Charlie has been extremely quiet as she reads. She’s not taking notes or telling me anything that might be of use to us. At one point, I saw her swipe her hand under her eye, but if it was a tear, she hid it well. It made me curious what she was reading, so I peeked over and tried to read from the journal.
It was our the night we broke up. What happened between us just a matter of a week or so ago. I want nothing more than to scoot over and read the rest of it with her, but instead, she tells Landon she has to pee.
He pulls over at a gas station about an hour from the prison. Janette remains in the car and Charlie sticks by my side as we enter the store. Or maybe it’s me who sticks by her side. I’m not sure. The desire to protect her hasn’t left me at all. If anything, I’ve become more involved. The fact that I remember everything from the last two—almost three—days has made it harder for me to forget that I’m not supposed to know her. Or love her. But all I can do is think about the kiss from this morning—when we thought we weren’t going to remember each other when it was over. The way she allowed me to kiss her and hold her until she wasn’t Charlie anymore.
It took all I had not to laugh when she pretended she knew her name. Delilah? Even without her memory, she’s still the same, stubborn Charlie. It’s amazing how a few pieces of her personality still shine through today just as they did last night. I wonder if I’m at all similar to who I was before all this started?
I wait for her until she emerges from the restroom. We walk to the refrigerated cases of drinks and I begin to reach for a water. She grabs at a Pepsi and I almost catch myself telling her that I know she prefers Coke based on something I read in one of the letters yesterday, but I’m not supposed to remember yesterday. We take our drinks to the register and set them down.
“I wonder if I even like Pepsi?” she whispers.
I laugh. “That’s why I got water. Playing it safe.”
She grabs a bag of potato chips from a display and places them on the counter for the cashier to scan. Then she grabs a bag of Cheetos. Then a bag of Funyuns. Then Doritos. She just keeps piling chips onto the counter. I’m eyeing her when she glances over at me with a shrug. “Just playing it safe,” she says.
By the time we return to the car, we’re carrying ten different bags of chips and eight different types of sodas. Janette shoots Charlie a look when she sees all the food. “Silas is really hungry,” she says to Janette.
Landon is seated behind the wheel, his knee bouncing up and down. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel and says, “Silas, you remember how to drive, right?”
I follow his gaze and see two police cars pulled over on the side of the road in front of us. We’ll have to pass them to get out, but I’m not sure why this is making Landon nervous. Charlie is no longer missing, so we have no reason to be paranoid of the police.
“Why can’t you drive?” I ask him.
He turns around to face me. “I just turned sixteen,” he says. “I only have a permit. I haven’t applied for my license yet.”
“Great,” Janette mutters.
In the grand scheme of things, driving without a license isn’t really a priority on my list of things to worry about.
“I think we have bigger issues than getting a ticket,” Charlie says, voicing my thoughts aloud. “Silas doesn’t need to drive. He’s helping me sort through all this shit.”
“Going through old love letters is hardly important,” Janette says. “If Landon gets a ticket with a permit, they’ll deny his license.”
“Don’t get pulled over, then,” I say to him. “We still have another two hours to go and a three-hour drive back. I can’t waste five hours just because you’re worried about your license.”
“Why are you two acting so weird?” Janette says. “And why are you reading old love letters?”
Charlie is staring down at the journal when she gives Janette a half-hearted response. “We’re experiencing an unusual case of amnesia and can’t remember who we are. I don’t even know who you are. Turn around and mind your own business.”
Janette rolls her eyes and huffs, then turns around. “Weirdos,” she mutters.
Charlie grins at me and then points down at the journal. “Here,” she says. “I’m about to read the very last entry.”
I move the box that separates us and I scoot closer to her so I can read the last entry with her. “Is it weird? Sharing your journal with me?”
She gives her head a slight shake. “Not really. I kind of feel like we aren’t them.”
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3RD
It’s only been fifteen minutes since I last wrote in this journal. As soon as I closed it, Silas texted me and said he was outside. Since my mother doesn’t allow him in our house anymore, I walked outside to hear what he had to say.
He caught my breath and I instantly hated myself for it. The way he was leaning against his Land Rover—his feet crossed at the ankles, his hands shoved in his jacket pockets. A shiver ran over me, but I blamed it on the fact that I was in a pajama top with spaghetti straps.
He wouldn’t even look up when I walked to his car. I leaned against it next to him and folded my arms over my chest. We stood there for several moments, suspended in silence.
“Can I just ask you one question?” he said.
He kicked off his car and stood in front of me. I stiffened when his arms came up beside my head and caged me in. He dipped his head a couple of inches until we were eye to eye. The position we were in was nothing new. We’d stood like that a million times before, but this time he wasn’t looking at me like he wanted to kiss me. This time he was looking at me like he was trying to figure out who in the hell I was. He was scrolling over my face like he was looking at a complete stranger.
“Charlie,” he said, his voice raspy. He pulled his bottom lip in and bit down on it while he composed what he was about to say next. He sighed and then closed his eyes. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
“Yes.”
His eyes popped open at the steadfastness in my response. My heart ached for what he was trying to hide in his expression. The shock. The realization that he wasn’t going to talk me out of it.
He tapped his fist on the car twice and then shoved himself away from me. I immediately stepped around him, wanting to go inside my house while I still had the strength to let him leave. I kept reminding myself why I was doing this. We aren’t a good match. He thinks my father is guilty. Our families hate each other. We’re different now.
When I reached my front door, Silas said one last thing before getting into his car.
“I won’t miss you, Charlie.”
His comment shocked me, so I turned and looked at him.
“I’ll miss the old you. I’ll miss the Charlie I fell in love with. But whoever this is you’re turning into…” He waved his hand flippantly up and down my body. “Is not someone I’m going to miss.”
He climbed inside his car and slammed his door. He backed out of the driveway and peeled away, his tires screeching against the streets of my slum neighborhood.
And now he’s gone.
A small piece of me is angry that he didn’t try harder. Most of me is relieved that it’s finally over.
All this time, he’s done everything he can to remember how things used to be between us. He’s convinced himself that they can be that way again one day.
While he spends all of his time trying to remember…I spend all of my time trying to forget.
I don’t want to remember how it feels to kiss him.
I don’t want to remember how it feels to love him.
I want to forget Silas Nash, and everything in this world that reminds me of him.