by Stacey Lynn
“Amy,” she says, her voice more firm, and I drag my gaze away from the sad looking, abandoned swing set. “Tell me about the picnic. You can do this.”
I focus on her green and yellow tie-dyed shirt that she has paired with an orange ruffled skirt that drags on the floor.
“He took me to some hot springs.”
Dr. Jamison gives me an encouraging nod and I look at Adam. His head is down and his hands are gripping the armrests. I know he’s trying to calm down. I remember the picnic and the steam of the water, the way it felt against my skin in the brisk air, and the kiss. Because of all the things that happened that day, Adam’s kisses were the best.
“It was nice.”
Adam turns to me, hesitantly.
Dr. Jamison smiles. “Why was it nice?”
I stare at the ceiling.
One hundred and fifty two tiles line the ceiling. I count them at every appointment and find comfort in knowing some things will never change.
I inhale slowly, blowing out my breath. I can sense Adam tense next to me.
“Because we didn’t talk about us. We just talked about … regular stuff.” I shrug my shoulders but can feel the back of my eyes begin to burn
“What else made it a good day?” Dr. Jamison is smiling, as if she already knows every thought in my head.
My cheeks flush, remembering.
Slick skin, toned abs, wet hair … it all flashes to my mind in an instant, and my cheeks heat and my thighs pull together.
“We swam.” I sound like a five-year-old speaking basic sentences. Can Adam hear the lust in my voice? I bite the inside of my cheek to keep my smile away.
“And how did you feel when you did that? Did Adam touch you?”
I nod. I focus harder on the hem of her orange skirt, too embarrassed to know what Adam will see in my eyes if I look at him. I run my hands to my ponytail holder, shaking out my hair.
It blocks my view from Adam and his view of my hot pink cheeks. My face feels like it’s on fire.
I pull my eyes to Dr. Jamison and she smiles at me victoriously. “You trusted him.”
Adam sighs when I nod and from the corner of my eye I see his fingers stretch out from his grip on the arm chair.
“And do you think that man … the man you spent the day with, trusting, and holding on to, is capable of what you think your dream showed you?”
The man’s head flops on the ground as Adam punches him in the face and his blood flies, landing on my already bloody lap.
I freeze in my chair. My back is as straight as a piece of wood and my body is equally as stiff.
The blood.
There was blood everywhere … on me. He just wouldn’t stop punching him.
Without thinking, my fingers fly to my temple and I find the bump. I have a scar in the same space from that night. It’s an older scar, just over an inch long, and slightly hidden in my hairline. I might never have noticed it if I hadn’t spent hours over the last several weeks staring at myself in the mirror trying to remember everything.
I gasp.
I turn to Adam.
He looks at my hand on the side of my head and quickly turns away from me. His eyes close and his face falls. He can’t even look at me.
Who hurt me that night?
She doesn’t wait for me to answer, but I can feel the tension in the room increase as if someone just turned it up on a control panel. Instead, she turns to Adam.
“Tell me what happened that night.”
Adam looks at me and purses his lips. His body is as tense as mine and there’s anger in his eyes – a wild look that I have never seen before.
“He hurt her.” He chokes over the words, and looks away from me, staring at the ugly purple speckled carpet.
“What do you mean, ‘he hurt her’?”
He runs his fingers through his hair, linking them behind his neck, before pulling them a part and flexing his fingers. I can feel the tension increasing in his body with every movement.
“I was supposed to pick her up from the library when it closed at ten, but I was running late. She tried calling me, but my phone was dead, so she started walking. Jared attacked her. He …” Adam looks at me, and I can see something … pain, possibly, in them. He shakes his head, exhaling out a huff of breath.
“What did he do, Adam?”
My skin is crawling. How can everything I see be so horribly wrong?
Adam shakes his head. He stands up so quickly that his chair falls to the floor with a crash. It makes both me and Dr. Jamison jump in our seats.
My eyes are wide open as Adam paces back and forth before stopping, staring at both of us.
His eyes are evil.
“I can’t talk about this.” He turns, leaves the room, and slams the door.
I am too stunned to move. We both watch the door.
Is he coming back? Do I go to him?
“He isn’t the man who hurt you.” Her voice is so confident it makes me frown.
“That’s not what I was thinking,” I snap, too afraid to tell her that’s exactly what I’m thinking. Jared had no reason to hurt me. We were friends.
She nods, but she knows I’m lying. I’ve always sucked at it.
“He loves you.”
I feel like someone just grabbed my head and shook my brain, rattling it. Did she not just see what happened? Or maybe she’s more stoned than usual.
Adam can flip his temper from calm and cool to the anger of a lion hunting down prey with the flick of a switch.
“He scares me,” I whisper, staring at the door still trying to understand.
“He’s hurting and I know this is difficult for you. You’re the one who can’t remember.” She says it calmly, and I feel her hand on my lap. “But you’re forcing him to re-live every single bad decision the man has ever made and it’s hard to see his failures through the eyes of the woman he loves. Give him some time, Amy. And give yourself some – everything will work out the way it’s supposed to.”
My feet move, and I don’t look back at her.
By the time I’m in the parking lot, Adam’s car is gone. I climb into mine, determined to follow him this time.
I have the right to answers when it comes to my own body at the very least.
It doesn’t take me long to find him once I hit The Library.
Zander smiles at me from behind the bar as soon as I walk in, nodding his head in Adam’s direction. He’s in a booth at the back of the bar, hunched over, two beers already at the table.
“Thanks, Zander.” He throws a wet towel over his shoulder and rests his elbows on the bar. With a finger wiggle, he waves for me to come closer.
“Not a problem, girl. Just go easy on him, will ya’?” He glances around me, over to Adam, and then back to me. His voice lowers by at least an octave. “That night wasn’t easy on him.”
I nod, not understanding, but determined to find out.
He slides me an opened bottle of 318 beer and frowns. “He loves you, Amy. A lot. All of this - your accident, the coma, not knowing if you were going to make it … and now, just not knowing … it’s killing him. It’s killing all of us. We just want you back, you know?”
“I’m so sorry this has been tough on you.”
Zander rolls his eyes, not humored by my sarcasm. “That’s not what I meant.” He pauses and pushes off the bar, taking a step back before looking back at me. His lip piercing catches the light from above him and sparkles a little bit. It almost makes me smile. Nothing about Zander, with his dark as night eyes and inked everywhere skin, should be sparkly.
“I know you don’t remember me, but I’m not the fuck up I look like. And that guy over there, draining his beers because he just had to relive one of the scariest nights of his life? Well, he’s the only one who has ever had my back.” He shakes his head and when speaks again, his voice is softer. Kinder. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to wake up and be in your place. It’s gotta be scary as hell, I get it. But Adam’s good people. And
he didn’t give you that scar on the side of your head that you’re rubbing with your shaky little finger.”
I drop my hand, not even aware I was doing it.
Zander grins, but it looks out of place on him. Like he doesn’t do it often.
I grab my beer without another word because what is there to say to someone who looks like he could eat me for breakfast and spit out my bones?
Adam sits up straighter in his chair when I’m just a couple tables away and sees me headed straight for him.
“Hey,” I say, sliding into the bench across from him.
He closes his eyes and mindlessly peels back the label on the beer bottle in front of him. It has a matching blue label like mine with 318 printed vertically.
I take a sip of mine, smiling at the taste. I don’t generally like beer, but this isn’t too bad. Nice, refreshing a little bit.
“It’s your favorite beer.” Adam nods toward the beer in his hand and then to Zander behind the bar. “When Zander started working here, we came in one night and you made him give you a sample of every beer they have until you could find one you didn’t think tasted like Miller Light Keg Beer.”
I wrinkle my nose. One too many frat parties by the end of my freshman year and I had refused to take another sip of beer. That I remember. This story, I don’t, but I don’t take my eyes off of him as he stares at the bar with a distant look on his face.
I examine the label as if it’s the only lifeline between us right now. “It’s a good beer.”
Adam raises his beer in the air, signaling for another round, and looks everywhere besides at me. The uncomfortableness we had just started breaking down increases to insane levels. I feel like I could just … snap … at any second. Adam looks even closer to the breaking point.
His hands grip the beer so tightly I think it might shatter when he notices me absentmindedly fingering the scar on my hairline.
“I was late that night.” He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head as if clearing away a nightmare.
My hands freeze on the table. I don’t want to move or distract him for a second. Finally, I might get some answers.
“The library was closed and locked by the time I got there. I was so upset. I was mad at you for leaving the library to walk across the campus, mad at Zander for talking me into playing another round of Walking Dead, and mad at myself for not charging my cell phone. When I took off for your apartment, I was just pissed. At everyone. And scared. It was so dark and campus was so empty. Nothing felt right that night.”
He shakes his head again and stares at me but without seeing me. Maybe staring through me to the girl who used to love him. I have no idea, but I stay still, listening, not even sure if I’m breathing.
“He was on top of you.” He drains the remainder of his beer in one long gulp.
What? My fingertips press against my scar and Adam flinches when he sees me.
“He hurt you, Amy. Not me. I heard you screaming not far from the tower in the middle of campus. I found you behind the pine trees. Jared was … he was on top of you. Hurting you.”
I swallow slowly, trying to absorb his words, but not understanding. Or not wanting to. Adam … Jared. Jared was my friend. We were both finance majors and had a lot of classes together. He was always so nice to me.
He wouldn’t hurt me.
“He was so nice,” I mutter, and then lurch back when I realize my mistake. Adam’s eyes glow a similarly evil expression. I shake my head quickly and raise a hand. “That’s not what I mean. I’m not saying I don’t believe you, I just … I remember Jared and he was so nice to me.”
“Do you?”
I frown. “Do I what?”
“Do you believe me?”
I blink. Unsure. And then nod.
I can see the pain of what reliving this night has done to him, and the sincerity in Zander’s eyes at the bar.
At the very least, I don’t think Adam hurt me that night.
Relief washes over him and his shoulders sag down. Adam falls back into the booth.
“When did it happen?” I ask, not because it’s important or changes anything, I just need to know.
“Spring semester, near the end of our junior year.”
“What happened to Jared?”
Adam’s nose twitches and then he grins. “He left and never came back. He had a couple fractured cheekbones and his nose was broken, but nothing too permanent. He never said what happened to him, probably knowing what we would say about him.”
“Zander said you might need me.” Kelsey smiles and slides in next to me, throwing an arm around me and pulling me close.
I didn’t even see her coming until her voice broke through the silence at our table.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” she says, ignoring the tension between Adam and me.
Zander appears out of nowhere with a round of beers, four shot glasses, and a bottle of tequila. He sits down next to Adam.
Kelsey grins. “A new version of ‘I have never’.”
I roll my eyes. I was never good at ‘I never’ … the drinking game where someone says something they’ve never done. If you’ve done it, you have to take a drink. I always ended the game sober while everyone else involved was trashed.
“I hate that game.”
“Yes, but there’s a twist to tonight’s game,” she says smiling, as if everything is just bright and sunny in her little world. Her happy smile looks almost as strange as Zander’s smile. “We’re going to say something and you have to guess whether or not it’s true. If you’re wrong – you drink.”
“So this game is called ‘make Amy puke her brains out’?”
“Not if you’re a good guesser.” She smirks and nudges me with her shoulder.
Adam smiles and shakes his head, taking a long pull of his beer.
I watch his Adam’s apple dip in his throat, unable to take my eyes off him. How can I go from being so afraid of him to turned on by such a simple movement?
“I’ll go first,” Zander says. He leans forward with his elbows on the table, and I peel my eyes away from Adam’s throat. “You streaked butt naked through our frat house.”
Adam snorts and shakes his head. When he drags his eyes to mine, he smiles.
I didn’t.
There’s no way I did that.
I look to Kelsey to see if she’s giving anything away, but she has one hell of a poker face.
“No way,” I say confidently, but then jump in my seat when Kelsey smacks her hand on the table and shouts, “Yes!”
“You’re lying.”
“No,” she shouts again, laughter bubbling up from her. “You totally did. Like half the guys in the house saw you.”
I look across the table.
Zander looks pleased and pours me a shot. I take it without the help of salt or limes and cringe as it burns my throat.
“I don’t believe you.” I shake my head. There’s absolutely no way I would willingly streak through a frat house.
“Technically,” Adam finally says with a shit-eating grin on his face. He pauses and takes a shot with me. “You walked out of my room to go to the bathroom, but you were so drunk you forgot there was still a party going on.”
I feel the heat rise on my cheeks, embarrassed that not only does Adam mention me being naked in his room at his frat house, which can only mean one thing, but also at the idea of how many people saw me doing a naked, drunk stumbling walk.
“Relax, girl.” Zander smirks. “There was only like six of us at a room at the end of the hall. But it was the best night of our lives.”
“Oh my god.” I drop my head into my hands, elbows propped on the table, and bounce against Kelsey’s shoulder when she shoves me again.
I point my finger at Zander. “You lied. You should take a shot too. That isn’t streaking.”
He shrugs. “Close enough.”
Shit.
The rest of the night continues almost the exact same way.
I learn tha
t I dumped a beer all over Lexi’s little football cheerleader uniform after Adam and I had been dating a year and she tried to kiss him right in front of me. My first rock concert was Radiohead in Colorado Springs – which I guessed right - remembering the way Adam looked the day he told me about them in the car.
I have never skinny dipped, which answered a few lingering questions about what exactly I’ve done in the hot springs.
I not only wore jeans to Thanksgiving dinner at my parent’s house, but that I skipped Christmas last year all together after they learned I was moving out of my apartment and in with Adam. That one made me frown and I took two shots because it was too close to all the unanswered questions I still don’t understand.
But when I open my mouth to ask them, my tongue feels heavy and too big for my mouth.
“Did we go home to your parent’s house then?” I immediately, even in my tequila induced haze, wish I would have kept my mouth shut.
Adam’s eyes go cold like they did the day at the park, and Zander makes a similar expression.
I’m too drunk to think straight.
“Have I ever met them?” I ask again, pushing, because why not? The last two hours have been spent with me learning that I was almost raped by a friend and re-living every embarrassing moment of my life.
Which has been great. I’m happy tonight, if the evidence of my cheek hurting smile is any clue.
I like this Amy.
I like who I am when I’m at this table with my best friend and the guys I don’t remember. Tonight, with liquor warming my veins and my cheeks hurting from laughing so hard, I don’t even care that I don’t remember them.
What does matter is that no matter what I’m forced to remember and think of - Adam never talks about himself.
“No, you haven’t,” he says, and throws back a shot. “What else haven’t you done?”
I don’t let him change the subject even though I can see the anger dancing across his eyes, warning me to drop it. “Why don’t you talk about them?”
“Because his dad’s an asshole.” Zander fills a shot glass and slides it toward Adam. Almost as if he’s helping him ease his pain. I don’t get it, but I want to.