Page 24 of Angel

I’d always wondered why my parents had that false wall, and thought they were just paranoid. Soph and I knew about it our entire lives. Mom and Dad always said that if something happened, if someone broke into the house, we were to go and hide behind it.

I took a moment. Telling the story, feeling all these things again, had me faint headed.

“She was starting to leave the room…but these men came in, pushing Dad in front of them. They had guns, and they said a couple other things, but I don’t remember what it was. They shot Mom and Dad. Right there.”

I shut my eyes, trying to escape into the blackness behind my lids. “I almost screamed out loud. I had to cover my mouth with my hands. It happened so fast. They left really quickly after that.”

Angelo’s hand tightened on mine. “Paige… I’m so sorry.”

My eyes fluttered open. It took some effort, but I managed to look him in the eye.

“What did you do next?” he asked.

“I stayed there. I was frozen. I couldn’t move. It never occurred to me that Mom and Dad might be alive. There had been so many bullets and there were no sounds. The men left right away. And then, I don’t know how long after, the police came. The neighbors called them after they heard gun shots.”

I gulped. “Even when the cops came I couldn’t get myself out of the closet. I couldn’t move my legs. One of the police officers heard me crying, I think. That’s how they found me.”

Angelo’s face was stony, his eyes cold. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe you had to go through that.”

I shrugged. What was there to say to that?

“I never remembered it.”

“What’s that?”

“I forgot all about that day,” I said. “I didn’t remember anything about it until today. I thought… I always thought I wasn’t home. And Sophia and I never talked about it.” My heart rate picked up. “But you know, I never remembered justwhereI was.”

“It sounds like you repressed the memory. People do that sometimes after traumatic events.”

“But Soph had to know I was there,” I murmured. “The police must have told her.”

“Yes, but she saw what it did to you. That’s why she never brought it up.”

“That’s why she let me think I was somewhere else when it happened,” I added, putting it together as I spoke.

“I don’t get why it would come back to you today though. You keep photos of your parents, right?”

“Yeah, I do. I have one in my bedroom. It was the shirt.”

“Huh?”

“The shirt Mom wore in the photo. It was the one she wore when she was killed.”

I remembered seeing that shirt through the hole in the wall, the fabric she loved so much stained with bright red blood. I saw it as she crumpled to the ground, her legs giving way and sending her crashing to the carpet. After that I didn’t see much of anything else.

In fact, I don’t know justwhenI started functioning properly.

Hell, maybe I never did.

“No one ever suggested this to you?” Angelo probed. “No one ever said, hey, you’re blocking out part of your memory?”

I thought hard. “Maybe. But it’s been years. It wasn’t like I had anyone to talk to. Not about the murder, anyway. I mean, what’s the point?”

“What about therapy? Did you get any of that?”

“Yeah.”

I tried to think back, but just the effort made my head hurt. Slowly the memories trickled in. I’d been to a few different therapists over the course of several years. Though they were all only faint memories, I got the feeling I didn’t really remember the first one.