“Eleven years ago, a girl falls into the lake and is never seen again,” I repeated, reeling from the tale Eddie just told me.
I believed him. I believed every word. The horror and regret on his face could never be faked. The way he spoke about that night pulled me in. I felt I was there in that moment, reliving it all with him.
Or maybe I just felt that way because I had been there.
“Sadie Gordon, gone,” he whispered, gazing out across the lake.
“No one knows what happened? The police found nothing?” I questioned.
He shook his head. “There was a huge search. It lasted weeks. People from other counties, even neighboring states, came, search and rescue. The state police brought in helicopters, search dogs…” His voice roughed. “They even dragged the lake, looking for a body.”
The scene he depicted was grisly, and I could imagine how something like this would rock a small lake town. “And nothing?” I pressed.
Eddie laughed, humorless. “They said we hit some kind of rock because it was dark and we couldn’t see. The rough current pushed us into it and it upturned the boat.”
“You don’t think that.” I didn’t phrase it as a question because I observed the look on his face. Partial disgust, partial confusion. I tried to picture him, a younger, more innocent version of the man who sat in front of me today. A little less controlled, a little more daring.
That night had to have changed him. Forever.
Just as it changed me.
“It makes sense. What else could it have been?” he replied. It sounded like something he’d repeated over and over to himself until it became the truth. “Nothing was out there. I swam around for hours. I lost my voice I yelled so much. The bottom of the boat had some damage from where it hit. The searchers found some rocks below the surface…” He shook his head again, rubbing the back of his neck.
“But?” I pressed.
“But the rocks were so far from where I thought we’d been. It just didn’t make sense.”
“You said it was dark, that the current was strong.”
“Yeah. Yeah. I just lost her.”
How horrible that must have been for him. Now I understood the searching looks, how his eyes tracked my every move, why he was so determined to visit me daily at the hospital. He felt responsible for me. For what happened.
“What about her parents?” I asked. “My parents. Why didn’t they come for me?” There were so many questions. So many.
Eddie made a sound, stood, and lifted a rock. I watched him turn it on its side and skip it across the lake.
“My mother,” I said, getting up and grabbing his elbow. “Is Maggie my mother?”
“No,” he replied, hoarse. Eddie spun around, his eyes searching my face, lingering on my eyes and hair. I didn’t pull away when he tugged his fingers through the short strands and cupped my cheek. “Maggie was best friends with Ann Gordon.”
“Was?” I pressed.
“After the accident…” His hand fell away from me, and he rotated toward the water. “Sadie’s father, Clarke, he… ah, he started drinking.”
Sadness washed over me. Sadness for everyone involved.
“It went on for years. He drank and drank. He pretty much became the town drunk. He hated me. I couldn’t blame him. I was the last one to see his daughter alive. I was the reason she was out on that lake.”
I touched his arm lightly. He gazed down at it but kept talking. “Ann stayed with him. She’d already lost her only child; she wasn’t about to lose her husband, too. She was faithful and loyal. She always picked him up off the floor and cleaned up any messes he made in town.”
“She was a good woman,” I said. It was odd to realize we were talking about my parents. My mother and my father. I knew I was Sadie. I had the proof now, but even with that one horrible memory, it still seemed I was hearing about someone else’s life. I still felt oddly detached.
I didn’t fight that feeling anymore, though. I embraced it. That memory scared me to the core. I didn’t want to go back there.
“One night, Clarke got drunk and went on a rampage, ranting about Sadie. He got in the car, and Ann followed. He ran into a tree about five miles out of town, head on. They both died instantly.”
I covered my mouth with my hand. What a horrible way to die. After long moments, I said, “It’s why no one came to claim me.”
My parents were dead. Died having no idea what happened to their only child. And I wasn’t there to meet them in heaven. So even in death, they didn’t have their answers. A single tear slipped from my eye, making a trail down my cheek.
Eddie turned to me, his eyes finally focused on my face. “I wanted to tell you so many times. When I pulled you out of that lake, I thought I was going crazy. But then you looked at me, your brown eyes…”
“I look like her.”
“In so many ways,” he whispered.
My throat ran dry. I was having a hard time keeping up with it all. I was still shaken from my memory and now with all of this… It was overload.
“You were in a coma for so long, and when you finally woke up, you had no memory. We had no way of knowing for sure who you were, and we couldn’t just ask.”
“Yes,” I said. “You could have.”
He shook his head. “No. You wouldn’t have known, and it would have confused you more. The doctor told me if I said anything, it could hurt you. It could set you back, and after everything, I just couldn’t do it.”
“But it’s been weeks now, Eddie. I’m stronger. I begged you just hours ago to confide in me.”
“I couldn’t,” he said simply.
“Why?” I demanded, becoming agitated and slightly dizzy.
The warmth of his palm curved around my upper arm. “Easy,” he murmured, steadying me. “Let’s sit.”
Sitting seemed like a good idea. I dropped—not very gracefully I might add—into the too-tall grass. Wind tore my hair back behind me and stung my eyes.
Eddie sat beside me, pulled off his hoodie, and tucked it around my shoulders.
I couldn’t let the sweet gesture go unnoticed. “You got a new hoodie.”
His dimples appeared. “Yeah, well, someone kinda stole my other one.”
I smiled. “You gave it to me.”
“You can have this one, too.”
I wanted to rest my cheek on his shoulder, to curl my arms around his torso and burrow in. He represented safety to me. Warmth.
Home.
I knew he was with me the night I was lost. I knew everyone blamed him for whatever happened. I probably should, too. But I didn’t. I looked into his sincere eyes, heard the anguish in his voice as he told me about that night.
“You loved her,” I said. “You were in love with Sadie.”
He nodded.
“Did she love you back?” I asked. Did I love you?
“I don’t know.”
I whispered, “I think she probably did.”
Without looking down, Eddie reached for my hand. I gave it, and he towed it into his lap. We sat staring out at the lake for a while, not saying a thing. I liked the quiet. My brain was already loud enough.
“What do you think happened to her?” I asked. “Where do you think I’ve been all these years?”
“I don’t know,” Eddie replied, gazing down at our hands. When his eyes lifted, I saw something else. Something bleak. It was a look I wasn’t used to seeing him wear. He always looked at me with so much hope, so much wonder.
Now I understood why.
“As much as I wish you were her,” he began, surprising me, “you aren’t.”
“What?” I gasped, my hand spasming in his. “You just said I’m Sadie. Everyone in this town thinks I’m Sadie. I remembered… Someone called me by my name.”
“Who?” he demanded, his face going dark.
I shrank away from the memory. “I don’t know who it was… It wasn’t clear in my memory.”
Eddie reached up, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “What happened in your memory?”
I shook my head. “I want to know why you suddenly don’t think I’m Sadie.”
“I thought you were for a long time. But there are things, details that prove you aren’t her.”
“What details?” I pressed.
“Sadie wasn’t allergic to shellfish,”
“Adults can develop allergies,” I argued.
“She hated when it rained. She was scared of storms.”
“After being missing for eleven years, I have worse things to be afraid of than a little rain.”
Eddie frowned. “You aren’t her.”
“If you’re so sure, why didn’t you tell me once you decided I wasn’t your long-lost love?”
He laughed. “Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.” His voice was bitter and so was the way he dropped my hand and stood.
“What good would it have done?” He raged. “You were already dealing with enough. You lost everything. You were in a coma, confused, scared. Telling you this horrible story only would have added to it. It would have messed with your mind. Everyone already thought I was crazy for insisting you were Sadie. Then you had the allergic reaction, and someone’s trying to kill you. Seemed like you had enough going on without me putting more on your plate. I was trying to protect you.”
“Were you disappointed?” I asked, standing near his back.
“What?” He flew around, his eyes still glimmering with anger.
I stepped closer, tilted my head back. “Were you disappointed when you realized I wasn’t Sadie?”
Eddie’s eyes softened. “Disappointed I still didn’t know what happened to her.” His fingertips drifted over my cheek. “But never disappointed in you. You mean so much to me.”
I touched his hand, flattening it over the side of my face with mine. “You really don’t think I’m her?” His reasons hadn’t been enough to convince me.
He took his time, really thinking, really weighing all the moments we had the past few months. I knew he was remembering her as a girl, really trying to understand.
“I don’t know anymore,” he finally admitted.
My eyes fell. Eddie gently tugged me into his embrace. My arms wound around his middle as he tucked me close. We stood there on the bank of the lake, in the too-tall grass, with the wind whipping around us. He said nothing, and neither did I.
I didn’t know what was going to happen next or how to even prove I was the girl who’d disappeared eleven years ago.
Eddie shifted, his chin dropping down beside my ear. With his arms still around me, the low tone of his voice drifted against my hair. “It doesn’t matter, Am.”
I tilted my head, not lifting it off his chest. “What doesn’t?”
“If you’re Sadie or not. It doesn’t change the way I feel about you.”
I pulled back. Using his hands, Eddie pushed the hair out of my face and stared down. “How do you feel about me?”
“I love you.”
My lips parted on a tiny gasp. “No one’s ever said that to me before.”
“That you can remember,” he teased.
“No,” I said, firm, somehow knowing this to be true. (Yes, I knew it made no sense. I had two parents who loved me.) “You’re my first.”
“I love you,” he said again, the words like music floating in the wind.
I opened my mouth to reply. Eddie put his fingers over my lips and shook his head. “You don’t have to say it.”
I scowled, trying to speak, but my words were muffled against his hand.
He smirked, his eyes sparkling. “Wait until we figure out who you are, Am. I’ll love you, Sadie or not. But you…”
I ripped my mouth free and glared at him. “You think it will matter to me!”
His eyes turned sad, flickering back out to the water. “I think it would be very hard to love the man who lost you out at sea.”
“You’re also the one who found me,” I whispered.
Blue fire ignited in his eyes, nostrils flaring, and then his mouth crashed over mine.