by Wild, Cassie
I looked out the window at the world outside. There were acres and acres of trees, still bare, and in the distance was what looked like an interstate. I’d missed an entire season while I’d been unconscious. Several holidays, though I’d been told Ava had been here for all of them.
I saw my reflection in the glass, but didn’t recognize myself, didn’t recognize anything about me. I didn’t even know if my ash-blonde curls had been short before the accident or had been cut when I’d been brought in. My gaze traced my features, but there was no spark of familiarity in my ultramarine eyes. I might as well have been looking at a stranger.
I had no idea who to trust.
Hell, I didn’t even know if I could trust myself.
Chapter 4
Kris
“I thought you said you’d be able to get her to take the deal.” I tried to reign in my temper, knowing how unprofessional it looked for a man with my public image to lose it.
“Kris, I laid things out, told her that it’d be in her best interest to just take the money and go, but she wasn’t interested.”
I swore under my breath as I started to pace across my office. I had the speakerphone on for this exact reason. I’d always had a bit of nervous energy, even as a kid. It’d driven my parents crazy. They’d always been giving me extra things to do. Fencing lessons. Horseback riding. Track. Lacrosse. You name it, I played it.
I ran my hand through my hair and made a mental note to have my assistant set up an appointment with my barber. The last article I’d given an interview to had described me as ‘casually rakish.’ I wasn’t sure if that was even a real thing, but the reporter had seemed a bit overly interested in the fact that I didn’t have some boardroom-chic style. I didn’t usually care what anyone else thought, but I knew there were those who had a problem with me having so much responsibility at only twenty-five.
“You still there?”
I jerked my head back toward the phone. I’d almost forgotten I was on a call. “Yeah, I’m still here.”
I ran my hand over my face and caught a glimpse of myself in my window. Dark hair, light eyes. I was built like my father, tall and athletic, but I looked more like my mother’s side of the family.
“Does she want more money?” I asked. “I’m assuming you didn’t offer her the max I was willing to give.”
The chuckle that came was a familiar sound, but not one I was entirely fond of. I didn’t tend to find the same things funny that he did.
“Hell, no. You should know me better than that. I tried to give her a hundred grand, but she handed it right back to me.”
“Dammit!” I crossed back to my desk and plopped down in the chair.
“You didn’t really think she was going to go away that quietly, did you?” he asked. “I mean, we both knew it was a long-shot. If she tries to push this...”
“She could make my life very uncomfortable,” I finished the thought. “What was I thinking, getting involved with her?”
“Well, she’s not bad to look at.”
I glared at the phone. “She also didn’t present herself as ‘hi, my name’s Samantha and I’m a psycho.’”
“Wouldn’t life be easier if all of our ex’s did that?”
“You’re not kidding,” I muttered.
I supposed I’d been fortunate that, out of the women I’d dated over the years, only one had ended up being a stalker.
“Does she want more?” I asked. “Or do you think she’s going to force me to get a restraining order? I really don’t want to have to go that route.”
“I know you don’t,” he said sympathetically. “But I think it might be your best bet.”
I sighed. I really hadn’t wanted to get the cops involved. They tended to ask a lot of questions, and my personal life wasn’t something I liked people poking around in.
“Will you be able to go down to the station today to fill out the paperwork?” he asked.
I pulled up my calendar on my laptop and took a look at what I had scheduled. “I can stop by at lunch. Will you take care of making sure Samantha knows to stay away?”
“I will,” he said. “I had some business earlier this morning, but I’m in a holding pattern right now.”
“All right. Thanks for trying.” I barely heard his greeting as I ended the call. I was starting to get a headache, which wasn’t entirely unusual for me when Samantha was involved.
I sighed and glanced at the clock. It was almost noon and I didn’t have anything scheduled until one. If I went now, I could be back with take-out and still have enough time to eat it. I ran my hand through my hair. I hoped the restraining order would be the end of things. I was ready for all of the craziness to be over. I just wanted to get back to my normal life.
Chapter 5
Preslee
I startled at a knock on the door. I was still on-edge from my earlier encounter, and I knew it couldn’t be a nurse since they never bothered to knock.
“Pres?”
I heard a raspy female voice before a girl around my age poked her head around the door. Short black hair streaked with purple highlights framed a delicate face with kind, gray eyes. Several piercings lined her body, from the single studded nose ring to at least a dozen earrings. She was short, like me, but definitely not petite. This punk pixie had curves.
“Yeah…?”
As soon as she heard my voice, she burst into tears, but I still had no idea who she was, though I was pretty sure I could make an educated guess.
“Oh my god, Pres!” She rushed over to my bed, but froze when I shifted away. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, tears streaming down her face and leaving trails of ruined mascara in their wake. “I’m just so fucking happy to see you’re awake.”
“Are you…Ava?”
Her plump lips dipped into a frown as more tears trickled down her cheeks. She looked heartbroken at my question, but nodded. “Yeah, that’s me, do you mind if I sit down?”
“No, not at all.” I was baffled by the strong reaction, but she seemed nice enough. There was no reason for me to be ignorant about it. Besides, I found myself intrigued by her. Even with the tears, she gave off a kick-ass vibe that made the sight of her weeping even more out-of-place. My hands twitched at my sides. I wanted to wake up and shake off my memory loss, to tell her I remembered her because she looked so wounded. I hated that I couldn’t offer her any comfort, but after my mysterious lawyer visit, I wasn’t going to blindly trust anyone.
After a few minutes, she managed to calm herself down enough to talk. “Pres…do you really not remember anything about yourself?” Her voice cracked. “About me?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry.” And I really was. “No.”
“You and I have been best friends since we were five years old,” she explained. “I used to live next door to you. We were closer than sisters.”
I frowned at her word choice.
“Are. We are closer than sisters,” she corrected adamantly, more like she was trying to convince herself than me. “Sorry, Pres. The doctors kept wanting me to be realistic, to admit that you might not wake up.”
I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about that.
“I didn’t want to,” she continued. “You’re the only family I have, Preslee.”
“That’s a big responsibility,” I admitted. “I’m a little overwhelmed.”
She exhaled and some of the tension went out of her. “Anything you want to know, I’ll tell you. Anything at all.”
My curiosity and need to find out more about myself overrode my caution.
“Tell me anything,” I said. “Why were you the only person who came to see me? Where’s my family? Where do I live? Do I have a job? Do I go to school?” The questions just tumbled out.
She answered without hesitation, seeming eager to prove herself. “Your dad left not long after I moved in next door. I don’t remember much about him. You and your mother are…not on speaking terms. I tried calling her, but she never picked up, and she wouldn’t
answer the door when I went over.”
I was starting to regret having asked anything at all.
“You were going to night school on a full scholarship, and worked as a clerk in an office during the day. You wanted to be a forensic scientist with the FBI.”
My mind reeled. I was estranged from my mother, and I wanted to work for the FBI? How could I not know any of this? Nothing she said sparked so much as a flash of memory. And yet…
I remembered the dream I had right before I’d woken up. I’d been sitting on a man’s lap, watching baseball, and there’d been a woman there. A woman who hadn’t seemed to like me very much. My parents? I couldn’t remember them, but that didn’t mean my subconscious didn’t know what they looked like.
“And I’ve known you my whole life?”
“That’s right,” she affirmed. “You helped me through some really awful times, Pres. I didn’t exactly have the best home life. I used to sneak into your room late at night when my parents were fighting. You’d lower your sheets from the window and I’d climb up.”
The fuzzy slippered girl from my dream?
“How old were we?”
She shrugged. “It was pretty regular up until we were about eleven or twelve; after that, you’d just let me in through the front door. We used to have sleepovers in your bed, and we’d pretend we were camping.”
Her words sparked more images from my dream. Images that I was starting to think were more memories than made-up. But I needed proof.
“What kind of sheets did I have on my bed?” I asked.
Her brow furrowed, but she answered, “Um…usually pretty basic stuff. Though there was the one set of Barbie sheets you got for Christmas. You slept on them for so long they practically fell apart. Pink and purple, I think?”
Well, shit.
“I had a dream about them,” I told her. “Right before I woke up here. I dreamt that you and I were having a sleepover, and we pulled the Barbie sheets up over our heads to pretend that we were camping in a tent. And…you were upset. We could hear…yelling coming from outside. I was trying to comfort you.”
Ava started crying again. “Oh my god, Pres,” she wept. “It was my parents fighting. We could always hear them, even at your place, and you would hug me and tell me that it would be okay, even when I knew my whole life was falling apart.”
I felt tears prickle my eyes. “I’m so glad you’re here,” I managed to whisper before the full weight of it all hit me like a freight train. My chest ached. If this was the girl from my dream, she meant everything to me, and all I had was a flimsy, barely-there memory of the past fifteen years of our friendship. I knew it wasn’t my fault, but I felt like I failed her by forgetting.
Ava sat beside me on the bed and held my hand as I cried. I had been so scared, I had no idea how I’d survive on my own, but at least there was someone with me now. Someone who clearly cared about me.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t ask you to come right away,” I apologized. “It’s just all been so overwhelming.”
Ava’s smile lit up her whole face. “I didn’t take it personally. I was too happy to hear that you’d woken up. It’s been an awful four months.”
I gave her a tentative smile. “I heard that you brought me a Christmas tree. Thank you. I wish I could have seen it.”
“Ehh, it was nothing compared to what you would have decorated,” she told me. “You’re much better at everything than I am.”
“I’m sure that’s not true!”
“Preslee, you are the smartest, prettiest, nicest person I know,” she said, without a trace of bitterness. “Nobody in school could believe that you were best friends with me. I was the girl taking shop classes with the boys. You were getting straight-A’s, editing the yearbook and taking the debate team to the state championship. We’re sort of opposites.”
I ducked my head, touched by her words. Each piece of information was like a revelation uncovering more of my personality. Granted, I was getting how she saw me, but she struck me as the kind of person who gave it all straightforward.
“What do you do now?” I asked, wanting to know more about her. “Are you in school?”
“Nah,” she waved a hand dismissively. “I work on computers. I was never good at, like, math and history and stuff like that, so it didn’t make sense to waste money on college. Computers, I get. All their intricate pieces and complicated code are like a perfect riddle that I already know the answer to.” She stared wistfully off into space, a bemused and content smile on her face.
“Do you live alone?” I asked.
She nodded, her smile faltering a bit. “I moved out even earlier than you did. I was sixteen. I had been saving money for two years to get my own place. My parents didn’t even try to stop me.”
I reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“No biggie,” she shrugged. “I’m better off without them. At least I had you.” She swallowed hard. “When you disappeared, Pres, I’d never felt so lost.”
“You were on the phone with me the night of the accident?”
She nodded. “You were on your way home from class. We were making plans for Thanksgiving, and we were supposed to talk more later, but the next day, you didn’t answer your phone, or respond to my texts. I went to your place, knocked on your door, but you never opened. I used the key you gave me, but you weren’t home. I called the cops, but they blew me off.”
“How’d you get them to listen?” I asked.
She grinned, a fierce look on her face. “Now I know you don’t remember me, because you never would’ve had to ask that before. You said I was the most tenacious person you knew.”
“Once you got their attention, how long did it take to find me?”
“Not long. You were wearing the necklace I gave you for your nineteenth birthday. It had your name on it. I remember the nurse telling me, when I came in to identify you, that one of the cops tried to submit it into evidence while they were still working on you, but she put him in his place. I’m so glad they did. If they’d taken it, they never would have been able to I.D. you.”
“I’m surprised the cop was so eager to gather evidence,” I said. “From what Dr. Edwards told me, the cops haven’t exactly been trying too hard to figure out what happened.”
Her expression tightened. “Don’t I know it.”
Something sparked in my mind. “Ava, do you think it might not have been him trying take to evidence?” She gave me a puzzled look, and I went to explain. “You’re not the first person who’s come to see me today. A lawyer stopped by. He tried to bribe me. He handed me a ton of cash and said it was a gift from his client to make my life easier.” I shook my head. “What the hell is going on?”
Her eyebrows went up. “He was trying to pay you off.”
“Definitely.”
“What did you do? How much did he offer?”
“He said he would pay my hospital bills, and then he handed me an envelope with a hundred thousand dollars. Cash.” Ava’s eyes widened in surprise. “But it felt weird. He felt weird. So I gave it back to him.”
“You should’ve told him to fuck off.”
I didn’t answer, too caught up in my own questions. “But who was the client? Who hit me?” I showed Ava the card he left. “I’m supposed to call this guy or his son, Kris, if I ever change my mind.
Ava opened her mouth to reply when my favorite Southern Belle nurse sauntered in. “Well, Miss Keats, I have good news and bad,” she started with a half-smile. “Which do you want first?”
I scowled. “The bad news, I guess.”
“Since you’re awake, and all of your tests have come back fine, we’re going to have to release you. Tomorrow, at the latest.”
I gasped. “Tomorrow?”
So soon? Shouldn’t they keep me for a while? I mean, I just spent four months in a coma. I didn’t know what to do, or where to go. I could barely walk.
“What’s the good news?” Ava asked the nu
rse before I could start panicking.
“That she doesn’t have to be cooped up in this room anymore,” the nurse replied with a wink.
Was she serious?
“Pres.” Ava sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but you lost your apartment. I tried my hardest to pay the rent, and then I tried to explain the situation, but they refused to wait. I packed as much as I could and moved it to my place. I’m sorry.”
“Hey.” I couldn’t stand that she thought this was her fault. “It’s more than enough that you went out of your way to get my stuff at all. I figured I wouldn’t have a place to live anymore.” I couldn’t keep my tone light though. “What am I supposed to do? I’m guessing my mom’s house is out of the question?”
She shivered. “I wouldn’t wish her on my worst enemy. Listen, my apartment is small – and a little more cramped than usual since I have your boxes there too – but why don’t you come stay with me? At least until you get back on your feet.”
I couldn’t help but hug her, even if I didn’t quite remember her. Trust had to start somewhere.
Chapter 6
Preslee
That first weekend at Ava’s apartment was…challenging.
After filling out the discharge papers and meeting with a cold woman from medical billing who’d informed me of the astronomical charges for my stay – as if it were a resort or something – we headed to Ava’s apartment. I hesitated before climbing into Ava’s rusty gold car that had to be at least as old as we were. I strapped my seatbelt and pulled it tight, praying we’d reach our destination in one piece.
Driving through town was a surreal experience. I was pleasantly surprised and impressed to see a line of mom-and-pop stores, no franchises. They were slightly run down, but had an old-fashioned charm that instantly made me think of fresh coffee and a comfy couch.
I didn’t recognize any of it.
“Do I know this place?” I ventured, though I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.