Torn. I felt torn between two women. Stretched so thin I was in danger of ripping.
For so many years, I begged the lake to give back Sadie. I bargained. I threatened… I prayed. I sank deep into the depths of guilt, what-ifs, and unknowns.
The lake replied. And in true Lake Loch fashion, what I was given was a mystery within the mystery. An answer that unwrapped a million more questions.
Not one girl, but two. And me with only one heart.
The lake was probably laughing now, proud of the game it played so very well.
Be careful what you wish for?
No.
I would rather struggle than not be here today. It didn’t matter that what I begged for came in a package I wasn’t expecting.
I had Sadie back. And I had Amnesia.
Those were two regrets I would never have.
I did feel some remorse, though. This was hurting Amnesia. She tried to hide it, but her poker face was nonexistent. I was glad for that because it was easy to see when she needed something (except when it was dark). Or maybe I was just that in tune with her, that perceptive of her emotions.
She might not have much memory. Unfortunately, she made up for it tenfold with loss. For a while there, I really thought she was Sadie. After the allergy, I changed my mind, but I’d slowly been changing it back.
Now we knew who she wasn’t. We just didn’t know who she was.
Even though we were never sure she was Sadie, finding out she wasn’t? It was like ripping away her identity all over again. Amnesia had lost herself twice.
That’s twice more than most anyone ever experienced.
She thought it mattered to me. Her identity. Maybe at first it did. It was all I thought about. But the longer I sat beside her bed, the more and more I was around her, everything inside me shifted. Toward her. Like the cells in my body permanently rearranged themselves to match up to her indefinitely.
I was already gone, fallen deep. I fell in love with the person she was, not the name she might have had.
Amnesia halted just before I could open the door to the room. “I’m nervous.” She confided.
“I think it would be weird if you weren’t.”
“Do you think she knows me?” Am asked, anxious. I knew she was afraid of what she would learn. She was also afraid she wouldn’t learn anything at all.
Talk about a double-edged sword.
“She knows you.”
Her eyes rounded, and suddenly, I had a craving for milk chocolate. “How do you know?”
“She told me she did. On the island.”
Am gasped before I could even say more. “You didn’t say anything to me!” I watched as she crossed her arms over her chest and glared.
“Don’t look at me like that, woman. I don’t like it.” I reached out and tugged her arms, trying to rid her of that defiant pose.
“Well, I don’t like you not telling me things.”
“If you would let me finish,” I drawled and took her hand. “She told me she knew you, but in the rush to get off the island, I didn’t think it was a good time. And last night…” I cleared my throat. “You didn’t need information last night, baby. You just needed me to be there.”
Her eyes softened. “Just because you’re right doesn’t mean I forgive you.”
“Aww, don’t be like that, Am. I’m telling you now.”
She rolled her eyes. I thought it was kinda cute.
“Tell me.”
“She says your name is Lily.”
“Lily,” she echoed. I watched thoughts play over her features. I watched her try and recognize the name. She tried so hard my heart pinched when she looked up at me and frowned. “It means nothing to me.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not,” she insisted.
“Hey.” I cupped the back of her head and pulled her in. She resisted. I released her and bent so we were eye to eye. “Give. It. Time.” I urged. “And who knows? Maybe Sadie is mistaken. That’s all she told me about you. Maybe she was confused.”
“That’s all she said?” she asked, crestfallen.
“Well, she did tell me you two were sisters.” Amnesia gasped, and I held up my hand. “But Sadie is an only child, so that’s not true.”
She slumped forward. I wrapped an arm around her. “If you aren’t up for this, it can wait.”
“No. I’m ready,” she asserted, left my hold, and went through the door ahead of me.
Sadie glanced up the second we walked in. Her eyes went first to Am, then moved to me. She smiled. “Eddie, I wondered where you went.”
“Just stepped out to talk to Amnesia. Didn’t want to wake you.”
She held out her hand to me, wiggling her fingers. Suppressing my inward cringe, I went to her. But instead of taking her hand as she wanted, I picked up the drink tray Am brought. “Look, Amnesia brought us some breakfast.”
“It smells amazing!” she said and smiled at Am. “Thank you.”
Amnesia came forward. “I wasn’t sure if you preferred coffee or hot chocolate,” she said. “But I brought both,”
Sadie glanced at me, and we both smiled. “Coffee,” we said at the same time.
“There’s cream and sugar in the empty cup holder, there,” Amnesia said, pointing.
“Thanks, baby,” I said, handing Sadie a cup of coffee.
I felt her eyes when she took the drink, but when I lifted mine, she just smiled. I grabbed the cream and sugar and plopped it in her lap. “You used to use this,” I said.
“Thank you.”
After I plucked the second black coffee out of the tray, I took the hot chocolate out and carried it over to Am. “How’d you know she’d pick coffee?” I whispered when I handed it over.
“I didn’t,” she said simply.
She would have handed over the drink I knew she got for herself if that’s what Sadie had chosen.
“What’s in the box?” Sadie asked, pulling me around.
“Monkey bread muffins,” Amnesia said. “I’ve never tasted anything better.”
“Joline is still the best baker in Lake Loch?” Sadie asked, stirring the add-ins into her coffee.
“Of course,” I replied. “That woman can outbake anyone.”
“Is everyone else still here in town?” Sadie asked timidly. “Has anyone else passed?”
My heart clenched. “We’ve had a few people move to town, a few people move away. Most everyone is still around, though.”
“Except my parents,” she murmured.
I cleared my throat.
“I’m so sorry to hear about them,” Amnesia offered, moving closer to the bed. “I’m sure they loved you very much.”
“I loved them,” Sadie replied, her voice sad.
I pulled the chair close and gestured for Am to sit down.
“What about you, Eddie?” Sadie asked.
“I’m good,” I said, sipping the coffee.
“Sit,” Sadie patted the bed.
Instead of making everything more freaking awkward than it was, I sat on the end of the bed, leaving my feet on the floor.
“You must be starving,” Amnesia said, setting aside her cup and picking up the box to offer Sadie a muffin.
Sadie glanced at the food, then away. “Actually, I really don’t have much of an appetite.”
Amnesia nodded, sympathetic. “I can understand that.” She started to put the box back.
“What about me?” I complained.
She laughed, the sound like the sun peeking out on a cloudy day. “Here,” she said handing me the box.
I snatched one up and took a huge bite off the top.
Amnesia laughed again.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her face. She looked better this morning. Not as haggard. She was still obviously tired, and worry lined her eyes, but at least she didn’t appear on the verge of falling.
“Bite?” I asked and shoved the muffin in her face.
Smiling, she plucked a piece off the top. It was extra gooey with icing—those were her favorite bites—and delicately put it between her lips.
“You take such girl bites,” I told her and shoved more in my face.
“Because I don’t eat like a pig?” Am retorted.
I snorted.
An odd feeling wrapped around me, and I glanced over. Sadie was staring between the two of us with an odd expression on her face.
Amnesia cleared her throat and put the box on the table. Both her hands wrapped around the hot chocolate, and she sat forward in her chair.
“Sadie? Would it be okay if we talked?”
Sadie looked at Amnesia. “About what?”
Am glanced at me, and I nodded. “Eddie said you told him you know me.”
“You don’t know me?” she asked.
Slowly, Amnesia shook her head. “I don’t remember anything before waking up here in a coma.”
“Nothing at all?” Sadie asked, pulling the coffee into her chest.
“Well, I do have a few memories that have come back, but nothing that tells me anything about who I am.”
“What do you remember?”
Amnesia swallowed. “The cave we found you in, that place was familiar. And hair braiding.”
Sadie’s face lit up. “We used to braid each other’s hair all the time.”
Amnesia’s body tensed. Admittedly, so did mine. I didn’t say anything, though. This was their time.
“We did?” she asked, sitting back. “Every once in a while, I’ll hear giggling, like maybe we liked it?”
“It was our favorite thing to do,” Sadie said fondly. “It’s how we passed the time.”
“But he didn’t like it,” Amnesia said, her voice low and afraid.
Sadie nodded solemnly. “Oh no. He hated it. We weren’t supposed to do anything he didn’t allow. That’s why it was our secret.”
“But he found out.” Amnesia pressed. “Didn’t he? And I cut my hair?”
“You remember that?” Sadie’s eyes widened.
“I think so. So it’s true, then?”
I couldn’t imagine what it was like to have to rely on other people to tell you about your own actions. Your own life.
“Oh yes,” Sadie’s voice dropped. “He was so angry that day. I don’t know why you had to make him angrier. You should have just let him punish you. But you didn’t. You fought back… I thought you learned not to fight back.”
Chills ran down my spine. The way she talked. It was so normal to her, as if she didn’t realize how twisted it was that she learned to allow herself to be “punished” and not fight back.
“I did fight back, though, right? I got a pair of scissors and chopped off chunks of my hair.
“We both got punished for that, you know,” Sadie intoned, her eyes going blank. “He might have broken your arm, but he punished me, too.”
“How?” Amnesia sat forward. “How did he punish you?”
Sadie turned her dark, emotionless eyes on Amnesia. “You know how. You know.”
It took everything inside me to stay rooted on the bed. To not grab Amnesia by the waist and haul her the hell out of the room.
I didn’t want to know any more. I didn’t want to hear. The thought of any of this shit happening to either of them made me want to puke.
“I don’t know.” Amnesia’s voice wobbled. “That’s why I’m asking.”
Sadie tilted her head and studied Am. “You don’t remember anything?” she asked. “That’s what everyone says.”
“If I did, I wouldn’t be asking to relive it all over again!” Amnesia exclaimed.
“Am,” I said softly.
“I’m sorry,” she said, directing the words at Sadie. “I know how hard this is, and I know you probably don’t want to relive any of it either. It’s just…”
Sadie watched her. “Just…?”
“I need to know.”
Sadie leaned back against the pillows, set aside her coffee, and pulled her knees into her chest. I watched with trepidation as she wrapped her arms around them and stared ahead, as if she were seeing nothing but what was in her mind.
“I was the first.” She began, low. “He scooped me out of the water one night and locked me in a bedroom in their house. I spent the first few days screaming and begging him to let me go. I would hear arguments somewhere in the house. Yelling… a lot of yelling. Sometimes screaming. One day, he came inside and dragged me through the house. At first, I thought I was going home, that he was tired of my screaming and was going to let me go. Instead, he threw me down into the hole in the ground, shut the door, and locked it. I heard people searching the island, people calling my name. I screamed for them. I screamed so long I lost my voice.”
“Sadie,” I whispered.
“He came back when everyone was gone, told me I was his and this was my new home. He, uh… beat me… Raped me and then chained me up, naked.”
“He never let us wear clothes,” Amnesia murmured.
“Only when he let us out,” Sadie answered. “I don’t know how long I was down there. I couldn’t count the days because it was always dark. The only times he brought me up out of the hole, it was dark outside. I fought back at first. Tried to escape. Each time, he beat me. Raped me. Sometimes he did, uh, other things…”
“You don’t have to tell us,” I said, my voice savage.
“She needs to know,” Sadie echoed.
“It’s okay,” Amnesia said, her face pale and withdrawn.
“I don’t know how long I’d been there, a long time, though… Maybe a year? Or more. I, um… stopped bleeding every month. I stared getting sick, throwing up a lot.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I said and jumped off the bed, pacing.
“What was wrong?” Amnesia asked naively. My sweet, innocent Am.
“She was pregnant.” The answer ripped out of me like a roar. “He got her pregnant.”
Amnesia covered her mouth with her hand.
Sadie nodded, that blank look on her face. “It took him a while to notice, but when he figured it out, he was mad. So mad. He said it was all my fault, that I knew better than to get like that.”
I wasn’t sure how much more I could hear. How much more I could take.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Am said, trying to comfort Sadie.
“Maybe it was.”
I groaned.
“I can go get Dr. Kline. Maybe you should talk to her and not us. She can help you. She helps me.” Amnesia pushed up from the chair and leaned over to set aside her drink so she could go get a doctor.
Sadie moved suddenly, lurching forward and grabbing Amnesia’s wrist. She cried out in surprise and tried to jerk back.
“Don’t you want to know?” she intoned. “Don’t you want to know how you got to the island?”
Red dots swarmed before my eyes. I didn’t think, only reacted to the fact that someone put their hands on Am and she was struggling to get away. Lunging forward, I brought my forearm down over Sadie’s and dislodged her hold.
Amnesia stumbled back, and so did I. I fell into the chair, Amnesia on top of me. Breathing heavy, I sat forward, wrapped my arms around her, and held her against me.
“Don’t touch her.” I warned, trying to sound as unthreatening as I could. “Just don’t, Sadie.”
“You love her,” she said, her eyes meeting mine.
It seemed cruel to say I did. It seemed somehow disloyal. I nodded instead, because not voicing it somehow seemed kinder.
Sadie’s eyes flashed back to Amnesia, who was still sitting in my lap.
“He beat me. He beat me until I lost the baby. I bled so much, was so badly injured, he thought I was going to die. I almost did… That’s where you come in,” Sadie told her. The expressionless way she spoke creeped me the fuck out.
“Me?” Amnesia asked, her voice quivering.
My arms slid tighter around her as if I could somehow shield her from what Sadie said next.
“You were my replacement,” she said. “He got you to take my place. Except I never died. Instead, we became sisters.”