Grace says, squeezing my hands. “You can make all of this go away again.”

  I cry that night, alone again in my room. But Grace’s words linger. It strikes me that, in spite of the misery and regret I feel right now, I resist the idea of having it erased. This pain is a result of my actions, and it’s my responsibility to carry it. And this pain is also part of me.

  I sit up in my bed. The clock reads three. I can suddenly see so clearly what a mistake it was to agree to the therapy. I tried to escape what I’ve done. And now it’s time to face it. No more running.