by DC Renee
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I knew she was just protective of her friend, and I knew it was harder for her not to come right away. It had been harder and taken me longer to convince Cass not to fly to San Francisco on the next plane. “And don’t think I don’t remember that she ran away from you in the first place, mister.”
“Cass, I already told you we worked everything out. I love her. I’d never hurt her.”
“I know.” She sighed. “I’m sorry I said all that shit. It’s just that … Well, I feel so helpless. I want to be there for her. And you … you get to be her hero. I’m supposed to be her hero. I’ve been by her side all of her life.”
“And you still are and still will be. I’m just an impartial observer in this situation.”
“Impartial, my ass.” She snorted. “Anyone can see you are more than partial toward her. All right, Gren, take care of our girl and bring her back, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I joked, and we hung up.
“How are they handling it all?” I heard from behind me, and I turned around to find Brooklyn sitting up in bed.
“As well as could be expected, I guess. Your parents are worried about you, and I think Cassidy is jealous that I’m here instead of her.” I smiled.
“I shouldn’t have just run off,” she whispered. “I just couldn’t keep it all straight in my head, and I thought I was going nuts.”
“It’s all right. They understand.”
“And you? Do you understand?”
“I think so,” I told her. “I’m trying to,” I added. “It’s one thing to know, another to truly understand it all.”
“I’m so sorry, Gren. I’m so sorry for all this.”
“No, no, don’t be. This isn’t your fault,” I responded as I made my way back to the bed to sit beside her.
“Maybe, maybe not, but I’m still sorry.”
“I know, and I am too.”
We stayed in silence for a moment. “I guess I should tell you the rest,” she said.
I just nodded in response.
“I had already told Dr. Talbert that I wanted to forget everything. The first time I said it, he tried to make me talk about feelings. What feelings? I was numb to anything but fear and loathing. Then when I told him, he tried to get me to talk about that time as if I hadn’t talked about it enough. Each time I asked to forget, he found a way around it. Finally, one day, when I asked, he actually responded. ‘There may be a way,’ he said. ‘It’s not guaranteed, and it is experimental. I don’t recommend it.’ But I didn’t care. I just wanted my life gone.” She paused as if she was fighting to continue. I put my hand over hers and squeezed.
“It was a mixture of hypnotherapy and some brainwashing techniques. And it took months. I don’t even remember all the sessions. But I do remember my parents talking to him about it outside my room before we started. They didn’t think I heard them, but I did. ‘You can’t let her do this,’ my mom had told the doctor. ‘She’s an adult, and if this is what she wants, I think it’s best,’ Dr. Talbert responded. ‘You’re the doctor. You’re supposed to tell her what’s best, not the other way around,’ my mom cried. If I had any emotions left, I probably would have felt bad for her. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was asking my parents and Cassidy to change their lives too. I just couldn’t see past my own hurt then. I mean Cassidy uprooted her life in Los Angeles to be by my side because she would always be an anchor for me. She had to figure out how to merge her life with the one I had created and live in the false memories I had imagined for us. And my parents had to avoid all limelight, had to basically disappear from the face of the earth and leave their friends behind just so I could pretend to be normal. I was never normal, and I’m certainly not now.” She buried her head in my shoulder, and I stroked her hair, trying to tell her that her parents and Cassidy did it out of love.
“My God, I was such a selfish bitch.” She laughed mirthlessly as she straightened back up. “I listened to Dr. Talbert tell my mom and dad that this was the best thing for me because I just couldn’t cope, but I never thought about them coping with my new life. ‘And how will it work?’ my mom asked. ‘I mean what will fill the blanks in her memories? Do you just have a magical script of every goddamn moment you need to replace?’ I had very rarely heard my mom yell, and it was even more rare to hear her curse. I think I might have flinched when I heard her words, but I was too deadened to care. ‘We get rid of the overall memories she’s trying to forget and suggest new vague scenarios, like that she went to college, Cassidy was her roommate, and she had a normal college experience. It’s up to her mind to fill in the blanks and determine what normal college experience means to her. Same with all the other times in her life we’re going to ask her to forget.’ I had already known all that and had spent every moment I had thinking of new situations, new memories for me to have so that they’d stick when I finished the entire process. ‘And what if she doesn’t fill in the blanks?’ my mom asked. ‘I already warned Jourdan that it might not work at all. If her mind doesn’t compensate, she’ll remember her life as it is now.’ They said a few more things, but that’s not important. The point is that I knew my parents had acquiesced at some point during that conversation. I knew they were one hundred percent behind me.”
“And Cassidy?”
“It broke her heart, but I knew it hurt her more to watch me suffer. She would have done anything, agreed to anything, just to see me smile. But she tried to talk me out of it every day. Even after I started the whole long process, she’d make little remarks about me staying me.”
“But how did you … die?” I didn’t quite know how to ask it, how to word it. I just didn’t understand how she could make the world believe she was gone.
“Cass asked me the same thing. ‘Money,’ I had screamed at her and my parents. ‘Doesn’t money buy new identities and new lives and silence and whatever the hell else it’s supposed to do?’ I had yelled at the top of my lungs from my hospital bed. I had enough money to disappear if I had to and never come back. It was like blood money to me then. I had gotten it at a price, and the price was my sanity and well-being. So the least I could do was use it to try to get some of my life back. ‘Pay off the doctors, the nurses, the staff, hire some hacker to erase traces of me online that might trigger some memories later on, buy me a new identity. Just make it happen.’ My parents and Cass took care of all those details. With the right amount, anything could be bought, anything could be created, and anything could be sealed. And I became Brooklyn J. Cooper.” She chuckled, but it was forced. “My parents hadn’t wanted to steer too far away from my name, so they kept my middle name, the J and the last name was just a bit different. It was a slow process, forgetting everything and coming up with a new life. There were days I was confused, completely confused, and then one day, I was Brooklyn. Jourdan didn’t exist … until now.”
A freaking revelation. “That’s why your parents and Cass didn’t want you with me and didn’t want you to go on tour. They were afraid you’d remember, and they were right. God, Brook, I’m so sorry. If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be okay.” Holy fuck, I was a douche. It was all my fault Brooklyn was reliving her real-life nightmares.
“And I’d still be living a lie, and I wouldn’t have you,” she stated. “If this mess isn’t my fault, then it’s not yours either.” The tone she used spoke volumes. It said, “Don’t even think about getting self-righteous or feeling self-pity right now.” And then I felt like an even bigger jerk for those thoughts because here she was pouring her heart out to me, and I was feeling sorry for myself.
“I love you, Gren,” she said. “Even with all this, I wouldn’t trade it in because then I wouldn’t be here with you.”
“I won’t let you regret feeling that way.” I pulled her to me, capturing her lips as if I needed them to survive. “Don’t worry, Brooklyn.” I smiled against her lips, not able to keep the teasing at bay. “I’ll make sure you never regret it.”
Brooklyn
We spent about a day and a half letting everything process for both of us. We didn’t leave the room and not in the sexy kind of way. Okay, maybe a little bit of the sexy kind of way. Fine, fine, a lot of the sexy kind of way. But that wasn’t why we hadn’t left the room. I needed to let myself come to terms with what had happened to me all over again. It was easier now because I had lived two lives and so many years since then. I was also able to kind of shove it in the back of my mind. Not sure if that was good for me or not, but that was what I did, and I was able to cope as a result.
I also needed to separate my two lives, my two memories, and which parts were real and which were just made up. It was a lot harder than you’d think, especially since part of my “fake” life was actually real. I also didn’t feel like Jourdan. When you live long enough as a different person, you become them. I was Brook. But how would that affect my life and the lives of the people around me?
I knew Grennan also needed some time to wrap his head around it all.
We didn’t talk about the situation again after I gave him the details. We talked about my family, about Cassidy, even about his friends. I told him stories I remembered as Jourdan, even the ones from my childhood, and I filled him in on what had been happening while on tour with him and then after.
When I explained I thought I had been possessed, he laughed. So then I laughed, and it made the entire situation seem that much lighter. I looked back at it and smiled instead of frowned.
And then there was some sexy time between all the talk. We had a lot of catching up to do.
Finally, Grennan turned to me. “We need to get you back home.”
I simply nodded. Grennan got us flights and packed up our things. The plane ride home had me anxious. I wasn’t sure how my parents would treat me, what Cassidy would say, or what they’d call me.
“It’s all going to be fine,” he assured me. “They’re still your parents and your best friend, and you’re still you.”
“But I’m not.”
“Yeah, Brook, you are.”
“Oh, baby girl,” my mom cried as she ran to pull me into a hug when we got out of the car next to my house. My dad was right behind, and then Cass wrapped her arms around me so tightly, I wasn’t sure if she was happy to see me or was trying to suffocate me.
“Don’t you ever disappear on me like that,” she told me. “Do you know how scary that was for me?”
I cringed in shame. I imagined they felt like it was happening all over again when I just took off, but in my defense, I hadn’t known.
“I’m sorry,” I told them as I looked at their faces. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t … I didn’t know.”
“Oh, forget that now. You’re home, you’re okay, and you … you know …” My mom trailed off, a frown on her face. Then she perked up and smiled. “I have dinner waiting. Let’s get inside.”
Dinner was … silent. And not that comfortable silence. It was tense, and no one knew what to say. So after the dishes were cleaned up and we sat back down at the table, just staring at each other, I finally broke the silence.
“I remember it all. Everything.” I choked back a sob. “I remember how he took me, what he did to me.” I paused.
“It will be okay, honey,” my mom said. “We’ll get you a therapist, a different therapist this time, and we’ll help you through it all. Just please … please … don’t.”
I knew what she was trying to say. She didn’t want me reverting, forgetting, not coping.
“I’m ... I’m surprisingly okay with what happened. I don’t know if it’s because it hasn’t really set in yet, but I can deal with the past. What I can’t deal with is knowing what I put you all through. I didn’t think. Well, I only thought about myself. I’m so sorry,” I cried. “I’m so very sorry. And I can’t thank you enough. I love you so much.”
And then I felt arms around me. First, they were Grennan’s, but in just moments, I was part of a giant group hug with myself, Grennan, Cassidy, and my parents.
“We love you too. And we’d do it all again,” my dad told me.
“Yeah, but please don’t make us,” Cassidy added, and everyone chuckled as one.
We stayed that way for a couple more minutes before we broke apart and headed into the living room to continue talking.
“So what now?” Cass asked. “You going to announce you’re really alive? Make a musical comeback? You’re already halfway there.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I mean”—I paused as I thought—“I didn’t realize how much I missed music until I started writing again. I don’t know how I denied myself that, but I don’t think I could go back into the limelight and be the star I was. I just … I’m not that person anymore. Maybe I’ll keep writing, but it won’t be for my own songs.”
“And your name?” she asked. It hadn’t gone unnoticed that my parents and Cassidy hadn’t said my name. I guess they weren’t sure what to call me. But leave it to Cass to ask.
“I’m Brook,” I answered without hesitation. Jourdan was who I was born, whose life I lived, but she was gone. It didn’t matter how she was gone—dead or not—she was still gone.
I couldn’t decipher the looks on my parents’ faces or the one Cassidy was sporting, but it was what it was. I couldn’t change how I felt, and I felt like Brook.
“You don’t have to tiptoe around me, though, and we can move back to Los Angeles or wherever you want to go. Now that I know, there’s no chance anything will spark my memory, since I, well, since I already have it back.”
“Los Angeles?” Grennan asked beside me. I forgot that I hadn’t actually ever given him a response about living together. And I wasn’t sure if he still wanted that. But his home was New York.
“Or maybe New York?” I responded with a question. We’d talk about it later. I’d give him an answer, but I needed to know if his question had changed first.
“The point is that I’m still Brooklyn,” I told my parents and Cass. “I just know where I come from now.”
“I quite like this little town.” My dad was the first to speak. “It’s quiet and nice. Maybe we’ll stay. But we can always figure things out later.”
I nodded at him gratefully before my mom announced we’d had enough action for one night, and it was time for everyone to rest.
“You didn’t answer me, Brook,” Grennan said later on as soon as we walked into my room.
“Answer you what?”
“I asked you something before you took off. You never gave me a response.”
“I believe you demanded,” I answered with a silly smile. He still wanted to live with me; even after everything, he still wanted to make that commitment. My heart did a giddy little dance inside my chest.
“I did.” He smiled momentarily before turning serious. “But now, I’m asking. Will you move in with me, Brook?”
“I’m a nut case, though.”
“No, you’re emotionally wrecked, but we will get through that together.”
“I have to stay out of the limelight.”
“I think I’ve done a pretty good job of hiding you away so far.”
“What if someone recognizes me? Some guy on your tour almost did.”
“I know but almost doesn’t count.”
“And your band. Oh God, Gavin, Cody, Trevor. They’re going to hate me. They’ll probably think I’m insane.”
“They know everything, Brook. I’ve talked to them already. They don’t hate you. If anything, they feel bad about everything.”
“I don’t want their pity.”
“And they won’t give it. They might make a few extra jokes here and there, maybe get even more jealous that I’m with the Jourdan, but that’s about it. When we get back to New York, we’ll hang out with them, and you’ll see.”
“When we get back to New York, huh? So it’s a done deal.”
“Not until you say yes. I want to be with you always, Brook. I want to make a life with you, and this is just the first step to that. Move in with me
.” He was pleading, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
I jumped into his arms with such force, I knocked him back a little, but he caught me as I peppered his face with kisses.
“Is that a yes?” He laughed.
“It’s a hell yes,” I responded and fused my lips with his.
“Good.” He smiled. “Don’t worry, Brooklyn, you’ll love living with me.”
This time, I had a response. “I know.”
Brooklyn
The next few weeks were spent getting reacquainted with Grennan, with my family, with Cassidy, and most importantly, with myself.
I asked questions, and I answered questions. I made plans and figured out some things about myself. I also spent plenty of time apologizing to everyone. They kept telling me to stop, and I think they got sick of my apologizing, so then I just found other ways, like taking out the trash an extra time or washing and drying the dishes, letting Cassidy fuss a little more with my clothes and makeup, and letting Grennan have his way with me. Okay, that last part had nothing to do with apologizing, but it was a very healthy part of the next few weeks.
Grennan was also very considerate of me spending time with just Cassidy or just my folks. He got a hotel room where I spent most nights, but some days and nights, we spent apart. Those were difficult days, actually, but Grennan understood and would just say, “Soon, we’ll be together every day.” I didn’t think he could have been sweeter if he tried.
I finally told Cass why I had run off from Grennan and what really happened.
She laughed, not the “ha-ha, that’s funny” kind of laughing, but the “holy shit, I can’t believe you” kind. The kind of laugh when you don’t know what to say.
“Seriously?” she asked, but it had sounded more like a screech. “You didn’t even give the boy a chance to explain? Come on, Brook, anyone with two eyes … No, scratch that, anyone with even one working eye can see that boy worships the ground you freaking walk on. He’d never cheat on you.”