The Leaving Part 53

She tried to picture it.

Couldn't.

"I'm confused," she said. "If you don't think it was the place-"

"I think the gun is going to have my prints on it but that it's a setup. I think the whole location was staged."

"Who would even be able to do that, though?" He was suggesting some kind of crazy conspiracy theory. And people who believed in all that were, well, kind of crazy, right? Backward Beatles records about Elvis. Smoke on the gra.s.sy knoll.

"I don't know," he said. "I know it sounds crazy. Maybe I'm wrong."

She didn't know what to say, so she didn't even try. The surface of the pool s.h.i.+mmered like fish scales.

"What do you remember most about your childhood?" he asked.

"I wouldn't even know where to start." She recrossed her legs, switching which ankle was on top. Her bones hurt.

"Try."

She closed her eyes. A few eager memories were already there, shouting pick-me-pick-me. "Playing with my neighbors, drinking nectar huckleberry blossoms. Riding our bikes. Playing at the beach. I remember being bored a lot. I remember sleepovers with my cousin . . . or actually I remember looking forward to them more than I even remember what we did. I remember having to get picked up from kindergarten because I fell during recess and hurt my knee really bad and couldn't stop crying. I remember a lot of daydreaming. Wanting to be famous. Like a rock star or an Olympic figure skater. I think I only gave up on that last one last year."

He sat up and sat sideways on his chair, smiling. "But what's your single most vivid memory of your childhood?"

The memories quieted; none stepped forward. "I don't know. I feel like I've been asked that before and wondered why it would matter?"

"It matters because I'm asking."

"But what would it mean?"

"Just try. Most vivid."

"I remember going to Mexico with my parents. They let me buy a pinata. It had its own seat on the plane home."

"That's not it. Try again."

That panic started to peek around the corner again. This shouldn't be hard. She had to remember. She said, "A vacation in Maine where I played video games in an ice-cream shop. It was the first time my parents let me go out on my own with my cousin."

"Not it. Try again."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

Racing around her mind, grabbing at anything of value, like a Supermarket Memory Sweep. "Getting stung by a bee. I felt something on my leg and went to scratch it and got a handful of bee. I screamed."

"You could just keep going and going, couldn't you?"

"I don't know. I guess?" It felt like they were having a fight and she wasn't sure why. But yes, memories were lining up at the checkout now, waiting their turn.

That time she made a ma.s.sive sand castle with her father, the way he'd taught her to drip sand to form towers.

The night her parents had a party and she and Max crept halfway down the stairs to peek at the dancing, at the wine being poured.

The time she fell down the back stairs, slid on her back, couldn't breathe; the panic in her mother's eyes.

The first time she went off the high diving board at the pool where she'd learned to swim, the way she'd felt like she'd never make it back up to the surface in time and might die.

If he hadn't asked her, would she have remembered any of that ever again?

And if not, wasn't that terrifying?

Lucas said, "You really can't think of your most vivid memory?"

And something inside her snapped. "I remember The Leaving, okay? Is that what you want me to say?" It felt like she'd pulled a muscle she hadn't even known she'd had. "I remember standing at the bus stop for like an hour. There was a tree there that I was trying to climb and I thought it was fun. But then the crying started and then my mom sobbed for days and nothing was even allowed to be fun for a long time. I remember being on the news in my pajamas. I remember that more than any good day or Christmas or birthday, okay?"

"You don't even know how lucky you are." He shook his head. "I want my life back."

"So start living it."

"That's easy for you to say."

"It is easy," she said. "All anyone is trying to do is to move on from their own c.r.a.ppy situation or baggage."

"There has to be more to life than that."

"Says who?"

He looked at something far away. "On the way here, I was thinking these crazy things, like how we're going to find some pill or magical cube. Something that will bring it all back, like my whole childhood will come rus.h.i.+ng into me and I'll feel complete again, like I can move on."

"I think you're going to need to find another way."

"To get my memory back?"

"No, to move on." With me, you idiot!

"Ever since we came back," he said, "I've had this thought about killing the person who did this. That that would be how I'd be able to move on. Now, with the gun and the body, I'm wondering whether I already did that and still haven't moved on."

"You don't seem like a killer," she said, and she reached out and took his hand and held it, hard. He didn't refuse.

"I know. But you don't know me. I don't know me." He pulled his hand away. "I shouldn't have told you any of that."

She was about to tell him that he could tell her everything-that she wanted to know his every thought, every flaw-when he said, "I shouldn't have come here."

"Why not?"

He stood. "I don't know. Because of me. I'm messed up. Because of Scarlett. I don't know. I just need to figure this out. It needs to be with her."

So this was what life was.

A series of events in which things you care about-the only good things around you-get taken away one by one.

She wouldn't just allow it.

She stood and got within inches of him, face-to-face. "But you and I are just old friends," she said, and waited for him to try to deny what was between them. In some mirror universe they were touching, and in this universe their bodies knew it, had some muscle memory of it.

"Avery," he said. "I can't."

She nodded, then walked inside, leaving the lanai door open behind her. She said, "You're right that you should stop showing up here like this. It's creepy."

Scarlett

Scarlett drifted through aisles of bright colors and sparkly displays and bold prints before ending up in a far corner of the fabric store, drawn to a number of vintage prints in muted tones.

She ran a finger across a roll of light-brown fabric with pale-pink stripes running in both directions, like oversize graph paper. She pulled the bolt out of the stand and set out in search of b.u.t.tons.

And debated between purple and blue before selecting an almost neon aqua.

By the registers, she handed over the fabric and asked for two yards and spun a display of patterns but found none she liked. She'd make her own pattern, maybe using the jacket she'd bought at the outlets with her mother for a guide.

The guard hadn't mentioned a hood, but she wanted one.

He hadn't mentioned a subtle pleated fringe down the front but she could see it in her mind's eye and knew her fingers could make it work.

"Will that be all?" The woman was done cutting.

"And these b.u.t.tons, please." Scarlett put them on the counter.

"What are you making?"

"A jacket."

"You can post pics on my website when you're done. If you want."

"Okay," Scarlett said. "I will."

"You've been in here before, right?"

"No."

"Really?"

Confused silence that Scarlett then filled: "I'm one of the returned kids. You know, The Leaving."

"Oh. Right." She slid the fabric into a bag. "You know how to sew?"

"Yes, we forget where we were, but apparently the part of the brain where you learn things-they call it procedural memory-is intact."

"I'd like to forget my whole first marriage." She held up a bag and receipt.

"Wish I could help you with that." Scarlett grabbed the bag and left.

She was parked a ways down the street and felt a weird sense that someone was following her. Footsteps in pace with hers? Something?

So she turned.

Just people going about their beach business.

No man carrying wrapping paper.

Nothing that looked like wrapping paper.

Nothing.

So she kept walking.

Then stopped and turned again a block later.

Compared the crowd.

Yes, that girl.

Definitely following her.

So she walked straight at her, surprised that the girl stood her ground, didn't run. "Why are you following me?"

"I was afraid to say . . . I just."

"You just what?" Scarlett stepped closer.

"I wanted to see you with my own eyes, I guess," she said.

"Why? Who are you?"

But the girl's voice was so familiar that Scarlett realized she knew the answer. She'd seen her before, on the news.

The girl said, "I'm Avery. I'm Max's little sister."