Remembering Us (14 page)

My head hurts. How do I stop this? My fingernails dig through the grass and claw at the dirt, trying to find my cell phone. I have to call someone. He can’t get away with this. I won’t let him.

How dare he think he can do this to me?

Sweat drops into my eyes and I wipe it away with the back of my hand. My hand moves to my jeans to wipe off the sweat and the dirt, but I catch a glimpse of my hand in the moon light.

I gasp, my body shaking, tears falling down my eyes instantly.

Blood.

I wipe my head again and I cringe at the pain on my cheek and the side of my head that I didn’t feel before. When I pull my hand back again, there’s more blood.

It’s everywhere.

All over my face and on my shirt that is ripped open just above the stomach. My tears fall harder, my sobs grow louder as I try to make it stop, pushing it away from my face, out of my eyes, but it’s just making it worse.

“Amy!”

I snap my head in the direction of Adam’s voice.

He’s running toward me, reaching for me, but as he opens his mouth to yell again, someone jumps on his back, punching him in the side.

Adam leans forward, using his weight to throw the stranger onto the ground. He jumps on the man’s chest and raises his fist, punching the guy right in the nose. The man cries out, but Adam doesn’t stop.

He uses both fists, punching him over and over again, until the man’s head is flopping back and forth. There is no noise coming from him, just the sound of bone hitting bone. It echoes into the night air.

Blood flies everywhere, and yet I can’t take my eyes away from him.

Adam turns to me, an evil expression on his face, and then goes back to pummeling the unconscious man on the ground.

He’s going to kill him.

Ignoring the pain on the side of my head, I crawl to my feet, forgetting about the phone or getting help.

And then I run.

“Damn it! That is not what happened!”

I flinch from the anger in Adam’s voice and lean away from him.

My arms are crossed protectively across my chest, and if I lean any further away from him my chair will tip over. I’m shaking. The dream is terrifying.

I woke up yesterday morning sweating and screaming so loud that Adam came rushing into my bedroom, his eyes wide and feral. I scrambled to the corner of the bed and threw my hands out.

With tears rushing down my face, I screamed at him to leave me the hell alone.

He looked broken as he stood there, unable to help me, but obviously wanting to.

But I could only see Adam’s fists flying and blood from an unknown man splattering him all over his face.

He didn’t even notice.

We were doing so well. We had such a good week on our date for lunch and on the hike. We even spent time watching movies together and laughing at the same parts.

And then the dream ruined it all.

Dr. Jamison turns to us, hands clasped softly in her lap. She looks at me and her eyes soften. “Amy, I know this is difficult. I know you’re scared and confused, but you said yourself that you had a really good week with Adam before this dream. Should we talk about that first?”

I shake my head, staring out at the once again empty playground.

Dr. Jamison presses on. “Tell me about the picnic.” My foot starts tapping quickly, nervously, on its own accord. I hear Adam sigh and I flinch when his elbow touches mine.

“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.