by C. R. Jane
Damon looks at me blankly. His eyes assess me as he checks me out like I’m some random hot girl he’s passing by in the streets. He pulls away from Selena and runs a hand through his hair. I see the familiar glint of hunger in his eyes as his tongue darts across his full bottom lip.
But it isn’t the hunger that he usually has when he sees me. It’s a hunger for an attractive stranger.
Selena pouts on the counter when she sees me. "Damon, who is this?" she says in an annoyed voice, pulling him back towards her even as she winks at me over his shoulder.
My mouth drops open.
"No, the better question is, Damon, why the hell is she here?" I snap, ready to scalp her if she doesn’t back away from him. Or maybe scalp him...because I still can’t believe this is happening.
Damon cocks his head, still looking at me like he doesn’t recognize me. What the hell is going on here?
"Sorry babe, I don't think you have the right apartment. Although you're always welcome here," he says, running his eyes down my body once again.
I feel sick to my stomach.
"Damon, what are you talking about? It’s me, Eva. Your girlfriend. Remember all that?" Selena smiles again as she runs her hand all over his chest.
I look over to the cabinet where I know we keep our knives, and I think about getting one out and stabbing her in the chest. That’s how crazy it’s making me feel to see her touch Damon like she has every right to. And for him to let her.
Damon clenches his teeth for a moment, rubbing his chest, almost as if he is experiencing pain. But he stops after a moment. "I've never seen you before in my life?" he says hesitantly, as if he’s asking a question.
Suddenly it hits me that this isn’t some kind of cruel prank. This isn’t him trying to hurt me. He genuinely has no idea who I am.
How could this have happened?
Was this Aiden’s master plan? If he couldn’t get me to leave them, he would just erase their memories? I remembered the drink that he had been giving me when I was trapped in that prison in China, the one that kept me locked in his dream world where he had the ability to alter my reality. Was this what was happening?
I didn’t think I could handle this. I rush down the hallway to my bedroom. The room I only had so that I can store my stuff because I always slept with either Mason or Damon if I was here.
I walk into my room and cry out. It just looks like a normal guest bedroom. There’s no sign of the white lace coverlet that I picked out for the bed or the gold pillows that I have strewn across it. Instead it looks like a masculinely decorated guest bedroom that has never been touched.
I frantically start opening drawers, beginning to freak out because I can’t find any of my things. I don’t know what to think. Aiden may have altered my dreams before, but he hadn’t altered the reality of what was going on around me in real life, i.e. that I was still trapped in a prison outside of my dream.
Maybe I was the one dreaming right now though? Maybe Aiden had found a way to slip something into my drink. I looked around the room for something sharp I could use to try and wake myself up.
Damon appears in the doorway while I’m looking. "Look babe, you're crazy hot, but you're kind of freaking me out. What the hell are you doing in my guest bedroom?" he asks, running a hand through his hair again agitatedly. I see Selena’s lipstick mark on his chest, and I want to scream. He’s going to think I’m even crazier in a moment.
Because I’m becoming hysterical. I look at him beseechingly. “This is my bedroom. I've lived here with you almost since the beginning of the school year. You're on the football team. I’m a cheerleader. You hit me with a football and that’s how we met. Ringing any bells?" I say, about ready to pull my hair out.
"Listen, I’m going to have to call the police if you don’t leave right now. You're scaring my girlfriend,” he says as Selena slinks up behind him and throws her arms around his waist, pressing a soft kiss to his shoulder.
I snap and lunge at her. I hear her scream in agony as I grab a chunk of her hair and pull my arm back, ready to pound her face. Suddenly Damon’s arms are wrapped around me, and he’s ripping me away from Selena. I can’t help but start to tear up at the idea that Damon is actually defending Selena against me. How is this possible?
"That's enough. Selena call the police,” he orders the sniveling snake, keeping his arm wrapped tightly around me, bound to his chest. I want to sink into the comfort his chest brings, but I know it will only make him think I’m crazier if I try to do that.
Selena gleefully jogs down the hall to make the call. I finally can’t stop myself from burying my face in his chest as my tears intensify. I inhale his familiar scent, wondering if this is the last time that I’m going to experience it. To my surprise he doesn’t push me away or tell me to stop. In fact, Damon's arms imperceptibly tighten around me. He runs his nose across the top of my head and inhales before catching himself and abruptly pulling back.
"Stalkers are never this pretty," he mutters to himself. My sobbing only increases with that statement.
"I just need to make a phone call,” I say in a watery voice. "And then I’ll leave. No police necessary."
He turns me around in his arms, those bright emerald eyes of his staring down at me intently. He searches my face, looking closely. But there’s no hint of recognition across his face.
The thought that he has lost all of the memories that we've carefully collected over the past couple of months, it was almost more than I can bear. He loosens his arms long enough for me to pull out my cell phone. When I begin scrolling through the numbers, I panic when I can’t find Beckham’s number.
I’m close to hyperventilating.
Luckily, I have their numbers memorized so I can type it in. I wait breathlessly while it rings. It goes straight to voicemail.
"Beckham, it’s Eva. Something has happened. I need you to come get me right now. Please call me back."
Next, I dial Mason's number. I can feel Damon's stare as he intently watches me. I try to remember where Mason is. Was he in Germany today, or was that yesterday? His schedule isn’t clear to me in my current state.
The phone begins to ring, and I hold my breath again until Mason's groggy voice answers. Wherever he is, it’s still nighttime there. "Mason," I say eagerly.
"Who is this?" Mason asks confused, his voice still threaded with sleep.
I close my eyes and tears start to leak out. "It's me, Eva. Things are happening that I don't understand. I need you."
"Eva? Listen sweetheart, I said I don't do repeats. You knew that deal coming into this."
Sick bile comes up and once again I retch while still holding the phone desperately to my ear.
"Mason, it's me. The girl with the blonde hair that you met at your concert in New York. I go to school with Damon."
I can hear grumbling. "Listen, I don't know how you got this number, or whose dick you had to suck in order to get it. You need to forget that you have it. I don't want to change my fucking phone number for the millionth time,” he says.
I hear the click of the phone as he hangs up on me. My knees give out at that point. Damon catches me before I can fall to the floor. I wondered idly why his arms are still around me. At that moment Selena decides to make another entrance.
"The police are on their way," she says cheerfully, her smile dropping when she sees that Damon is still holding me.
"Babe, you can let her go. The police will be here, and they'll handle it," she says, briskly walking towards us and practically shoving her way back into Damon's arms so I’m pushed out of the way. I take a few steps backwards.
"There's no need for the police," I say, my voice coming out shaky. "I'll go."
Damon opens his mouth to say something, his eyes still searching mine. He’s probably wondering how I knew his friends’ number. He’s cut off by Selena grabbing his chin to force a kiss upon his lips. A kiss that I notice he doesn’t really return.
I walk to the door, feeling heartbroken
and sick, wondering how there was any way I was going to be able to forget what I was seeing. Looking back at him, I meet his eyes. His beautiful, beautiful eyes. The ones that gave me hope the first time that I saw them.
"Please remember me," I say softly, before turning to leave the room.
It must have been just my imagination that there is a glimmer of pain in his eyes as I leave.
Standing outside the apartment, the apartment that was also mine yesterday, I’m at a loss for what to do next. My whole body is trembling.
Out of desperation, I try to call Beckham again. But it just goes to voicemail once more. I knew as soon as he didn’t answer the first time, that he would be just the same as the others. I couldn't really remember a time that Beckham hadn’t gone out of his way to answer the phone when I called. At the very least he would always immediately send me a text if he was in a meeting.
I was all alone. I stand outside the apartment door for a while, part of me hoping that Damon will be out soon, looking for me. I was hoping that somehow this was all a mistake or the worst planned joke in history or something, anything but what it was.
It's amazing that despite the fact that I've been alone for most of my life, I have somehow grown used to not being alone since I’ve gotten to New York. I’ve grown used to having someone that I could depend on. It's like my body has forgotten all the lessons that it has learned about how to survive on its own.
I feel like I’m going into shock.
Finally, it’s clear that he isn’t going to be coming after me. I walk to the elevator and take it downstairs. The guard in the lobby makes eye contact with me. I had once considered myself friends with Toby. Now there isn’t a sign that he even recognizes me at all. I give him a hesitant wave that he returns with a warm, blank smile, his eyes moving over me admiringly.
"Toby?" I ask, part of me still wanting to believe that someone would know me.
"Good morning, Miss," he says to me. "Can I help you with anything?"
"No," I say softly. I walk out of the apartment, not sure that I can ever return again even if somehow, I get Damon to remember me. This hurt too much.
I stand outside on the sidewalk. It’s freezing out here as usual, but I barely feel it. It’s as if my sorrow has made me impervious to the cold. Thousands of people rush past me, on their way to their busy lives. I would usually be like them.
But for the first time in a while, I’m not sure where to go. I’m not sure where I belong.
I eventually decide to go back to Rothmore. I technically still have a dorm room there. Or at least I did have a dorm room there. I wasn't sure how far whatever this was that was happening has spread. What if it has erased my entire existence in the world? I shiver at the thought of being forgotten forever.
I pull up the rideshare app on my phone and send for a cab to come pick me up. I’m just hoping that my credit card will still work. I guess it’s a good thing that Moxie has made clear I can come back whenever I want to. It wouldn’t be too hard to start picking up shifts again to support myself.
I’m in luck, the payment for the ride seem to go through since the driver doesn’t say anything to me. I stand outside the gates of the College, trepidation sliding down my spine.
This is the first place that ever felt like home. The first place that I was accepted in this life. If somehow, I wasn't still a student here...I just couldn't think about it.
I head to my dorm building as soon as I get on campus, desperate to see if my card still works. I could've checked to see if it worked on any of the other dorm building doors that I passed by walking to my dorm, but I was too scared. I had to give myself enough time to make it to the entry of my dorm building before I felt ready to face disappointment.
I swipe my card, holding my breath. To my relief the light turns green and the door clicks open. I almost cry. Surely my card wouldn’t still work if I wasn't still a student at the school?
I walk to my actual dorm room door now and raise my hand to swipe my card once again. This dorm building has been recently redone during winter break. Each of the living quarters now opens with a student ID instead of a key like when I first arrived in the fall. I swipe the sensor, holding my breath the whole time. The door clicks open.
Looking around the room, it looks like I never left. In fact, most of my belongings, with the exception of recent gifts that the guys had given me for Christmas were all present in the room.
It was like I had never been living at Damon's at all.
I sink to my knees on my bed, and I give in to the tears that have been threatening to fall since I walked through the door of Damon's apartment this morning.
It hurts. It feels like the kind of hurt you don’t really ever get over. A piece of me feels like it’s missing.
I was learning that love was crazy like that. You lived your life so long without it, and then you ended up needing it more than anything.
How was I supposed to go back to who I was before? The lonely girl that no one cared about. And it wasn't just that they forgot me in this life, it was that we had just begun discovering the complex web that united us in a million past lives. I didn’t want to have to remember everything by myself. It’s been a struggle to start remembering any of it at all, and now I was holding that burden myself.
It wasn't fair.
Chapter 7
I cry for close to an hour, before I finally straighten up and decide that I need to investigate further just how much my life has changed.
I need to talk to Lexi.
I walk out the door, glad that there isn’t anyone around that used to know me. Five minutes later I’m at her dorm room door, knocking frantically. A bleary-eyed Lexi opens the door in confusion. I look at her with concern. She’s wearing an oversized men’s Chicago Bears t-shirt with a pair of barely there black shorts. Her usually perfect auburn hair looks like a rat bulldozed its way through it.
It was the middle of the day, and it wasn't really like her to take naps. "Lexi?" I ask hesitantly.
She looks at me like she's never seen me before. And it really, really sucks.
"Umm, why are you knocking on my door?" she asks.
"Lexi, do you remember me?" I ask desperately, even though I know the answer already.
She blinks at me blankly. "Am I supposed to be recognizing you?” She peeks her head out to look down the hallway. “Am I being recorded right now? Except in this show they think I'm a lesbian and they’ve sent a hot chick to my door instead of a hot guy?"
I have no idea what she’s talking about. But the sentence is so quintessentially Lexi that I can’t help but laugh. It’s a laugh that goes on for far too long. A laugh that borders on hysterical.
Lexi looks at me like I’m losing my mind. And maybe I am. "Listen girly, I don't know you, I'm going to finish my nap now. There’s a girl down the hall that might be more interested in your brand of crazy,” she says, moving to close the door. I stick my foot in the door to stop her. She looks at me in surprise, and then her surprise morphs into anger.
"I don't care who you are…," she begins. I push my way past her into her room. It’s a mess. Clothes are strewn everywhere and there’s half eaten takeout boxes on almost every surface. Lexi is definitely going through something. Lexi slams the door behind her as she comes back into the room, drawing my attention to the way the walls shake as she does so. She gets in a fighting stance.
“Don't think I won’t do it if I have to," she says, moving towards me with her fists up.
I start pacing around the room, ignoring the fact that she looks like she’s about to punch me in the face. "Lexi, I know that this is going to sound crazy, but we’re actually best friends," I blurt out. She laughs and then quickly sobers up when she realizes that I’m not laughing with her.
She looks at me carefully. “You’re not all of a sudden going to take out a knife and carve off my face, are you?” she asks, inching towards her desk. “Because I don’t think we have the same bone structure and my face wou
ld probably look awful on you.”
Now I was the one looking at her like she was losing her mind. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say.
I grab my hair frustratedly. This was stupid. There was no way to just wish a friendship into existence when the other person couldn’t remember that they had even met you.
“What do you remember doing yesterday?” I ask desperately.
“Yesterday? I was hooking up with my mancandy driver,” she says. “Is there a particular reason that you just asked me that. Were you trying to stalk me yesterday too and lost track of me?”
“And you don’t remember me calling you?” I continue, ignoring her last question.
She looks at me like I’m an idiot. And I clearly am one since I’m pursuing something that’s nothing but a dead end.
“Just forget it,” I say brokenly. “Sorry for bothering you.”
I walk out of the room. I lean against the wall a little ways from her room and choke on a cry. What was I going to do now?
Lexi’s door opens a half a second later. I turn, surprised to see her staring at me, deep in thought.
“Your story is just crazy enough for me to believe,” she says slowly. “Come back in here, and let’s talk about it.
An hour later, I’ve told her all the basics of our life over the past school year.
“This all sounds crazy,” she muses as she lounges on her bed eating some chicken fried rice that we just ordered from a nearby Chinese place. I had made sure that it was a place that I hadn’t ever eaten at before. I didn’t want to have to deal with any pesky memories.
“I mean the idea that you have the three of them eating out of your hand, willingly sharing you...it just sounds fantastical.” She shoots me a sly glance. “You must be good in bed.”
I blush.
“I definitely wouldn’t say that they are eating out of my hand. It’s honestly been one thing after another. But there’s a history there…” I trail off as our history starts to play out in my head.