Apparently all the guy’s friend could do was leer.
“Rare,” he continued. “And no rabbit food.”
“You got it,” I said.
“You gonna write that down?”
“I think I can remember. I have an excellent memory.” Ironically, I did. When it came to orders, anyway.
“You get it wrong, and Hershel is not going to be happy.”
I could only assume his friend was Hershel. Either that or he referred to himself in the third person, which would make him even more of a douche. But the name embroidered on his oil-stained shirt read MARK.
His friend’s shirt had the same logo and read HERSHEL. They worked at the same trucking company. Truckers were usually the nicest lot, but every barrel had its bad apples. Judging from the dark oil stains they shared and the thick odor of diesel wafting off them, they were probably mechanics.
I stepped back over to Garrett. “What’ll you have, hon?”
He was seething underneath his GQ exterior but graced me with a smile nonetheless. “I’ll have the special.”
“Good choice.”
I took his menu, trying my best to show him that I was unaffected by the little truckers that could. I couldn’t help but notice the knife he had sheathed at his belt. I didn’t know what he did exactly, but I knew it had something to do with the law. Not a cop, per se, but something similar.
The last thing I wanted was trouble, however. No one needed to risk his safety for me. No one needed to defend my honor. In all honesty, I wasn’t sure I had any. I had forgotten my life for a reason. What if that reason was bad? What if it was unthinkable? Heinous? Evil?
A wave of nausea washed over me. I hurried to the service station and tapped in their orders, but a familiar feeling, one I could only describe as a panic attack, had already hit me square in the gut. I’d been having similar attacks off and on since Day One. It was the sensation of loss, an utter and devastating loss, that brought them on. That tightened around my chest until my lungs seized. That burned my eyes until I went blind.
Shaking uncontrollably, I dug my nails into the counter, leveraged my weight against it, scraped and clawed against the black veil that kept my past hidden. Something was behind the curtain. Something I had to get to.
A feeling of urgency spread like wildfire. I had forgotten. I had left something behind. My most prized possession, only I had no idea what it was.
My teeth welded together and my lids slammed shut as I fought to get through the veil, determination and desperation pushing me to remember. Driving me forward.
The room spun, and I could hear my own heartbeat carpet-bombing my rib cage, my own blood flooding my veins until even the edges of my mind darkened and closed in on me.
“You okay, sweetie?”
Startled, I lifted my lids to see Cookie, my brows cemented together, my breaths coming in quick, short bursts. I felt the dampness of the attack slicken my skin, and my wet palms slipped off the counter.
“Charley!”
Five.
“Come here,” she said, hauling me to the storeroom in the back.
I didn’t miss the fact that she’d called me Charley. She’d done it before. Four times, actually. It was either a term of endearment where she was from, or she was accidentally calling me by the name of someone else she knew. Probably her dog.
She sat me on the cot I’d slept on for over a week before I found an apartment I could afford. This was my home away from home away from home. Wherever that third home was.
She wet a towel and pressed it against my forehead, over my cheeks and mouth, and down my neck. “You’re okay,” she said, her tone soothing, her voice so familiar.
The spinning slowed, and my heart rate decelerated to a normal speed. A normal rhythm.
“You’re going to be fine.” She wet the towel again to cool it off, then placed it on the back of my neck. “You haven’t had one of those in a while.”
I nodded.
“Can you tell me what started it?”
“I don’t know,” I said, my voice hoarse. Then I looked up at her. I wanted her to understand, to be completely aware of what she was getting herself into. “I don’t think I’m a very good person, Cook.”
She knelt in front of me. “Of course you are. Why would you say that?”
“I think I’m being punished.”
“Punished?” My statement shocked her. “Punished for what?”
“I’ve forgotten something.”
She placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “You mean, besides your entire life up until a month ago?”
“Yes. I mean, no. No, this is something… something much more important. I feel like I went on a long trip and I left my most precious possession behind. I abandoned it.” Tears stung the backs of my eyes, the evidence slipping past my lashes and down one cheek.
“Oh, sweetheart.” She pulled me into a hug. The soft warmth of her body was a welcome reprieve from the sandpaper world around me. “You have amnesia. Nothing you did could have caused it.” She sat me arm’s length. “You remember what the doctors said, right?”
“No. I – I have amnesia.”
After chastising me with a pursed mouth – that’d show me – she said, “You remember exactly what they said. This could have been caused by any number of things. You just have to give it time. This did not happen because of anything you did.”
She couldn’t possibly understand how wrong she was, but it wasn’t her fault. What I did was on me. I would have to figure it out and make things right. I had to.
3
You can’t make someone love you.
You can only stalk them and hope for the best.
—INTERNET MEME
The storeroom door opened and Erin stood on the other side, her aura a dark shade of red. Not that I needed to see her aura to know she was angry. It hit me like a heat wave. “You both have customers.”
“Sorry,” I said, rising unsteadily to my feet, but she was gone before I got the whole word out. I helped Cookie up, then went to the utility sink and splashed water on my face before checking my watch.
“He should be in any minute now,” Cookie said, brushing herself off.
I turned back to her. “Who?” When she offered me a sympathetic smile, I said, “Doesn’t matter, anyway. He never sits in my section. He always sits in yours. Or Francie’s.” I tamped down the jealousy that bucked inside me. I had no right to be jealous. It wasn’t as though he ever talked to me. Or looked at me. Or, hell, acknowledged my existence in any way whatsoever.
“Maybe he’s just shy,” Cookie offered. “Maybe he likes you so much he’s afraid to make the first move.”
I snorted, dismissing the notion entirely. He didn’t strike me as the shy type. “Anyway, how do you know that’s who I’m waiting on?”
“Hon¸ every female in the café is waiting for him.”
My skin flushed again. Francie was so hot for him, her adrenaline spiked tenfold every time he walked in. Her aura turned red as well. A pinkish red. And for a very different reason.
“True. But he’s so angry all the time.”
“Angry?” She tugged at the stray wisps of chestnut hair that had escaped my hairclip, placing them just so. “What makes you say that?”