Boy from the Woods (9781311684776)

by Minkman, Jen

  Julia patted the pockets of her jogging pants looking for Gaby’s iPod. Music would probably dispel her dark thoughts. She turned on the player and slowly jogged on in the semi-darkness as the first sullen tones of ‘A Forest’ by the Cure filled her ears. Not the most cheerful song imaginable, but the fact that it was the first song to start playing in shuffle mode was too much of a coincidence for her to skip it.

  Julia wiped the raindrops from her cheeks and trudged doggedly on. The rhythm of the song spurred her on and made her run faster, her heart beating wildly in her chest, tapping out an indeterminate fear.

  The singer droned in her ears. I’m lost in a forest, all alone... I’m running towards nothing, again and again and again. Her hands clenched into fists and her eyes squinted against the rain falling from the sky. Only a few more minutes and she’d be home.

  And then something caught her eye. She froze. In the light of a bright lightning strike setting the forest ablaze with cold fire, she saw someone lying on the ground. The black stain of a person on the edge of the path. A motorcycle on its side, smack in the middle of the forest trail.

  Julia came to a standstill, her breath ragged. With trembling, slippery fingers, she fumbled with the player to turn off the music. She’d ended up at her favorite oak tree, the place suddenly looking sinister in the gloom. Her throat turned dry as she peered at the unconscious figure on the forest trail. Step by step, she shuffled forward. Her eyes followed the tire tracks that the motorcycle had made in the muddy soil. Julia’s heart stopped when she came even closer and recognized the Honda bike.

  No – this couldn’t be happening. She rushed the last few yards separating her from the boy on the ground. Julia fell down on her knees next to his lifeless body, her stomach filling with dread as she noticed the left side of his face was covered in blood. He’d hit his head on a sharp-edged rock. His head injury looked really, really bad.

  “Michael?” she whispered softly, putting a trembling hand on his forehead. “Can you hear me?”

  He lay very still, his lips almost blue in the macabre light of the thunderstorm flashing occasionally. If only she could see whether he was still breathing! She couldn’t hear him breathe over the din of the rain and wind in the woods.

  With shaking hands, she grabbed her cell phone from her jacket pocket, setting the camera to permanent flash. The bright light illuminated Michael’s face, and tears welled up in her eyes. He looked so lifeless… so vulnerable. For just a moment, she forgot all about the horrible way he’d treated her. She’d wished for all kinds of nasty things to happen to him, but not this.

  “Michael,” she sobbed, her voice breaking. “Please, please wake up.”

  Her heart skipped a beat when he suddenly inhaled sharply. She took his hand. Very slowly he opened his eyes, green like the forest leaves he was lying under, his pupils dilated and black like the treacherous darkness that had caused him to slip and fall in this dangerous weather.

  “Julia,” he whispered in a soft, yet clear voice.

  She swallowed.

  Why did he sound so different? He pronounced her name with so much emotion that she could almost believe he was seeing her for the first time. She blinked disbelievingly.

  “I’ll get help,” she managed to stutter before his eyes fell shut again, her words making him smile faintly.

  Twenty minutes later, an ambulance with blue, flashing lights trundled up on the bumpy path through the woods. Julia watched as if in a trance as the paramedics put Michael on the stretcher.

  “Can you tell us where we can reach his family?” one of the EMTs asked her.

  “Uhm, yes,” Julia stammered, whipping her phone out again to look up the Kolbe family’s home number. “Why? Is he still unconscious?”

  The paramedic shook his head. “No, he can talk.” He looked at the ambulance with a worried frown. “But he seems to have lost his memory.”

  4.

  “This is un-be-lie-va-ble,” Gaby said with a face that spelled complete shock. She’d listened to Julia’s entire story about Michael’s accident without interrupting. “And you of all people finding him! I mean, how bizarro is that?”

  They were sitting in Julia’s bedroom with the curtains drawn and New Age music playing in the background. It was still raining outside.

  “He was more dead than alive,” Julia mumbled, staring at the Lord of the Rings poster on her wall with unseeing eyes. “That head injury of his… it gave me nightmares last night.”

  “Do you think he’ll ever fully recover? You said he had amnesia?”

  “That’s what the paramedic said.” Julia shrugged. She was trying to sound unconcerned, but in reality, the EMT’s diagnosis had kept her mind whirling since yesterday. The hospital personnel had only been able to contact Michael’s parents after the accident because she happened to have had an obsession with their son. Normally speaking, she didn’t have every single number of all her ex-classmates in her address book. Michael had lost his memory – he hadn’t even been able to recall his own home number, or who his parents were, let alone his last name.

  So why had he still remembered her name?

  “Julia,” he’d whispered to her in a weak voice. Had she been more important to him than he’d let on before? The look in his eyes had been one of joy and recognition. He had recognized her while he didn’t even know himself anymore.

  “You know, I’m kind of ashamed of myself for saying he could drop dead for all I cared, that night at the pub,” Gaby admitted, toying with the rings on her right hand. “You remember?”

  Julia nodded. “Yeah, he almost did drop dead. That paramedic said he was one lucky bastard to make it out of an accident like that alive. The blow to his head was devastating, hence the amnesia and all.”

  “Well, I’m glad. I wasn’t being serious when I said that, of course.”

  “No, of course not! Oh well – for all we know, Michael will forget about his evil ways forever so he can start a new life,” Julia said brightly, but she knew she was trying too hard. There were too many unanswered questions about the situation that bothered her.

  “Would you girls like some lunch?” Julia’s mother hollered upstairs. “I’m making pancakes.”

  “We’re coming,” Julia called back.

  “Great.” Gaby patted her stomach. “I’m starving. I haven’t even had breakfast yet.”

  “I have to go out after lunch,” Julia announced as they walked down the stairs. “I’m up for a job interview at the bookstore.”

  “Ooh, exciting! Keep me updated.”

  They barged into the kitchen and sat down at the dinner table. Anne was staring out the window with a pouty face. “Look at the lousy weather,” she moped. “This way we’ll never get to finish that tree house.”

  “Come on, a bit of rain won’t scare you away, will it?” Gaby teased the little girl.

  “Why don’t you recruit Thorsten to do all the dirty work?” Julia added with a wink.

  Anne looked sideways. “You ran into him the other day, didn’t you? Sabine told me.”

  “Yeah, I did.” Julia shoved a big bite of pancake into her mouth. Her baby sister was watching her like a hawk, and she couldn’t stop herself from blushing a little.

  Anne shrieked. “I knew it,” she triumphed. “I knew you’d like him!”

  Gaby glared at Julia from across the table. “Hey! Why am I not the first one to hear about this?” she demanded. “Who the hell is this Thorsten dude?”

  “It’s my best friend’s brother,” Anne replied instead of Julia. “Their family just moved here. And he’s really cute.” She glanced sideways at her big sister. “He also talked about Julia with Sabine, you know.”

  Julia flushed a shade deeper. “Uhm – oh,” she stammered, too flustered to make it sound nonchalant. “Really?”

  Anne gave her a wide grin that rivaled the Cheshire Cat’s smile in enthusiasm. “Yes, really,” she nodded, sounding self-congratulatory.

  Gaby kicked Julia’s shins
under the table. “Don’t hold out on me, girlfriend. I want more info ASAP.”

  “Yes, Your Highness Gabriella. I will see to it.”

  After lunch, Julia and Gaby were wordlessly walking to the bus stop when Julia decided to break the silence. “Something’s bothering me,” she mumbled gingerly.

  “Spill,” Gaby said.

  “When I found Michael, he opened his eyes and he said my name, but apart from that, he didn’t remember anything else. Isn’t that odd, him still being able to recall my name? I mean, he has amnesia.”

  Gaby bit her lip. “Please, Jules. Don’t go there. So he recognized you before he slipped back into unconsciousness. So what? It doesn’t mean a thing.”

  “But…” Julia muttered.

  “Look, I know what you want, okay? You want to believe he has more intense feelings for you than he was letting on before the accident. But seriously, you don’t want to go down this road. He took your V-card and didn’t even bother to call you back afterwards, and for that fact alone he should be on your shit list forever. Michael doesn’t deserve you, and you don’t deserve to get your heart crushed by him all over again.” Slightly out of breath after her tirade, Gaby grabbed Julia’s hand. “Just forget about him,” she pleaded.

  Julia sighed. “Okay. All right. You’re right. I just thought it was strange.”

  “Strange but true. And now for our next topic: Thorsten. Who is he? What does he look like? And when will you see him again?”

  Julia couldn’t help but laugh. “He’s Sabine’s brother, and they live across the street. He has black hair and blue eyes. As for when I’ll see him again – I have no clue. I only talked to him for a few minutes.”

  “So make sure they turn into hours next time,” Gaby winked.

  Julia looked up. “Oh, the bus is coming! Let’s hurry.”

  The two girls broke into a run to catch the bus to town. Panting and giggling, they boarded and walked all the way to the back.

  “Can I have my MP3 player back?” Julia asked once they were sitting down.

  Stupidly enough, she hadn’t felt like listening to Gaby’s music ever since Michael’s accident. The songs on her friend’s player reminded her of that strange moment when she found Michael’s lifeless body in the woods. She couldn’t let it go. Gaby could argue all she wanted, but the few seconds in which Michael had stared up at her with that unusual, intense look in his green eyes were etched in her memory.

  “I’ll see you at O’Malley’s tonight,” Gaby said when she got up to change buses. “Looking forward to hearing about your interview! Good luck, babe.”

  Julia waved at her as the bus drove off again. They were all meeting at O’Malley’s tonight. Florian had called her and promised he’d bring Moritz too. The jubilant tone had been evident in his voice: he was over the moon because of his new lover. Julia smiled faintly when she thought back to the evening in Shamrock. She was happy for Flo. It probably wouldn’t take too long before he’d suggest taking his new boyfriend on the London trip as well. Moritz had spent his entire childhood in the English capital, after all, so he would be the perfect tour guide.

  Julia was pulled from her thoughts when her phone vibrated briefly in her pocket. Probably another text message from one of the gang.

  She dug up her phone but stopped breathing when she saw the notification on the screen. ‘1 new message. Michael.’

  The words jumped out at her, making her heart rate speed up to a dangerous pace. Thank God Gaby wasn’t here to witness her reaction – she’d probably have treated her to another ‘you-must-forget-about-him’ sermon.

  With trembling fingers she clicked on the message icon.

  ‘hey julia :) u got time 2 drop by l8er? x mick’.

  Julia gawked at the X in front of his name. It probably meant nothing. Nothing at all. He just wanted to thank her because she’d saved him from an untimely death in the middle of the woods. No cause for alarm. Maybe his mom wanted to give her a fruit basket, or his dad wanted to pin a medal on her.

  And yet, another voice in her head insisted differently. See? See, he thought she was special. He wanted to meet up with her after his terrible accident.

  With a frustrated sigh, she looked up from the screen, pondering her options for a suitable reply to his message when she realized the bus had reached her stop. The doors were already closing again.

  “Wait!” Julia called out to the front, hitching her bag on her shoulder. “I need to get off here!” She caught the irritated frown of the bus driver in the rearview mirror when she blocked the sensor with her foot, causing the doors to swing open again.

  With a flushed face, she got off and sat down in the bus shelter. ‘r u home @ 3?’ she typed out after long consideration, leaving out her name or an X on purpose. Much better to sound aloof for now.

  She was just getting up when her cell phone came to life in her hand. Oh Lord – he was calling her. Julia swallowed the lump in her throat. The vibration of the device seemed to buzz through her entire body. Again and again it hummed in her palm like a swarm of angry bees.

  The girl sitting next to her glanced aside, a puzzled look on her face. “Aren’t you going to get that?” she asked.

  “No. I don’t think I’m ready for it just yet.”

  Her neighbor laughed. “Let it go to voicemail. He might leave you a message.”

  Julia stifled a nervous chuckle. “Great idea.” She hurriedly got up. If she didn’t start walking now, she’d be too late for her job interview, and it would all be due to her mulling over Michael and his invitation. Muttering a curse, she zipped across the bridge leading to the Old Town. Why oh why couldn’t she just have heeded Gaby’s sound advice? She should have ignored his invitation. Why was it so hard to let go of her obsession with him? He’d treated her like garbage. Did she have no self-respect?

  Still mentally bashing herself, she cut through narrow alleyways to get to the main square, crossing it at break-neck speed to end up in front of the bookstore at the strike of two. Outside, Julia saw a mustached man stuffing a book display rack with discounted paperbacks. She momentarily bent over to catch her breath, then addressed him.

  “Excuse me.” She cleared her throat. “I’m here about the job. Mr. Haider is expecting me at two.”

  The man turned around. “Julia Kandolf?” he asked, jovially extending a hand toward her. “I’m Martin Haider and I’m the manager. Let’s go to my office.”

  Julia entered the bookstore and followed her possible future boss to an office on the second floor. She’d brought her resume, which Mr. Haider skimmed through while she was sipping the unavoidable ‘job interview’ cup of coffee. Every now and then he asked her a question. She liked him – he had a sense of humor and he didn’t just ask her the dime-a-dozen questions she was used to.

  “Who’s your favorite author?” he wanted to know, handing her a second cup of coffee she didn’t dare refuse.

  Julia smiled. “Stefan Zweig. He can turn one small slice of life into something grandiose. He makes you think twice about common things.”

  Martin nodded enthusiastically, putting his signature on the form he’d been filling out as if her answer had sealed the deal for him. He extended his hand once more. “Welcome to the team! Can you start the day after tomorrow?”

  “Of course!” She beamed at him. “Thank you so much.”

  “No problem. Happy to have you on board. One of your colleagues will do the job orientation with you.” Martin slid the form across the table. “Could you fill out your details and sign here, please?”

  Once Julia had left the bookstore, she dug up her phone to send Gaby a text about her successful interview. ‘1 new message. voicemail,’ the display told her impassively. With nervously twitching fingers, she closed the notification and started to type out a message to her friend. After sending it off, she took a deep breath and called her voicemail.

  “Hi Julia,” Michael’s deep, sexy voice melted into her ear. “Of course I’ll be home around three
. Come and have tea with me! See you later.”

  Brilliant move. Julia turned as red as a lobster. In less than twenty minutes, she’d be having tea with her high school obsession and ignoring all of Gaby’s warnings. Michael would most likely be home alone, because his parents both worked full-time.

  Reluctantly, she made her way off the square, wondering in despair where it had all gone wrong. She’d been sort-of-ready to move on before she became his savior in the forest. Why was she so impressed with the fact he had stammered her name when she found him? So what?

  When Julia rang the doorbell of the big house on Giselakai at five to three, all courage had left her. She had no idea what she was doing here. Just to be polite, she’d listen to Michael’s expressions of gratitude and get the hell out the second she could.

  “Grüss Gott,” she stammered in surprise when a woman in her fifties opened the door. She had Michael’s green eyes. Julia thought she recognized the woman from the graduation ceremony at school. “Is – is Michael home?”

  “He’s expecting you.” The woman extended her hand. “I wanted to personally thank you, Julia. Without you, things could have turned out quite differently.”

  “You are most welcome.” She couldn’t stop a hint of disappointment creeping into her voice. So this was the reason Michael had invited her over. His mother wanted to thank her, plain and simple. Julia wouldn’t be here with just Michael for company, and he probably didn’t count on her staying for very long.