Three hours.
It’s been almost three hours, and my mind is still in a haze.
No, not a haze. Not even a dense fog. It feels as if I’m wandering around in a pitch-black room, searching for the light switch.
“You okay?” Charlie asks. I’ve been staring at her for several seconds, attempting to regain some semblance of familiarity from a face that should apparently be the most familiar to me.
Nothing.
She looks down at her desk and her thick, black hair falls between us like blinders. I want a better look at her. I need something to grab me, something familiar. I want to predict a birthmark or a freckle on her before I see it, because I need something recognizable. I’ll grasp at any piece of her that might convince me I’m not losing my mind.
She reaches her hand up, finally, and tucks her hair behind her ear. She looks up at me through two wide and completely unfamiliar eyes. The crease between her brows deepens and she begins biting at the pad of her thumb.
She’s worried about me. About us, maybe.
Us.
I want to ask her if she knows what might have happened to me, but I don’t want to scare her. How do I explain that I don’t know her? How do I explain this to anyone? I’ve spent the last three hours trying to act natural. At first I was convinced I must have used some kind of illegal substance that caused me to black out, but this is different from blacking out. This is different from being high or drunk, and I have no idea how I even know that. I don’t remember anything beyond three hours ago.
“Hey.” Charlie reaches out like she’s going to touch me, then draws back. “Are you okay?”
I grip the sleeve of my shirt and wipe the sheen of moisture off my forehead. When she glances back up at me, I see the concern still filling her eyes. I force my lips to form a smile.
“I’m fine,” I mutter. “Long night.”
As soon as I say it, I cringe. I have no idea what kind of night I had, and if this girl sitting across from me really is my girlfriend, then a sentence like that probably isn’t very reassuring.
I see a small twitch in her eye and she tilts her head. “Why was it a long night?”
Shit.
“Silas.” The voice comes from the front of the room. I look up. “No talking,” the teacher says. She returns to her instruction, not too concerned with my reaction to being singled out. I glance back at Charlie, briefly, and then immediately stare down at my desk. My fingers trace over names carved into the wood. Charlie is still staring at me, but I don’t look at her. I flip my hand over, and I run two fingers over the callouses across the inside of my palm.
Do I work? Mow lawns for a living?
Maybe it’s from football. During lunch I decided to use my time to observe everyone around me, and I learned I have football practice this afternoon. I have no idea what time or where, but I’ve somehow made it through the last few hours without knowing when or where I’m supposed to be. I may not have any sort of recollection right now, but I’m learning that I’m very good at faking it. Too good, maybe.
I flip my other hand over and find the same rough callouses on that palm.
Maybe I live on a farm.
No. I don’t.
I don’t know how I know, but even without being able to recall anything, I seem to have an immediate sense of what assumptions of mine are accurate and which are not. It could just be process of elimination, rather than intuition or memory. For example, I don’t feel like someone who lives on a farm would be wearing the clothes I have on. Nice clothes. Trendy? Looking down at my shoes, if someone asked me if I have rich parents, I’d tell them, “Yes, I do.” And I don’t know how, because I don’t remember my parents.
I don’t know where I live, who I live with, or if I look more like my mother or my father.
I don’t even know what I look like.
I stand abruptly, shoving the desk a few loud inches forward in the process. Everyone in the class turns to face me other than Charlie, because she hasn’t stopped staring at me since I sat down. Her eyes aren’t inquisitive or kind.
Her eyes are accusing.
The teacher glares at me, but doesn’t seem at all surprised by the loss of everyone’s attention to me. She just stands, complacent, waiting for me to announce my reason for the sudden disruption.
I swallow. “Bathroom.” My lips are sticky. My mouth is dry. My mind is wrecked. I don’t wait for permission before I begin to head in that direction. I can feel everyone’s stares as I push through the door.
I go right and make it to the end of the hall without finding a restroom. I backtrack and pass by my classroom door, continuing until I round the corner and find the restroom. I push open the door, hoping for solitude, but someone is standing at the urinal with his back to me. I turn to the sink, but don’t look into the mirror. I stare down at the sink, placing my hands on either side of it, gripping tightly. I inhale.
If I would just look at myself, my reflection could trigger a memory, or maybe just give me a small sense of recognition. Something. Anything.
The guy who was standing at the urinal seconds before is now standing next to me, leaning against a sink with his arms folded. When I glance over at him, he’s glaring at me. His hair is so blond, it’s almost white. His skin is so pale, it reminds me of a jellyfish. Translucent, almost.
I can remember what jellyfish look like, but I have no idea what I’ll find when I look at myself in the mirror?
“You look like shit, Nash,” he says with a smirk.
Nash?
Everyone else has been calling me Silas. Nash must be my last name. I would check my wallet, but there isn’t one in my pocket. Just a wad of cash. A wallet is one of the first things I looked for after…well, after it happened.
“Not feeling too hot,” I grumble in response.
For a few seconds, the guy doesn’t respond. He just continues to stare at me the same way Charlie was staring at me in class, but with less concern and way more contentment. The guy smirks and pushes off the sink. He stands up straight, but is still about an inch shy of reaching my height. He takes a step forward, and I gather by the look in his eye that he isn’t closing in on me out of concern for my health.
“We still haven’t settled Friday night,” the guy says to me. “Is that why you’re here now?” His nostrils flare when he speaks and his hands drop to his sides, clenching and unclenching twice.
I have a two-second silent debate with myself, aware that if I step away from him, it’ll make me look like a coward. However, I’m also aware that if I step forward, I’ll be challenging him to something I don’t want to deal with right now. He obviously has issues with me and whatever it was that I chose to do Friday night that pissed him off.
I compromise by giving him no reaction whatsoever. Look unaffected.
I lazily move my attention to the sink and turn one of the knobs until a stream of water begins to pour from the faucet. “Save it for the field,” I say. I immediately want to take back those words. I hadn’t considered he might not even play football. I assumed he did based on his size, but if he doesn’t, my comment will have not made a damn bit of sense. I hold my breath and wait for him to correct me, or call me out.
Neither of those things happens.
He stares for a few more seconds, and then he shoulders past me, purposefully bumping me on his way out the door. I cup my hands under the stream of water and take a sip. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and glance up. At myself.
At Silas Nash.
What the hell kind of name is that, anyway?
I’m staring, emotionless, into a pair of unfamiliar, dark eyes. I feel as though I’m staring at two eyes I’ve never seen before, despite the fact that I’ve more than likely looked at these eyes on a daily basis since I was old enough to reach a mirror.
I’m as familiar with this person in the reflection as I am with the girl who is—according to some guy named Andrew—the girl I’ve been “banging” for two years now.
I’m as familiar with this person in the reflection as I am with every single aspect of my life right now.
Which is not familiar at all.
“Who are you?” I whisper to him.
The bathroom door begins to open slowly, and my eyes move from my reflection to the reflection of the door. A hand appears, gripping the door. I recognize the sleek, red polish on the tips of her fingers. The girl I’ve been “banging” for more than two years.
“Silas?”
I stand up straight and turn to face the door full-on as she peeks around it. When her eyes meet mine, it’s only for two seconds. She glances away, scanning the rest of the bathroom.
“It’s just me,” I say. She nods and makes it the rest of the way through the door, albeit extremely hesitant. I wish I knew how to reassure her that everything is okay so she won’t grow suspicious. I also wish I remembered her, or anything about our relationship, because I want to tell her. I need to tell her. I need for someone else to know, so that I can ask questions.
But how does a guy tell his girlfriend he has no idea who she is? Who he, himself is?
He doesn’t tell her. He pretends, just like he’s been pretending with everyone else.
One hundred silent questions fill her eyes at once, and I immediately want to dodge them all. “I’m fine, Charlie.” I smile at her, because it feels like something I should do. “Just not feeling so hot. Go back to class.”
She doesn’t move.
She doesn’t smile.
She stays where she is, unaffected by my instruction. She reminds me of one of those animals on springs you’d ride on a playground. The kind you push, but they just bounce right back up. I feel like if someone were to shove her shoulders, she’d lean straight back, feet in place, and then bounce right back up again.
I don’t remember what those things are called, but I do make a mental note that I somehow remember them. I’ve made a lot of mental notes in the last three hours.
I’m a senior.
My name is Silas.
Nash might be my last name.
My girlfriend’s name is Charlie.
I play football.
I know what jellyfish look like.
Charlie tilts her head and the corner of her mouth twitches slightly. Her lips part, and for a moment, all I hear are nervous breaths. When she finally forms words, I want to hide from them. I want to tell her to close her eyes and count to twenty until I’m too far away to hear her question.
“What’s my last name, Silas?”
Her voice is like smoke. Soft and wispy and then gone.
I can’t tell if she’s extremely intuitive or if I’m doing a horrible job of covering up the fact that I know nothing. For a moment, I debate whether or not I should tell her. If I tell her and she believes me, she might be able to answer a lot of questions I have. But if I tell her and she doesn’t believe me…
“Babe,” I say with a dismissive laugh. Do I call her babe? “What kind of question is that?”
She lifts the foot I was positive was stuck to the floor, and she takes a step forward. She takes another. She continues toward me until she’s about a foot away; close enough that I can smell her.
Lilies.
She smells like lilies, and I don’t know how I can possibly remember what lilies smell like, but somehow not remember the actual person standing in front of me who smells like them.
Her eyes haven’t left mine, not even once.
“Silas,” she says. “What’s my last name?”
I work my jaw back and forth, and then turn around to face the sink again. I lean forward and grip it tightly with both hands. I slowly lift my eyes until they meet hers in the reflection.
“Your last name?” My mouth is dry again and my words come out scratchy.
She waits.
I look away from her and back at the eyes of the unfamiliar guy in the mirror. “I…I can’t remember.”
She disappears from the reflection, followed immediately by a loud smack. It reminds me of the sound the fish make at Pikes Place Market, when they toss and catch them in the wax paper.
Smack!
I spin around and she’s lying on the tile floor, eyes closed, arms splayed out. I immediately kneel down and lift her head, but as soon as I have her elevated several inches off the floor, her eyelids begin to flutter open.
“Charlie?”
She sucks in a rush of air and sits up. She pulls herself out of my arms and shoves me away, almost as if she’s afraid of me. I keep my hands positioned near her in case she attempts to stand, but she doesn’t. She remains seated on the floor with her palms pressed into the tile.
“You passed out,” I tell her.
She frowns at me. “I’m aware of that.”
I don’t speak again. I should probably know what all her expressions mean, but I don’t. I don’t know if she’s scared or angry or…
“I’m confused,” she says, shaking her head. “I…can you…” she pauses, and then makes an attempt to stand. I stand with her, but I can tell she doesn’t like this by the way she glares at my hands that are slightly lifted, waiting to catch her should she start to fall again.
She takes two steps away from me and crosses an arm over her chest. She brings her opposite hand up and begins chewing on the pad of her thumb again. She studies me quietly for a moment and then pulls her thumb from her mouth, making a fist. “You didn’t know we had class together after lunch.” Her words are spoken with a layer of accusation. “You don’t know my last name.”
I shake my head, admitting to the two things I can’t deny.
“What can you remember?” she asks.
She’s scared. Nervous. Suspicious. Our emotions are reflections of one another, and that’s when the clarity hits.
She may not feel familiar. I may not feel familiar. But our actions—our demeanor—they’re exactly the same.
“What do I remember?” I repeat her question in an attempt to buy myself a few more seconds to allow my suspicions to gain footing.
She waits for my answer.
“History,” I say, attempting to remember as far back as I can. “Books. I saw a girl drop her books.” I grab my neck again and squeeze.
“Oh, God.” She takes a quick step toward me. “That’s…that’s the first thing I remember.”
My heart jumps to my throat.
She begins to shake her head. “I don’t like this. It doesn’t make sense.” She appears calm—calmer than I feel. Her voice is steady. The only fear I see is in the stretched whites of her eyes. I pull her to me without thinking, but I think it’s more for my own relief rather than to put her at ease. She doesn’t pull away, and for a second, I wonder if this is normal for us. I wonder if we’re in love.
I tighten my hold until I feel her stiffen against me. “We need to figure this out,” she says, separating herself from me.
My first instinct is to tell her it’ll be okay, that I’ll figure it out. I’m flooded with an overwhelming need to protect her—only I have no idea how to do that when we’re both experiencing the same reality.
The bell rings, signaling the end of Spanish. Within seconds, the bathroom door will probably open. Lockers will be slamming shut. We’ll have to figure out what classes we’re supposed to be in next. I take her hand and pull her behind me as I push open the bathroom door.
“Where are we going?” she asks.
I look at her over my shoulder and shrug. “I have no idea. I just know I want to leave.”