Page 6

TREY

Despite how much I want to show back up at Arella’s apartment, Liz convinces me to sleep on it.

Around noon, I wake up on Liz’s couch, feeling like shit. My mind is hazy, and my body aches from head to toe.

I stumble into the bathroom like I’m hungover, even though I haven’t been drinking. After a quick piss, I stare at myself in the mirror. The skin around my eyes is dark purple. I look like I either lost a bar fight or have some weird skin condition.

Liz’s footsteps thump down her stairs as I make my way back to her uncomfortable couch. I didn’t want to sleep here last night, but I also didn’t trust myself to stay away from Arella.

“Holy balls!” Liz clasps an ungloved hand against her chest. “What happened to your face?”

“I think it’s a side effect from coming off perrizophine.”

“You look like the Joker.”

“Thanks, Liz.” I huff. “You’re just the person everyone needs when they’re going through one of the worst times of their lives.”

“Sorry, T. I’ll, um, be right back.” Her footsteps thump back up the stairs. A minute later, she’s returned to the living room with her makeup bag in hand. “I did a quick search on the z-net. It sounds like Healing Water and bananas can help.”

So I’ve heard. “You got any?”

“Yep.” Liz disappears into her kitchen, then comes back with a cold bottle of Healing Water and two bananas. “Sorry, they’re a little overripe.”

“I’m not picky.” I take the bananas and peel one open. Then I inhale half of it in one bite and wash it down with some Healing Water. “I’m gonna try to talk to her today—without that other guy there.”

Liz unrolls her makeup bag over the coffee table. “Does he live with her?”

“Fuck if I know.” I swallow down the rest of the banana, then peel open the second one.

“Whatever you do, T, just don’t scare her again. Try to see it from her point of view. To her, you’re just a crazy guy who showed up on her doorstep yesterday, claiming to be her boyfriend.”

I slump my shoulders, feeling the weight of the world on them. “But to me, she’s my everything.”

“Yes,” Liz says tenderly, “but she doesn’t know that. How would you react if some chick you’ve never seen before showed up on your doorstep, claiming to be your girlfriend?”

I take a small bite of my second banana and actually chew it this time. “I’d probably think she’s some deranged fan with an unhinged obsession.”

“Exactly.”

I didn’t mean to freak out Arella. How was I supposed to know her memory had been wiped? If I had known, I might have handled things a little differently. “Okay, I’ll try to be calm.”

When my car pulls up to Arella’s apartment complex, I’m not calm.

I’m not even close to it. My hands are jittery, my throat is scratchy, and, worst of all, the skin around my eyes is still purple.

No matter how much makeup Liz put on me, the purple was still visible. I ended up just washing off the makeup.

Thanks to the Healing Water and bananas, the body aches and that hazy feeling in my head have diminished.

Before coming here, I stopped at home for a quick shower and a change of clothes.

I hoped the purpleness would disappear during that time.

It didn’t, and I still look like shit, but I don’t care because I need to see my girl.

Based on the way hundreds of emotions are shooting at me all at once, I’m gonna say my powers are back to normal. I draw in my range to a five-foot circle around me, turning the intense emotions screaming in the back of my mind into a low hum. Then I aim my gift at Arella’s apartment.

No emotions come to me. That could mean one of two things: either she’s not home or she is home and that other guy isn’t. Only one way to find out.

Knock-knock.

A shuffle of feet comes toward the door, then stops.

The barrier never opens. She must have seen me through the peephole and is now pretending she’s not home.

I didn’t prepare for this. All I planned out was what I was gonna say once she opened the door.

The thought never crossed my mind that she’d be too scared of me to open the door at all.

I knock again. In the gentle tone I would use if I was speaking to a wounded puppy, I say, “Arella, I’m not gonna hurt you. I just want to explain.”

A short pause sits between us, then her firm voice comes from the other side. “If you don’t leave, I’m calling the cops.”

I suck in a deep breath as I try to calm my shaky hands. “Can I just talk to you? I promise I won’t touch you.”

There’s another pause—longer this time. Then the bolt lock clicks. The door opens, but it doesn’t open all the way. A chain lock stops it, giving me only a three-inch view of the woman who completes me.

I crumple my eyebrows at the metal line blocking me from her. “Since when have you had a chain lock?”

“Since last night when my boyfriend installed one to keep crazy men from barging in again.”

Hearing her call someone else her boyfriend hurts more than hearing her call me crazy. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Say what you came to say, then leave.”

It stings that she’s trying to get rid of me so quickly. I’m beginning to think getting her to remember me is gonna be harder than I thought. If she’s not willing to listen to me, how can I explain anything? “Arella, I?—”

“My name is Ari.”

Ouch. I’ve always called her Arella, and she’s always loved it. “Yes, that’s what other people call you, but I don’t.”

“Why?”

“Because Arella is a unique name that suits you better than Ari.”

She shoots me a dirty look. “Are you sure it’s not just because you saw that it’s my legal name and you didn’t know I went by anything else while you were stalking me?”

“Is that what you think I’ve been doing?”

“How else would you have known how I met Caleb?”

“Who’s Caleb?”

“My boyfriend.”

Could you please stop calling him that? “I don’t know how you met Caleb.”

“Yesterday, you claimed that you and I met on the side of a highway. That’s how I met Caleb.”

“What? No, no, no.” That must have been one of her core memories the Scrubber inserted Caleb into. What other core moments were altered? “Look, Arella, I?—”

“It’s Ari.”

I refuse to call her that. Ari is not who she is to me.

“Look, I know this is gonna sound insane, but you’ve had your memories erased.

You know me. You just don’t remember it.

I met you on the side of a highway, then we fell deeply in love.

I’m confident we had the kind of love that can’t be erased. ”

“How can someone get their memories erased?”

When I ran through this conversation in my head, I knew she’d ask me that, so I prepared an answer. “You were in a bad car accident. You hit your head and got amnesia. Now you’ve forgotten me and you think that other guy is your boyfriend, but he’s not.”

“If that’s the case, then why weren’t you at the hospital after my car accident?”

I didn’t prepare for her to ask me that. “Um, I couldn’t be there.”

“Why not?”

“Well, um, because I was in prison.” That’s probably not the best answer, but it’s partly true, and I’ve got nothing else.

“Prison? For what? Stalking women?” Her words drive an invisible dagger straight into my chest.

“Of course not.”

“Then what were you arrested for?”

“Um...” I think hard, trying to come up with a version of the truth. “I was doing things I shouldn’t have done in public.”

“Why isn’t that on your criminal record?”

“Because they dropped the char—Wait, you looked up my record?”

She lets out a little pfft . “A strange man shows up at my door claiming to know me. Of course I’m going to look him up.”

“I do know you, and I can prove it. Ask me anything.”

“I’m not going to play this game.” She’s about to shut the door on me when I stop it with my foot.

“Arella, please, just hear me out.”

“It’s Ari,” she says sternly. “And that’s the last time I’m going to remind you.”

Fuck. I need to stop calling her Arella. It’s not benefiting me. I throw my hands up, palms forward. “Just ask me anything about you. I’ll know the answer.”

“The only thing that’s going to prove is how good of a stalker you are.”

“Then ask me questions even a stalker wouldn’t know. I’ll get them right.”

Her shoulders rise and fall as she sucks in a breath and thinks. After a moment, she says, “What’s the only food I’m allergic to?”

“Huh?”

“I said, what is the only food I’m allergic to?”

Well, fuck. I’m only one question in, and I’m already failing. “Ar—I mean... I’m sorry. I—I don’t know the answer to that.”

“I thought you said you know me?”

“I do. I just...” I shove a hand through my hair. “Of all the meals we’ve had together, you’ve never mentioned being allergic to anything. I guess I just assumed you didn’t have any allergies.”

“Okay, answer this one then: Where’s my birthmark?”

“Your birthmark?”

“Yeah, you know, a mark on someone’s skin they’ve had since birth. If you know me so well, where’s mine?”

I rake my fingers through my hair again as I think back to all the times I had the privilege of seeing Arella naked. I can’t recall seeing any marks on her skin. “I—I didn’t realize you had one.”

“I thought you said we were in love . If we were, you must have seen me naked and saw my birthmark. It’s in a pretty obvious place.”

This is not going the way I hoped it would. “It’s probably not that obvious, because I’ve kissed every single inch of your body, and I swear to you, I’ve never seen a birthmark.”

That quiets her. I wish I knew what she was thinking. The blank look on her face tells me nothing. “One more chance. If you get this wrong, then you either leave or I’m calling the cops.”

“Deal.”

“What was the name of my childhood dog?”

Dog? She’s never mentioned having a dog. I’ve never seen a picture of her with a dog either. I slump my shoulders. “I... I don’t know. With how often you moved, I didn’t even realize you had a dog.”

She blinks up at me from behind her long black lashes. The look in her eyes kills me. There’s no recognition in there anywhere. “We had a deal, sir. You leave or I’m calling the cops. Maybe your old prison cell is still vacant and they’ll give it back to you.”

With that, she slams the door in my face.