Page 6 of Our Moon (JACT #1)

It’s the end of August and I’ve been home for almost a month.

I do my best to avoid Chase, though it’s hard since he lives in the apartment above the garage.

Apparently it was an empty space, but after my parents died, the boys finished it, and Chase moved in.

I see him around the house and property often, but I never make eye contact or speak to him, and I avoid any situation that can potentially leave us alone together.

This results in a lot of time spent with Alex, Joey, and Evie, since Chase and Trevor are close and hang out together a lot.

But apparently this is what it was like before the accident, minus Evie, so my behavior doesn’t come off as avoidance.

Plus, they’re good company, and I have a great time with them, so I can’t complain.

I feel comfortable around the house but have found my home in the kitchen.

I stumbled upon it that first night I was home and immediately fell in love with the black granite countertops and stainless steel appliances.

I stood, running my hands over the cool surfaces, just taking it all in until Alex wandered in and called me a freak.

I’ve discovered I love to cook and to bake.

While I was bored one day, I browsed cookbooks and recipe cards and selected several that sounded delicious and looked simple enough for me to test out since I have no memory of having ever made a grilled cheese, let alone a recipe from scratch.

I made a list of ingredients, knowing I’d have been lucky to find eggs and milk in the bachelors’ refrigerator, and asked Trevor to take me shopping.

He happily obliged and this has become a weekly ritual for us, our sibling bonding time.

It’s nice to spend that time with him. Since I’m spending most of my time with the others, I don’t want him to feel like I’m avoiding him. I’m just avoiding his friend.

I seem to have found my purpose in cooking the guys dinner and dessert every night.

Chase, Joey, and Evie join us occasionally, but it’s Wednesday nights--when it’s just me, Trevor, and Alex—that I’m happiest. My brothers insisted we have one night a week that was just family.

Although I still can’t remember anything, these dinners allow me to imagine what life was like before, when our mom and dad were here.

On family nights, the seats at each head of the table remain vacant.

***

I’m in the kitchen mixing together batter for a gooey butter cake, when a figure in my peripheral vision startles me. I drop the mixing spoon and spin around quickly to see who it is.

“Trev, you nearly scared me to death!” I hold my hand up over my heart and feel it thumping in my chest.

“Sorry, kid,” he says, but makes no motion to move. He has the strangest expression on his face. Something is off.

“Is there something wrong?”

“That song you were just humming, what is it?” He tilts his head to the side, as if considering what my response might be.

I didn’t even realize I had been humming a song. “I don’t know; I don’t remember.” I shake my head. “I was humming?”

“Yeah,” he says quietly, his eyes piercing into mine, searching for something.

“What’s up?” Alex asks as he walks in from the patio, his board shorts still dripping from the pool. His brows furrow as he senses the tension. The tension I don’t understand myself .

“Ally was just humming ‘Our Moon’,” Trevor tells him.

Alex’s eyes widen. “What? Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Trevor says. They continue to speak, now in hushed tones, back and forth, sneaking glances at me every few seconds. I can’t make out what they’re saying, and it’s starting to freak me out.

“Um, will someone please tell me what’s going on?” I beg, crossing my arms across my chest in a defensive gesture.

If there’s anything worse than losing my memory, it’s feeling left out almost all the time.

I know it’s not intentional, but sometimes the guys will get to talking and not realize that I don’t recall any of the inside jokes that I may have been privy to a year and a half ago.

I already feel bad enough that they have to give me an intro to practically every conversation they have since I don’t know the back stories, even though they insist it’s no big deal.

But this, this whispering about me, I don’t like this feeling at all. It’s making me feel anxious.

Trevor and Alex quit their quiet conversation and look over at me. “Did you hear that recently?” Trevor presses.

“I really didn’t realize I was humming. I don’t even remember the song,” I say, beginning to feel like I’ve done something wrong. “Maybe I heard it on the radio or something.”

“That’s one of our songs,” Alex says. “But we never recorded it.”

“So maybe it was a subconscious memory?” I offer, perking up a little. Dr. Moody, who I still see weekly, said little things could start to make appearances here and there. Maybe this was one of them?

“It was written while you were in the coma,” Trevor supplies.

I visibly deflate. “I guess I must have heard it since then,” I shrug as I start drawing into myself. I’m feeling very uncomfortable now. Very out of place.

“We don’t play that song,” Alex states.

Trevor and Alex are standing side by side now in the doorway, searching my face for answers.

I feel myself crumbling under their scrutiny.

I start to feel the slow vibrations of an incoming anxiety attack.

I’ve had a few since coming home, mostly when I feel the pressure of trying to remember.

Dr. Moody tells me it will get better with time and that I have to stop pushing myself and punishing myself.

I rub my hands up and down my arms, trying to soothe myself as I start to lose my breath.

“I’m s-sorry,” I pant out. I know it will take only seconds before I feel like I’m suffocating.

I heave a heavy breath in before dropping to my knees on the kitchen floor and folding in on myself next to my abandoned spoon and the cake batter splashed around it on the tile floor.

“What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know, she was fine one minute; we were talking, and then she started having an attack.”

I feel a warm hand running up and down my back and tingles in my spine. That’s a new symptom. “Take deep breaths, Ally. Deep breaths.” I try to listen. I can’t make out who is speaking to me. The voices sound like they’re under water.

“In and out, Ally. Breath in, breath out. Come on.” I focus on that voice. Calm, soothing. I measure my breaths against the voice, the movements of the hand on my back.

“What upset her?”

“She was humming.”

“That’s good, Ally, in and out,” the soothing voice says to me. Then to someone else it asks, “And that got her upset?”

“No, she was humming ‘Our Moon’.”

The hand on my back freezes for a moment, then continues. “So?”

“How does she know that song? ”

“So what, you interrogated her?” The soothing voice is angry now. “Keep breathing, baby girl,” he quietly whispers to me. The underwater tone is disappearing.

“Shit, I didn’t mean to.”

“What the hell, man?”

“I’m sorry, Al.” That’s Trevor.

“Me too, little sis.” And Alex.

I don’t answer. My breathing is under control now, and I feel embarrassed.

Because now I recognize the third voice, the soothing one.

Chase. I just broke down in front of Chase.

I’ve been avoiding him for weeks, and this is how we are reunited?

Annoyed, I nudge what I assume is his hand off of my back and twist up from the floor, facing away from them.

I’m sure I have tears and possibly snot on my face, as is often a result of my anxiety attacks. I don’t want him to see me like this.

“I’m fine,” I mumble and run off to my room before anyone can reach me.

Falling face first into my bed, I cry. I cry because I’m embarrassed.

I cry because I can’t remember, and I want to.

So, so desperately. I cry for my brothers because they have to put up with me.

And most of all, I cry because, while I’m so lucky and happy to be alive, I’m so incredibly frustrated.

After what feels like hours, but is probably only minutes, there’s a knock on my open door. “Can we come in?” Trevor asks .

I roll onto my back, and through tear-soaked eyes, I look at my brothers nod. They look about as bad as I feel, and their faces drop even more now that they’ve seen the tears on my face. I know I look horrible, thanks to the ugly cry I just had.

They come into my room, and Alex flops down on his back beside me, while Trevor sits down on my left.

“Ally, I’m so sorry for putting you on the spot like that,” Trevor says. Before I can interrupt and tell him it’s okay, he says, “It is not okay that I did that.”

“I’m sorry, too, Al.” Alex adds. “There’s no excuse for our behavior, it was just an odd song choice is all. Kind of freaked us out.”

“Yeah, we were puzzled more than anything. I was just trying to ask about it without getting you excited about a possible memory or something. I didn’t mean to make it seem like we were accusing you of something.” Trevor reaches down, takes my hand and squeezes.

“Chase explained everything, and it makes sense now,” Alex says. The sorrow in his voice matches his face. I reach my right hand over and take his hand in mine.

Wait a minute. Rewind. Chase explained everything? Huh? “What do you mean? About Chase?” I ask .

“He said he plays it sometimes. Said you probably heard it through the windows when you were out back or something. I’m sorry I freaked out and confronted you like that,” Trevor says.

I can tell he’s really beating himself up over this.

He’s the level-headed one. He’s always so thoughtful, he never reacts, and he’s so meticulous.

The fact that he had reacted without thinking, possibly for the first time in his adult life, is apparently causing him devastation.

“It’s okay, I guess I can see how it would have seemed weird that I was humming that song.” I squeeze his hand back in an effort to reassure him. “But please, tell me about this song. What is it about this song that caused you to freak out?”

“It’s not really the song. I mean it is, but it isn’t.”

“Trev, that doesn’t really clear things up,” I snicker.

He sighs. “Chase wrote the song. He wrote it while you were in the coma. We all worked on it together really, but we’ve never played it in public and we never recorded it. It was just kind of odd that the one song of ours you hum happens to be the one no one has ever heard.”

“Yeah, I mean ‘Fall Down’ we’d understand, It’s has the most airtime on the radio. But ‘Our Moon’ has zero airtime. Zero play time at all, really,” Alex explains .

“Should have known you might have heard it from Chase,” Trevor shakes his head. “I really didn’t mean to interrogate you like that, I just didn’t really know how to ask about it without kind of freaking out. I guess.”

“What’s it about?” I wonder out loud.

“Chase hasn’t ever said specifically, but it’s not hard to figure out,” Trevor says.

“The one that got away,” Alex adds.

“A girl?” I ask. I’m not really sure I want to know the answer to that question. Kind of ruins the fantasy for me if there’s a girl in Chase’s life or his heart.

“Seems that way,” Trevor responds. “Chase is very private, so we don’t press him about it. His mom pretty much screwed him up as far as relationships go, too, so it’s a rough topic in general. Pair that with him actually taking a chance and it backfiring, no good.”

“No bueno,” Alex says.

What did his mom do? I remember Alex saying that Chase and Joey had bad home lives, but he didn’t share anything specific. I guess it’s really not my business, but I just want to know everything I can about Chase. Something about him has been pulling me in since I first saw his picture.

“So,” I begin, trying to lighten the mood, “did you think I have ESP or something? A sixth sense? I don’t think I was floating around outside my body while I was in a coma.”

“I don’t know what I thought,” Trevor says solemnly.

“Look, it’s okay. Really. I’m going to have anxiety attacks over stupid shit. Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

“We just didn’t mean to upset you and make you cry,” Alex says.

I shake my head, “I’m just embarrassed. It was embarrassing. I can’t engage in a simple confrontation without freaking out. It’s humiliating. Why can’t I just have simple reactions and interactions?”

“You’ve been through a lot, kid. You’re entitled to some high quality freak outs.”

“Thanks,” I laugh. “I’m glad you condone my behavior.”

Trevor lies back on the bed, and the three of us quietly stare at the ceiling fan for a while. I can’t help but feel lucky and content, despite my earlier episode, being here with my brothers beside me.

Then Alex goes and breaks the silence. “Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?” Trevor answers.

“Dwayne. ”

“Dwayne who?” I chuckle. I have no clue where this was going, and knowing Alex, it can go anywhere.

“Dwayne the tub, I’m drowning!”

“Oh my gosh,” I laugh. “You are such a dork!” Trevor just shakes his head, his usual response to Alex’s antics. And just like that, the tension is broken.