“I brought your lunch. Are you hungry?”
Lunch? I wonder what happened to breakfast.
When I still don’t answer, she smiles and lifts the lid off one of the plates as if to tempt me.
“It’s spaghetti today,” she says. “You like spaghetti.”
Today? Like, how many days have I been here? I want to ask her, but my tongue is frozen in fear.
“You’re confused. That’s okay. You’re safe here,” she says.
Funny, I don’t feel safe.
She offers me a paper cup. I stare at it.
“You have to take your meds,” she says, shaking the cup. I can hear the rattling of more than one pill inside. I am being drugged.
“What’s it for?” I startle at the sound of my voice. Raspy. I haven’t used it in a while, or I’ve been screaming a lot.
She smiles again. “The usual, silly.” She frowns down at me, suddenly serious. “We know what happens when you don’t take your medication, Sammy. You don’t want to go down that path again.”
Sammy!
I want to cry because I have a name! I reach for the cup. I don’t know what she means, but I don’t want to go down that path again. That path is probably why I’m here.
“Where am I?” I ask. There are three pills: one white, one blue, one brown.
She cocks her head to the side as she hands me a plastic cup of water. “You’re in the Saint Bartholomew hospital. Don’t you remember?”
I stare at her. Am I supposed to? If I ask her questions, she may think I’m crazy, and by the looks of things, I may already be crazy. I don’t want to make things worse, but—
She sighs. “Look, I’m trying really hard with you, kid. But you have to do better this time. We can’t have any more incidents.”
I’m a kid. I cause incidents. That must be why I’m locked up here.
I tilt the cup ’til I feel the pills on my tongue. She hands me the water and I drink it. I’m thirsty.
“Eat up,” she says, clapping her hands together. I pull the tray toward me. I am very hungry.
“Would you like to watch some television?”
I nod. She’s really nice. And I would like to watch television. She pulls a remote control out of her pocket and switches it on. The show is about a family. They are all sitting around a table having dinner. Where is my family?
I’m starting to feel sleepy again.
Chapter 6: Silas
It’s amazing how much I can learn just by keeping my mouth shut.
Avril and Brian are brother and sister.
Avril is married, yet I somehow still talked her into some sort of jacked-up relationship. And it’s fairly new, which I didn’t expect. It also seems odd that I would have gone to her for comfort, knowing Charlie and Brian were together.
Based on what I’ve learned of Silas—or myself—I don’t see me wanting to be with anyone but Charlie.
Revenge? Maybe I was just using Avril to get information on Charlie and Brian.
I spend the next ten minutes contemplating what I’ve learned as I make my way around the campus in search of the athletic department. Everything looks the same: faces, buildings, stupid motivational posters. I finally give up and duck into an empty classroom. I take a seat at a table along the back wall and unzip the backpack filled with my past. I pull out the journals and a few letters, organizing them by date. The majority of the letters are between Charlie and myself, but some of them are from her father, written to her from prison. This makes me sad. There are a few from random people—friends of hers, I’m assuming. Their notes to her annoy me, filled with shallow, teenage angst and bad spelling. I toss them aside, frustrated. I have a feeling whatever is going on with us has little to do with anyone else.
I grab one of the letters Charlie’s father wrote to her and read it first.
Dear Peanut,
You remember why I call you that, right? You were so small when you were born. I’d never held a baby before you, and I remember saying to Mom, “She’s tiny, just like a little human peanut!”
I miss you, baby girl. I know this must be hard for you. Be strong for your sister and your mom. They’re not like us, and they’ll need you to figure things out for them for a while. Until I come home. Trust me, I’m working hard to get home to you guys. In the meantime, I’ve been doing a lot of reading. I even read that book you liked so much. The one with the apple on the cover. Wow! That Edward is…how did you put it…dreamy?
Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about something important. So please listen to me. I know you’ve known Silas for a very long time. He’s a good boy. I don’t blame him for what his father did. But you have to stay away from that family, Charlize. I don’t trust them. I wish I could explain everything, and I will one day. But please, stay away from the Nashes. Silas is just a pawn in his father’s game. I’m afraid they’ll use you to get to me. Promise me, Charlize, that you’ll stay away from them. I told Mom to use the money in the other account to get by for a while. If you have to, sell her rings. She won’t want to, but do it anyway.
I love you,
Dad
I read the letter twice to make sure I don’t miss anything. Whatever happened between my father and her father was serious. The man is in prison, and from reading the letter, he doesn’t think his sentence is justified. It makes me wonder if my father is really to blame.
I place the letter in a new pile to keep it separate. If I keep all the letters that could mean something in their own pile, then if we lose our memories again, we won’t have to waste time reading letters that serve no purpose.
I open up another letter that looks like it’s been read a hundred times.
Dear Charlie baby,
You get really angry when you’re hungry. You get hangry. It’s like you’re not even the same person. Can we keep granola bars in your purse or something? It’s just that I worry about my balls. The guys are starting to say I’m whipped. And I know what it looks like. I ran like young buck to get you a bucket of chicken yesterday and missed the best part of the game. I missed seeing the greatest comeback in the history of football. All because I’m scared—so in love with you. Maybe I am whipped. You looked really sexy with all that chicken grease on your face. Ripping the meat away with your teeth like a savage. God. I just want to marry you.
Never Never