While he’s gone, I look at some of the CDs he has lying around and realize from the pictureless covers that they are DVDs of Zach’s past films.
He returns, bringing with him the aroma of buttery popcorn. “Here you go,” he says, and he sets a big bowl down in front of me. And then he’s moving to do something else, moving something else. It almost seems like he’s afraid to be alone with me; I don’t know whether to be hurt or flattered.
“Can I watch some of these while we wait?” I ask, holding up a DVD.
“Good idea,” he says. He turns each of them over, trying to decide which one to start with. Then I realize he’s looking for one without Lindsay, and I wonder if it really was a good idea.
Apparently, he finds one, because he pops it into the DVD player. Before he starts it, he says, “It’s one of the very first ones we did.”
“Okay.”
“And,” he says, remote control still in hand, “thematically, it’s a little all over the place. Also, my older brother Rob is in it. He’s not all that comfortable with cameras.”
I giggle. “Okay.”
“And,” Zach says, stalling, “the music is shit. It’s Raj’s.”
“Anything else?” I ask, and Zach is about to answer before he catches my sarcasm, grins, and plops down next to me.
“Don’t judge me,” he says.
“I won’t.”
Zach’s older brother appears on the screen, walking down what appears to be their street in a suit that is three times too big for him. He is swinging his briefcase a little too aggressively to be normal, and he looks right at the camera as he walks.
Zach and I laugh.
There’s a bang, and all of a sudden a younger version of Kevin falls from a tree. Lifeless and soaked in ketchup.
“Oh my God,” I say.
I glance at Zach and he is watching me, a small smile on his lips.
It takes all my effort to face the screen again.
“Oh no!” Rob cries, and leans over Kevin, trying to resuscitate him. Suddenly someone is screaming, a girl. I hold my breath, thinking that maybe it is Lindsay after all, but a girl who looks just a little younger than Kevin runs into the frame, pointing at Kevin’s lifeless body.
“No! Don’t touch him! Don’t touch him!”
“Why not?” Rob asks, his expression lifeless and flat.
I laugh.
“I told you it was bad,” Zach says, chuckling too.
“Shut up, I’m watching the next Ciano,” I say. The movie is about twenty minutes long and includes a cameo by a couple-years-younger Zach. When it’s done, I break into a rousing round of applause.
Zach laughs at my response, and my stomach twirls. Is it that easy? If his smile will stay put, I’ll keep clapping until it fills the room.
“Your hair was so much shorter,” I say.
He self-consciously touches it.
“No puff,” I add.
“Puff,” Zach repeats, like it’s the first time he’s heard it. He laughs, still touching his hair. “It’s kind of a pain.”
I sit up straighter, surprised. “I like your hair.”
Zach’s eyes hold mine and I don’t want to let go. “I like yours,” he says.
“No,” I say, shaking my head now, my voice thick with conviction. “I’m not being nice. Your hair has character.”
“I like your hair,” he says gently, like it’s too precious to say out loud. And when his hand reaches out to touch it, to roll some strands between his fingers, I hold my breath.
I lean a little bit closer; Zach leans a little bit closer.
Then he’s breathing on my lips. He kisses me slowly, a lock of my hair still between his fingers. And then he pauses, his lips still on mine, and when I open my eyes, he is frowning. It startles me because I’m used to him smiling.
He’s still frowning when we kiss again. And he draws it out, like he’s figuring something out, thinking and exploring. His hands haven’t left my hair; they’re all over it now, working their way in, carefully but confidently. With his hands in it, I believe it when he says he likes my hair.
My hands are in his hair, which is surprisingly soft.
“Zach!” We jump apart at Raj’s voice. Luckily, it’s coming from the top of the basement stairs.
“Um, down here,” Zach says, patting himself up and down. I stand and run a hand through my hair, smooth down my dress, but then I realize Zach has also stood up and is smoothing out his hair. So we both sit down. Too quickly. Guilty.
“Hi, Raj,” I say.
“Hey, man,” Zach says.
Raj squints at his friend. “You’re mad I’m late? I had to wait for the car. Plus, my mom was making rajma because my cousins are coming over tomorrow, and I needed to taste it.”
“No, not mad,” Zach says casually, throwing the remote control up once in his hand.
Raj looks between the two of us, squinting still. I’m not sure what he sees, but he flops onto the beanbag chair near the wall and sighs.
BEFORE
Mid-July
Even though I was in it, I have no idea what happens in our movie.
Zach’s parents come down for its “world premiere,” and they laugh and cringe and react with Kevin and Raj. Afterward, we put on a bunch of horrodies that Zach ordered off the Internet and no one has seen yet. My stomach is doing somersaults the entire time, just turning and turning, making knots inside me. Zach and I are suspiciously quiet throughout the evening, though he does a better job of hiding his distraction than I do. I hope being the new kid gives me a pass.
About eight, I get a text from my mom asking if I’m still at the address I gave her (Mom has a long-standing rule about leaving the address of where we are going on the fridge whiteboard) and whether she should come and pick me up. She knows now that my new friend is a boy and that he works at the video store. She knew Zach’s dad from getting movies there the past few years. Strangely, her reaction was to stare at me quietly for several seconds and say, “You seem happy.” And then I scrambled into my room before she could make any rules about me seeing him or ask for his Social Security number to run a background check. Her meeting Zach and his parents, though I don’t think she’d dislike them, is just not something I’m prepared to deal with tonight. So I explain to them that I have to head home and, since I’m riding my bike, want to beat the sunset.
“Do you drive, Addie?” Zach’s mother asks. She has gray hair and looks a little older than Zach’s dad. She has the warmest face, eyes that have a way of drawing you in, and an easy laugh. I can’t pick out whose exact smile Zach has, but I can see how if you put Mr. and Mrs. Laird’s together, you might get Zach’s.
“I have my permit, but my mom wants me to wait till seventeen to get a car.”
“Well, Zach can give you a ride,” she says.
“In his piece-of-shit car,” Kevin supplies.
“Kevin,” Mr. Laird warns.
“It’s okay, I enjoy riding,” I say.
“I’ll walk you out,” Zach says, jumping up.
Everyone calls goodbye but thankfully seems too invested in the movie Zach put in to notice anything out of the ordinary or to offer to come with us.
I’m freaking out as we silently take the steps up from the basement and then leave the house. I’m freaking out that Zach is going to decide it was all a big mistake and it shouldn’t have happened, because even though my lips are still buzzing, electricity zapping through them from before, I think I’ve already forgotten what it felt like to kiss him.
“Um,” Zach says after he’s watched me silently unlock my bike. “Thanks for being in the movie.”
“Thanks for letting me be in it. I had fun.” Oh God. Does it sound like goodbye? We have no other excuses to see each other.
“Me too.”
We’re standing in front of the garage, watching a sea of pinks and oranges start to flood the sky. I can’t believe I sometimes think it looks empty.
“Addie,” Zach says.
<
br /> “Yeah?” I’m getting ready to counter whatever he says, to tell him what I should have before: Three months ago is forever. I like you. It’s not that complicated.
“I think I’d like to kiss you again.” He says it softly, facing me now.
Oh.
I stand on my tiptoes and kiss him before he has the chance to change his mind. And holy freaking crap, does he kiss me back.
His kiss is more urgent this time, my back against the garage door, his kneecap against it, too. He cradles the back of my head with his hand, and I kiss him feverishly, and he doesn’t stop, either, and I wonder why three days ago he said it was better if we were friends.
He doesn’t kiss me like we’re friends.
AFTER
January
On the way home, my hands are trembling so much I can barely grip the steering wheel. I feel like I’ve slipped outside my own body. I’m still at Overton, thinking about every single detail of that place. The gray walls of the complex. The Os stamped on every building in case you forget. The very deliberate way everything was set up, from the music in the waiting room to the warm, unreadable smiles of all the staff. The nurse with the purple streak—did she know me? Have I been there before? Was the doctor so nice because he recognized me? Apparently, he wasn’t my doctor last time, but what about the receptionist? She made me fill out all that paperwork when I first came in, as if I was new.
I rack my brain trying to think of anything I recognized in there—the pattern in the carpet, the setup of the waiting room, anything—but nothing stands out.
And yet—they erase memories there. Does it mean anything that I can’t remember?
As soon as I pull into my driveway, I whip out my phone and dial Katy’s number.
Dr. Hunt was last time. The words ring continuously through my mind over the ringing on the line.
I deflate as I hear Katy’s familiar voice mail recording.
Hi, you’ve reached Katy. I can’t come to the phone right now, so leave me a message and I’ll call you back. Unless you’re Jason or Mason or Grayson from Music Fest. I only gave you my number because I couldn’t think of any other way to get rid of you. Anyway, bye!
As she says bye, you can hear me crack up laughing in the background.
“Oh my God, Katy!” I’d said after she flung her phone away from her.
“What?” She’d shrugged, looking innocent. “At least I’m being honest.”
The thing is, we both knew she wasn’t. Jason (not Mason or Grayson) was a cute guy from Music Fest, a regional music festival that our orchestra had gone to in December. A bunch of other musical groups from Lyndale to Raddick combined for two days to “share our mutual love of music.” Or, if you were Katy, to hide in the shadows and make out with the best bassoonist in the tri-state area. And she had liked him; she’d whispered, cheeks flushed, to me about him nonstop on the bus trip back to Lyndale. They’d talked about visiting each other and had exchanged phones to put their numbers in with such solemnity that you’d have thought they were exchanging promise rings. But a week after we got back, Jason still hadn’t called, and Katy insisted he needed to call her. A miserable week later, he was either Jason-or-Mason-or-Grayson and she recorded that message. Katy was hurt but not heartbroken. She moved on, two weeks later, to a guy my brother’s age who worked at the music store downtown, and she genuinely forgot Jason’s name. It was just that easy for her—people came and went in her world, an ever-rotating cast of characters, each one replaceable.
As I’m shivering in my car, waiting for her to call or text me back, it hits me that I’ve lasted a long time but might be next.
I dial her number again. Voice mail.
I text her: Call me ASAP.
I stay in the driver’s seat, my hands still shaking, watching the screen of my phone. But she doesn’t call.
Maybe because of her distance the past few days, it’s not hard to imagine this silence being as deliberate as her voice mail message, as the waiting-room music in Overton.
I’m on my own.
I climb out of the car and burst into the house, going over everything that happened at Overton again.
They said I needed a guardian’s permission for any procedures. Does that mean…Could my parents…
It’s just after five, but my mother isn’t home from work.
I take the stairs two at a time, and before I know it, I’m knocking on Caleb’s door. Letting myself in.
He’s on his computer, but he turns to face me as soon as I enter.
“What’s your problem?”
He’s not asking why I barged in. He’s asking why I’m shaking. Why I’m pacing.
“Addie?”
I never go to my brother with problems. It feels like we’re hardly ever on the same side.
And yet…
He’s staring at me, confused. He actually looks concerned.
“I drove out of town today,” I say.
“Where?”
“Overton. It’s that facility for brain research and memory procedures.” I hiss the last part. They don’t help you remember. They make you forget.
I’m pacing across his room as I speak, stepping over clothes and shoes and books and model airplanes and possible human remains. “You’ve heard of it, right?”
Most people have heard of it. But I’ve been there. As a patient.
God.
I need to sit down.
“I guess.” Caleb shrugs. He’s looking at the ground. At his unwalkable carpet. There’s a rumbling downstairs—the garage door opening. “Is that Mom?”
It must be, but I’m too caught up in what I’m saying to acknowledge his question.
“I think I’ve been there before,” I say, sounding like a balloon whose air is rushing out. “I think I had a procedure there. The guy at reception told me. I don’t think he meant to, but he was training and…”
My brother is not looking at me.
“Caleb.”
He doesn’t look up. His eyes are magnets, gripped by the carpet at his feet.
“Caleb?”
I take a step toward him.
“You know something!” I gasp.
“Addie, you have to talk to Mom about this,” he says, shaking his head. Still looking at the floor.
“So I have been there.” He’s not even denying it. I lean back against the wall, needing to feel something steady. The world seems to be spinning suddenly, shifting beneath my feet. “Tell me what you know.”
“Addie, seriously. Just…just go to Mom. Shut the door when you leave.” If he wasn’t frozen in place, he’d be pushing me out of his room. Letting the door shut in my face.
“No,” I hear myself say, suddenly ferocious. He’s my brother. Why are we never on the same side? “I don’t want to hear it from Mom. You tell me.”
“For fuck’s sake, Addie,” Caleb says, annoyed, snapping out of his frozen state the slightest bit.
Good, let him be annoyed. Now we’re evenly matched.
“I don’t know anything about Overton, okay?”
“Yes, you do,” I say. “And I need you to tell me everything. Right now.”
He’s shaking his head.
“Addie, I—”
“Please,” I beg. Please.
It’s the same tone he used when he pleaded with me not to tell Mom about his tattoo, when I pleaded with him to forgive me. Somehow, though I don’t know how, I suddenly understand that we’ve been talking about the same thing for years, a continuation of the same conversation. Except it’s one I don’t understand.
Why aren’t we ever on the same side? It’s an unspoken question, but my brother seems to hear it and then he’s standing. Walking toward his closet. Digging around. Opening some kind of box and pulling something out.
A photo.
Small, like a Polaroid.
When he gives it to me, his hands are shaking.
It’s of me and Caleb. I’m leaning over Caleb behind a couch I don’t recognize, and Caleb i
s sitting on the couch, gingerly holding a chubby-cheeked baby with tight black curls and skin the same warm shade of light brown as ours.
My heart instantly beats a little faster.
I look about eleven, Caleb twelve or thirteen. It’s definitely us. But I don’t remember anything about it. I don’t recognize where we are, what we’re doing.
“What is this?” I ask him.
“What do you think it is?” he asks, a genuine question.
“That’s us,” I say, my thumb hovering over our faces. My mother always says not to touch people’s faces in printed pictures or they’ll smudge, leaving headless bodies.
“Who’s the baby?”
“Turn it over.”
I do, my hands clammy with sweat. On the back, in black ink, it says Rory.
R.
Who is R?
The world starts to spin even faster. “He looks just like you,” I tell Caleb, remembering all the baby pictures I’ve seen of my brother.
“Yeah,” he says at last.
“He’s…I don’t remember this picture.” My voice is starting to falter, on the verge of breaking.
“I know,” Caleb says.
What is this? Who is the baby?
“What the hell is this, Caleb?” I ask. Now everything is shaking. I don’t know if it’s me or just the whole world. I don’t know if I’m on ice, if I’m still on the bus, plunging headfirst into something horrible.
I need to sit down. I don’t understand.
“You have to ask Mom, Addie, okay? I…I can’t tell you any more.”
“Caleb, he looks just like you.” My eyes are blurring now. “Is he yours?”
“Addie, no!” Caleb says, then lets out one guffaw. Laughter. Shock. “God.”
“Is he mine?” Caleb laughs again. I’m not within a slingshot of puberty in that picture. But if I’m joking with that question, then it’s only a little bit. In the last hour, I’ve lost all comprehension of what is far-fetched or true or impossible.
“No,” he says.
Then what?
What?
“Ask Mom,” he says, and pushes me out the door, but his voice is shaking now, too. “Make her tell you the truth.”
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