Six Months Later, Page 2

  Despite my little fire alarm adventure, it’s not like we run in the same circles. I get along with almost everyone. Adam can’t seem to move through the hallways without starting a fight. I sometimes walk dogs at the animal shelter. He sometimes gets pulled out of class by the police. We aren’t just in different social groups; we’re in different solar systems.

  He tilts his head, and I take a breath, feeling my shoulders relax. Which is maybe crazier than anything else happening right now. I shouldn’t feel safer with him here. I should feel completely freaked out.

  So why don’t I?

  “What are you doing here?” he asks, and though everything about his heavy black boots and ratty cargo jacket screams don’t-give-a-crap, he sounds interested. Maybe even concerned.

  “I’m…” I search for something that sounds better than I’m losing my mind or I’m stuck in some Twilight Zone time warp, but nothing comes. And I don’t need to explain myself to him. I don’t even know him.

  “Why are you here?” I ask instead.

  “Because you called me,” he says, laughing again. Then he nods down at my hands, smirking. “Have you been making mud pies while you waited for me to get here?”

  I flush and hide my hands, but I still take an instinctive step toward him. And then I remember that he is a juvenile delinquent and, for all I know, a psychopath. I should be running away from him. He doesn’t look like a psychopath though. He just looks like Adam.

  He crosses his arms and smirks at me. “You do remember calling me, right?”

  Fear snakes its way up my spine, making my tongue thick and my throat dry.

  No. I don’t. I’ve never had a conversation with him, or hell, even stood this close to him until tonight.

  Maybe he’s wasted. He’s got to be, right? But he looks absolutely sober. No red eyes or twitchy fingers. Kind of odd, now that I think of it, because I would have figured him for the type.

  He smirks at me then, his blue eyes glittering. “I’m impressed you jimmied the cafeteria door without my help. I was beginning to think you’d never figure that out.”

  What? I did what to the what?

  This is nuts. Completely nuts. I’ve never jimmied anything in my life. And if I did, it wouldn’t be the door to my high school cafeteria.

  He braces his hands on the back of a chair and tilts his head. A rush of déjà vu washes over me. I take a breath and hold it in, watching him drag his thumb along the back of the chair. I’ve seen this. I’ve seen him here, looking at me like this. I’m sure of it.

  I stare at his hand, feeling my cheeks go white and cold. Apparently he senses the change because his smile disappears, his eyes narrowing.

  “You all right, Chlo?”

  My nickname sounds right on his lips. Natural. He shouldn’t even know I have a nickname, let alone feel right using it. But he obviously does.

  “You look scared to death,” he adds, frowning down at me.

  I’m not sure scared is the right word. I’m not sure there is a right word for all the things I’m feeling.

  “I’m fine. Just tired,” I lie.

  He walks right up to me, and I swear to God, I can’t remember how to breathe. My heart is pounding and my fingers are shaking, but somehow the world feels steady anyway. I’m not afraid. I should be, but I’m just not.

  “Do you need to talk? Is that why you called?” he asks. “You know you can talk to me.”

  “I know that,” I say automatically, the words coming from a place I can’t find, a great empty space in me where I’m sure a memory should be.

  I feel inexplicably sad at this yawning hole, this absence.

  What’s happening to me? What happened to make me forget?

  I bite my lip and feel my eyes burn with the threat of tears. Adam’s expression softens, twisting into something pained. Not once have I dreamed him possible of this kind of look. Hell, of anything in the same zip code as this look.

  He opens his mouth to say something, and my whole body goes tense, my belly a knot of fluttering things. What is going on with me?

  He reaches across the desk between us, almost but not quite touching my fingers. Every centimeter between our hands feels charged. Electric.

  “We can’t keep doing this, Chloe,” he says softly.

  The words sting and I don’t know why. I don’t even know what he means, but I desperately want to argue with him. I want to shake my head and grab his hands and—this is crazy.

  Way beyond crazy.

  My whole world is sliding into a flat spin. I can’t have this guy, this total freaking stranger, at the center of it.

  If I don’t get away from him, I’m going to do something stupid. Something I won’t be able to come back from.

  “I have to go,” I say, retracting my hands into fists and starting toward the door.

  “Chloe,” he says, touching my bare wrist as I pass.

  Something warm rushes through me, making my ears buzz and my face heat up. I hear Adam laughing in the back of my mind, like the sound track to a movie I can’t see. I whirl to face him, ready to snap his head off for making fun.

  But he’s not laughing. Not now. The memory of his laughter fades away even as Adam’s hand drops from my shoulder, a hurt look crossing his face.

  He lets me pass without another word. My footsteps are even and steady as they carry me into the hall. I wish my heart would follow the example.

  Chapter Three

  My car isn’t in its normal spot. Then again, I’ve misplaced a couple of seasons, so why should this surprise me? I finally find the aging Toyota in the south lot, resting under a thin blanket of snow. So I haven’t been here long.

  Only six months or so.

  Panic rushes again, squeezing hot fingers around my throat. I force myself to count to ten. And then twenty. Finally, I give up on trying to harness my inner calm and I pry open my frozen car door.

  I start my engine and find my scraper in the backseat and set to work shaving the ice from my windshield. I’m shaking so hard that my teeth are rattling.

  I stop once to call Maggie, getting her voice mail twice in a row. The fact that she doesn’t answer is as stupefying as everything else. She doesn’t take a shower without propping her phone on the sink. Now, three calls and nothing?

  I hear the roar of an engine and look up like a trapped deer as a pair of headlights turn into the parking lot. My heart flies into my throat. It stays there, pumping hard, while the red Mustang cuts a slow arc toward me.

  Blake?

  Oh God, please not now. Not when I’m completely frozen and totally unstable thanks to an acute case of freaking amnesia.

  For some reason I can’t even fathom, the Mustang is pulling straight toward me. How would he even see me from the main road? It’s like he knew I was here.

  The car rolls to a stop and the door opens. Maybe it’s his sister or his mom or, God, maybe someone stole his car and is now about to kill me. Every one of those options would be preferable to this.

  But it’s not someone else. It’s him. The blond-haired, dimpled lacrosse player and not-so-secret crush of at least half of the girls in this high school.

  “God, Chloe, I was worried sick,” he says, slamming his door shut and striding toward me.

  Before I can speak or blink, he hauls me into a tight hug. He smells just like he did this morning, like real cologne, the kind most of the guys around here can’t even afford to look at. And yes, before this moment, I would have given everything I own for even a sideways arm-around-the-shoulder hug from him, but right now, it’s just too much. His cologne, his supersoft down coat. I feel suffocated.

  I lift my hands to push away, but he pulls back first, his face a weird mix of worry and irritation. I take a step back, my ice scraper still dangling from my left hand.

  He reaches out, tucking some of my dark hair behind my ear. The strands drag along my neck, leaving goose bumps in their wake. They shouldn’t reach my neck. I hacked my hair into a chin-length bob last
week, but it isn’t short anymore.

  Blake smiles, and I try desperately to force one in response, but I can’t.

  Behind me, I hear heavy footsteps approaching from the direction of the school. Blake’s hand falls off my shoulder. I don’t need to look to know who it is, but I can’t seem to resist.

  I wish I had. The expression Adam’s wearing turns my stomach to stone. I know this feeling creeping through my middle, but it can’t belong to me. What would I have to feel guilty about?

  Adam flips his dark hair out of his eyes and offers us a half-hearted salute. He slings his backpack over one shoulder and turns to lope through the school yard in his half-laced boots.

  He’ll freeze in this snow. Where’s his car?

  And why do I care? He’s a stranger, and I don’t care where his car is. Except that he’s not a stranger. And I obviously care a lot.

  A touch to my arm brings my attention back to Blake. He’s also mostly a stranger, but not the kind I need to be afraid of. He’s the poster boy of nice. Good citizen. Class president. He probably does commercials for the Boy Scouts when he’s not helping little old ladies cross the street.

  He’s the one I should feel safe with.

  “Chloe, are you okay?” he asks me, his hand resting just above my elbow.

  “No. Not really,” I admit.

  “Is your head all right? Why are you muddy?”

  As soon as he says it, I reach for a spot just above the nape of my neck. My fingers graze a swollen lump, and I wince in pain. What the hell? When did that happen?

  “Easy,” Blake says, and I step back from him, wary. He ignores me, reaching forward to take my hand. “You bumped it pretty hard. I can’t believe you didn’t go straight home. Maybe I should get you to the hospital.”

  “I didn’t bump my head,” I say, even though it’s clear I did.

  And it’s equally clear he saw me do it.

  He looks really concerned now. Like daytime TV worried, his brow all puckered and eyes sad. He doesn’t know me well enough to worry about me like that. Or to hug me.

  The world starts a precarious tilt, so I rest my palm on the roof of my car and try not to pass out.

  “Chloe, I think I should take you to the hospital,” Blake says slowly. “Do you even know why you’re here? And why are you so filthy?”

  I prod the tender bump, hoping that the pain will jar my memory.

  “I don’t know. I remember…” I trail off because what am I going to say? I remember falling asleep in study hall. On the last Tuesday in May.

  “Do you remember the walk we took at my house tonight?” he asks.

  A walk with Blake Tanner? Not possible. If Blake passed me a napkin in the cafeteria line, I’d dissect it with Maggie for three days. I wouldn’t forget a walk.

  “Do you?” he repeats softly, and I feel his fingers lacing through mine.

  His hand is warm and large and everything that a boy’s hand is supposed to be.

  “Do you remember slipping on the porch? That’s when you hit your head. I don’t know how you got so dirty though.”

  I touch my head again, this time conscious of the cold, black stains on the knees of my jeans. Is that what this is? A stupid head injury or whatever?

  I want it to be true. I need it to be true.

  “I…I slipped. By the sidewalk,” I say, the lie spilling out of me automatically as I brush at my filthy jeans. “I’m really tired. My brain is just fuzzy.”

  “Let me take you home,” he says. “At least there your mom could take a look.”

  I glance back at my half-scraped car and then over to his snowless, clearly garage-stored Mustang. The dark interior is probably toasty. Maybe if I just sit for a moment, I’ll figure this out.

  “Okay,” I agree. “If you’re sure it’s not too much trouble.”

  He laughs at that, like it’s ridiculous for me to even think it. “No, Chloe. It’s not too much trouble to take my girlfriend home.”

  Girl-what?

  Girlfriend. He said girlfriend.

  It’s a joke. This whole stupid thing is an enormous prank but why? Because I have a crush on him? Who doesn’t?

  No, that can’t be it. Blake isn’t into that kind of juvenile crap. He’s on the Bully Patrol, for God’s sake.

  But it can’t be anything else.

  Blake doesn’t seem to notice me standing there gaping like a goldfish. He takes the scraper from my hand and turns off my car, locking the doors when he’s done. And since he doesn’t fumble with the locks or my ignition, which tends to stick, I’m guessing he’s done this before. He hands me my purse with a frown.

  “This was on the floor.”

  “Thanks.”

  He smiles and guides me over to the Mustang. I fidget and watch him open the passenger door, and then he helps me into the seat like this is all routine. Like I wouldn’t normally be stumbling over myself in rapture at the chance of setting foot in his vehicle.

  When I sink into the leather seat, I don’t feel rapture. If anything, I feel a little uneasy. Maybe even nauseous. I shift my feet, painfully aware of the mud on my boots and his pristine carpets.

  It’s deliciously warm though, like sitting by a fire. I smell new car and Blake, and I don’t know why, but I don’t like the mix. Blake slides behind the wheel, and we both fasten our seat belts in silence. Then he tugs something out of the backseat.

  “You left your coat when you ran out tonight,” he says, and then he hands it to me. “You must have been freezing.”

  I run my hands down the rough red wool. It’s my coat, all right. I spent a small fortune on it at the beginning of my sophomore year, so it’s not something I leave lying around.

  “Oh, thanks. I really must have hit my head harder than I thought,” I say, baring my teeth in something that I hope passes for a smile.

  Blake turns up the heater and rolls out of the parking lot without another word. He turns right on Main before I can direct him and makes the immediate left onto Birchwood, proving that he knows where he’s going.

  When he slides his hand to my knee, my whole body goes cold and tense. I watch him out of the corner of my eye, but he doesn’t look like someone playing a prank. His body language is relaxed. Touching me is comfortable for him.

  For some insane reason, I’m pretty sure Blake believes this. He thinks I’m his girlfriend.

  I ignore my swimming head and Blake’s squeezing hand, and stare out the windshield. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see him watching me.

  “What a crazy night,” I say, figuring I can’t just sit here in silence forever.

  He doesn’t react at first, but I see a muscle in his jaw jump when I turn to him.

  “Yeah,” he finally says. “What all do you remember?”

  It’s a weird question. And a short list. Darkness. Snow. Terror. Adam.

  I linger on that last one longer than I should, my mind forming a picture of him. “It’s kind of a blur.”

  He sighs in a way that borders on theatrical. “I just wish you’d tell me why you’re so tense. Is it still about your SAT scores?”

  “My SAT scores?”

  He turns to me, half rolling his eyes. “Mine aren’t that much better, you know.”

  “I haven’t taken—”

  I cut myself off, realizing that I probably did take the test. Like everything else, I might just not remember it.

  “I’m just stressed,” I say weakly, half expecting that awful itchy anxiety to return. Instead, I feel numb. Heavy and slow, like I’m half-asleep.

  Huh. I must be going into shock. Fine by me. It’s infinitely preferable to the flailing and panicking.

  Blake pulls to a stop in front of my house. I look up at the dormer windows and black shutters. Mom’s Thanksgiving wreath hangs on the door, and the windows give off a warm, yellow glow. In my whole life, home has never looked so sweet.

  “Want me to walk you in?”

  “It’s all right,” I say. “I’m really tired.”<
br />
  He nods and then tilts his head. “Hey, stop worrying about your scores. You’re in the top three percent, Chloe. You’re one of the elite.”

  I open my mouth because I have no idea what he’s talking about, but before I can say anything, he’s kissing me good-bye. And I can’t remember what I wanted to ask him about now because this is Blake. Blake Tanner. Kissing me.

  I’ve imagined him doing this for as long as I can remember. I never dreamed it would feel so horribly wrong.

  Chapter Four

  Insistent electric beeping wakes me. It can’t be seven o’clock yet. I’m too tired. Too snug and content here in the cocoon of my blankets.

  The clock blares on, unmoved by my silent protest. I roll over and mash the snooze button and then burrow back into the blissful warmth of my quilt. Two more minutes and I’ll get up. I mentally catalog my sandal options. Is my blue tank top clean? Maybe. Or I could—

  My thoughts cut off as I remember. The snow. The darkness. Blake. Adam.

  I sit up, scanning my room as I kick the covers off my legs. It’s cold and dark. Too cold and dark for seven o’clock in May. I shiver as I rise from my bed, padding across my wood floor. My curtains are tightly shut, not a sliver of daylight showing around the edges.

  I pull the drapes open quickly, like I’m ripping off a bandage. Outside, it’s still winter. Inside, I die a little.

  I press my palm to the cold windowpane with a sigh. The street looks magical, every house and mailbox dipped in a snow so white it looks like sugar. It’s like a Christmas card.

  But I’m not ready for Christmas. I’m ready for jean shorts and sweet tea and long, sticky nights with cicadas singing in the grass.

  I return to my bed, curling into a ball. It wasn’t a nightmare. I’d known that, of course, but nothing else seemed possible when I’d stumbled in here last night.

  Now, the newness of the day hits me like teeth, gnawing at the unwelcome truth. I’m missing time. A lot of it.

  “Chloe?”

  My mom’s voice drifts up the stairs, familiar and just a little scratchy so she probably hasn’t had much coffee.