False Memory

by Meli Raine

  “Oh. Right.”

  “What do you think?” There I go, one toe testing out ice thinner than overstretched taffy.

  He sighs, a long sound that stretches back about twenty-three months, I imagine. It's the sound of stories I can't ever know, of hushed conversations and grim resignation, about me. It's the sound of a father who went to places he never imagined–and now has to resurface to normal life and try to live without being plagued by memory.

  It's a sound I make these days, too.

  An awful lot.

  “I think I don't know who to trust,” he responds.

  “Me, too.”

  “Do you trust Duff?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Silas?”

  “I guess.”

  “The guy who owns the company? Foster?”

  I shrug. “He's the son-in-law of the president of the United States.”

  “I'm not sure that really means anything, Lily, when it comes to trust.” Cynicism isn't one of my father's traits. I guess it is now.

  “His company has kept me alive so far.”

  “That was mostly machines, honey. And your willpower.”

  “Mom would say it was her prayers, too.”

  “Your mom is a praying machine, sweetheart.”

  We both chuckle. His sounds drier than I’d like.

  “Romeo?” he asks casually, but I can tell he's asking so many unspoken questions.

  And here we are. I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't.

  “Mom trusts him.” That's as evasive as I can get. My head starts screaming for me to tell him, trust him, let my big, safe Daddy, my first protector, step in and make it all better.

  Except he can't.

  If he could, I wouldn't be in this position.

  I get a look from Dad I can't quite understand. His palm goes to his chin, squeezing, thinking. “I know she does. That's not what I'm asking.”

  “Should I not trust him?” I probe.

  “How the hell would I know? I'm just a flower guy. All this cloak-and-dagger stuff is way above my pay grade.”

  Dad isn't saying Yes, trust Romeo. He isn't asking me Why wouldn't you trust him? He isn't gushing about how wonderful Romeo is for calling every week, even when he's not on duty.

  In his own way, Dad is saying he doesn't trust Romeo.

  And he's right.

  “I'm just a flower guy's daughter,” I finally answer, my breath shaky as I exhale. At least that sentence is true. Lying to my dad makes me feel icky. Shameful.

  “We're both in over our heads,” he says, moving to the loveseat and reaching an arm around me, pulling me in for a hug. His breath warms my hair. “What do you want to tell me that you can't tell Mom?”

  “She wants to interfere in my security team. I just want to try to live my life my way. On my own.”

  Dad tenses. “You want to move out?”

  “No. I just need her to stop pressuring me about my security. About my memory.”

  Dad's hands go to my shoulders and he leans back, giving us some distance. Fierce eyes meet mine. “Bee's prying about your memory?”

  “Not prying. More like asking. A lot.”

  “Your memory means a lot, Lily. It's worth so much.”

  “I know. But I can't share what I don't know.”

  “That's what I've been telling everyone!” Frustration comes through, loud and clear. “When people think you're not telling everything you know.”

  Stone-cold tingling crawls up the backs of my legs. “People?”

  “Security. Law enforcement. Even one doctor the security people brought in to examine you. She was the worst, insisting all those lie-detector tests indicated you were hiding something.”

  “Lie detector?”

  “Not all of those electrodes were from cardiology,” he says ruefully.

  “Wait a minute. Wait a minute!” I repeat, my voice loud. Angry, even. Movement from the other side of the curtain makes me look up. Duff's in the space between the two fabric pieces, looking towards us as I start yelling.

  “Lily, calm down,” Dad says. “Your face and chest are awfully red.”

  I stand and step to the door, whipping the curtain aside to face Duff. “You made me take a lie detector test? When I was in the hospital and still stuck in bed?”

  Duff's nostrils flare, his jaw tightening, classic tipoffs that he knows he's in the wrong but is prepared to defend himself. Those bright blue eyes look at Dad, who just shrugs, the universal movement that says, This one's all on you.

  “We needed to. It wasn't a standard lie-detector test. More a check of heart rate and other signals when we tried to provoke your memory.”

  “I never consented to that!”

  “Actually, you did. You were writing then. It was part of a packet of paperwork that–”

  “Who ordered it?” I snap.

  He gets that look. I know that look. It's the look that says he's never, ever going to tell me.

  “WHO???!” I scream.

  Dipping his head to the left, Duff's neck rolls with a conciliatory gesture that makes my heart speed up, like someone's stepping on it, pumping it hard, making my engine push to its limits. “Lily, I–”

  Limits are there for a reason. They tell you when you've gone too far.

  “Lily, it was done for your own good,” Dad interjects. If I look down, I'll see the sole of his shoe on my left ventricle, right? Duff's got my left atrium, Mom and Romeo on the other chambers.

  And then they're the ones who start yelling, Dad and Duff a baritone harmony that is almost comforting in its intensity.

  Because I drop, fast, my head full of hot lead, the black smoke that comes from overheating making me blind.

  Snow emerges first, the flakes dropping on my face like a musically inclined God is playing the white keys on a piano, each note a cold caress, a flake, a dab. My throat burns. Dad's worried eyes are a blur above me, and someone is lifting my feet onto a pillow.

  “Lil?”

  The blur clears, Dad's wide eyes coming into focus. “Wha happen?” I ask, my mouth full of cotton. Now it's migrating from my brain to my mouth?

  “You fainted.”

  “Again?” I groan.

  “We caught you. You're fine.”

  “I'm not fine. I'm pissed,” I mutter.

  “Oh, she's fine,” Duff mumbles.

  “We need to get you to a hospital.”

  “No. No way. No more hospitals. I'd rather die than go back.”

  Dad flinches, voice a whisper. “Don't you ever say that.”

  “It's true.”

  “It's not!”

  “You're not me, Dad. I mean it. You can have your feelings, I can have mine.”

  “Your feelings just made you faint!”

  “That's right. They're powerful. Your feelings made you have a heart attack.”

  Dad looks like I slapped him. Tears fill his eyes. Must be contagious, because they're suddenly in my eyes, too.

  “Oh, Lily,” he says as Duff makes himself scarce, on his phone, behind the curtain, doing whatever one does in this situation, in his job.

  Softly weeping, I struggle to sit up. Dad helps me.

  “How–how much? How much of me is being stripped away by all this? Lie detectors I don't know about? Being followed twenty-four/seven? Am I being bugged?”

  Dad looks at the video-camera eye. “Or are we just bugging ourselves?”

  I almost blurt out a comment about the note. About Romeo.

  “Romeo,” Dad says, as if he's read my mind. “You murmured his name while you were out.”

  Oh, no.

  “I did? What did I say?”

  “Just his name.” Questions form on the bridge of his nose as he watches me, amused. “You have a crush on him?”

  “WHAT?” The shout hurts my head.

  “Nah. Just being your stupid old Dad. Just wondering why you'd say his name.”

  “We saw him yesterday, Tom. At a meeting. Must be fresh in Lil
y's mind.” Duff's words are casual, but I can read his tone.

  I'm skating on thin ice.

  With heated blades.

  “Let's get you home, Lily. You need to rest,” Dad insists.

  All my lie-detector responses, all the information I may have leaked but don't know I leaked, the fact that I mentioned Romeo while I was unconscious. It all makes me think about how much I don't really know.

  I know I know.

  But I don't know what they know.

  Chapter 28

  One month later

  * * *

  I'm back at Hot Cup of Hope, waiting for Jane. So far, no high school friends have appeared. No Jessalyn, no Kimmie, no surprises from my past. Just me, a cinnamon almond-milk latte, and a book I'm listening to on my audiobook app.

  Something to distract me.

  I twirl a piece of long hair right where my scars are, the extensions still unfamiliar and vaguely indulgent. I finally made it to the wig store, where the woman who works there, Christine, insisted that extensions would be better. Four hundred dollars and six hours later, I have long, wavy hair that matches my natural color.

  More important: I have camouflage.

  And when you're trying to hide, that's more important than beauty.

  No one glancing at me would ever know I've been shot in the head. Even my smile has become symmetrical again, thanks to careful coaching with an occupational therapist and lots of slow, meticulous determination. Nothing I do is spontaneous.

  Nothing I say is impulsive, either.

  If you control yourself well enough, you can become anyone you want.

  Even better: you become what everyone else expects.

  And that is where you are safest.

  Even if you're caged.

  Jane walks in, smiling, the ever-present dark sedan parked right outside the window, a guy on his phone. She's followed everywhere, still. Silas insists.

  “Your hair!” she gasps as we hug, her face brushing against the long strands, her hot breath tickling the spot behind my ear where bone has mended by what feels like sheer willpower. Jane touches a long strand that falls to my clavicle. “It's beautiful.”

  “Thanks.” I smile. Her eyes meet mine.

  And hold.

  Worlds grow and die in that gaze. When you've been through extreme trauma with someone, you form a bond. Jane's face is full of guilt and respect, of time passed in pain.

  Of time passed in the great unknown, where waiting to find out fate is worse than outright torture.

  “You already have your coffee?” she asks, looking at my cardboard container. I hold up the empty cup.

  Wordlessly, we go to the counter.

  This time, I manage to order without freezing or nearly fainting.

  “Who's your detail?” I ask her, my motive mine and mine alone: to find out if Romeo is watching. He’s supposed to be in DC, but...

  “New guy. Jake. Silas says he's solid.”

  I nod, relief flooding me.

  Her eyes narrow as if she sees the relief.

  Even having her see that is dangerous.

  Then again, why am I relieved? Silas trusts Romeo, too. Just because they trust someone doesn't make him safe.

  How much of what Duff and my other security guys report back to Silas gets told to Jane? These men aren't impervious. No one can be so tightly wound that they never, ever talk about work. Jane and I were friends–are friends? I can only imagine she'd ask Silas about me, and he'd be placed in a precarious position. Or...

  Are these men really that self-contained? Is Duff so compartmentalized that he can turn off work when he's not on duty? Forget about me? How much of his non-work headspace do I take up?

  Because he consumes most of mine.

  Twenty-four/seven.

  The local NPR radio station takes a short break for news, the words washing over me until suddenly, my ears pinpoint the words, “President Bosworth.”

  “… in residence at The Grove for a brief visit while California lawmakers discuss trade-policy issues and …”

  Jane’s face goes sour. She’s listening, too.

  We get our coffees and Jane pointedly moves us from the table I selected to a much more secluded corner booth, facing the exit. Jake looks over, his eyes pinning us in place, noting our location. We're objects to track in a database.

  We are data points. Nothing more.

  Is that all I am to Duff?

  “How's your detail?” she asks me, her face half buried in her coffee, eyes on me.

  “Fine. I think it's silly to have them. No one's tried to kill me since...” I reach up and touch the back of my ear.

  “What about the note?”

  I freeze.

  Huh. So she does know.

  My eyebrows go up slowly. “You know about that?”

  “I made a deal with Drew a long time ago: I hire you. You tell me everything.” She smirks, the look one I hope to emulate someday, to hold that much power in one smile.

  “Does he?”

  She huffs, the laugh so jaded. “Mostly. Once in a while, Silas gives me the pieces Drew doesn't.”

  “How do you live like this?”

  “I don't have a choice.”

  “Really?” I take a sip, the cinnamon soothing.

  “Do you?”

  I choke, coughing hard until the thin line of milk that trickles down the back of my throat finishes its damage and I recover. “Doesn't feel like it,” I say, wheezy, my voice thin and incomplete.

  “Then you understand.”

  “No. I don't. Explain it to me, Jane. My dad isn't the president of the United States and I was never accused of helping a group of violent psychopaths to kidnap and torture his daughter. So if you're comparing us, I don't get it.”

  Her head tilts as she hears my words, the look familiar. People who knew me before the shooting say I'm harder now. Not as perky and fun.

  No kidding.

  Her slow nod is appealing. She leans in and whispers, “Romeo.”

  I jolt, spilling hot coffee all over my hand. It hurts. I ignore it.

  Jane catches everything, doesn’t she?

  “You, too?” she asks.

  “Me, too, what? I just moved my chair and spilled.” Breaking eye contact, I grab a napkin and clean the table, furiously covering my feelings.

  “You don't like him, do you?”

  “I don't really know him,” I say, casual. “But he seems to be really invested in my case.”

  “Like Duff?” she asks.

  I damn near tip the entire latte over into my lap. “Duff's just another guard.”

  She snorts. “Like Romeo?”

  “Sure.” It takes effort to keep my breathing even.

  “I heard you muttered Romeo's name when you were passed out.”

  “Duff told you that?”

  “He told Silas, who told me.”

  “It's like a kid's game of telephone, isn't it?”

  “Nothing is childlike when it comes to this mess, Lily.”

  “No kidding.” Why is she bringing up Romeo? What does she know? Why would she bring him up? Is he talking about me? Trying to be assigned to my detail? Panic pours through me. What don't I know?

  “I want to tell you a story,” she says slowly, her hands hugging the giant latte cup like she needs all the heat she can get. “About what happened to me right before Monica Bosworth tried to kill Harry.”

  I shudder. “You talk about them so casually. Like they were your neighbors. You're talking about the freaking president of the United States!”

  “Who is my father.”

  I sigh. “I thought he was Lindsay Bosworth's father. She's your sister?”

  Jane stiffens. “No.”

  I frown. “How can she be his daughter and you're his daughter but you're not sisters?”

  “How good are you at keeping secrets, Lily?”

  Oh, Jane. You have no idea.

  “Very good.” My voice is light, but the look on her face m
akes it clear she's dead serious. “Why?” I continue. “You look like you need to spill your guts.”

  “I do.”

  “Then go ahead.”

  “I'm so sorry,” she blurts out, speaking rapidly, nervous as all get out. “I know I didn't pull the trigger and shoot you, but it feels like I did. It feels like this is all my fault and no matter how much I know it isn't, and no matter how much you tell me it's not, it feels that way in my bones. Like someone's put it in my DNA. Like Monica did this and a piece of her is inside me, whispering hideous, shameful words while I go about my day. Like she's a virus that infected me and nothing I do will make it leave me.”

  The cinnamon tastes like poison suddenly.

  “Everything changed when you were shot. It was bad when she kept ordering people to kill me. It was so much worse when one of them almost killed you by mistake. I can handle being the target. I can't handle an innocent person dying because someone thought you were me.” Tears fall, long streaks that leave what little makeup Jane wears in a pooled mess on her jawline. She uses the heel of her hand to wipe them away, eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot as she gives me a raw, pain-filled look. “And we're still living with that threat.”

  I just stare at her. I wait. I let all my own emotions watch, too, like a gallery, an audience, a crowd that observes but can't act.

  Won't act.

  “You flinched, once, when Romeo came into your hospital room,” she whispers, her voice so light, like dandelion seeds on a blustery day.

  I make sure I don't flinch now.

  “Why?”

  “Why?” I echo back. It's a technique. If I mimic someone, they think I'm responding.

  “Yes, why?”

  “Why don't you tell me why you think that happened?”

  “Lily,” she gasps under her breath, a little frustrated. “You're hiding something about him, aren't you?”

  Oh, no.

  No no no no no.

  “What do you mean?” I ask evenly, choosing that moment to take a sip, to occupy my mouth, to hide my eyes, to quell my screaming soul.

  “He was there, you know. The night Silas killed Nolan Corning.”

  I nearly spray her with coffee. Instead, I choke again. The throat spasms hurt but are welcome. So welcome. Because my brain can't process what she's saying faster than my shocked system. The coughing helps to smother the surprise.