“I’m not manipulating you.” I pause while people pass us on the sidewalk. “Can we walk and I promise I’ll talk?”
Lance sighs, but falls into step beside me. I wait until we’re back on a quieter street before I say anything.
“My sister’s freshman year, she took me to a house party. Some kids from her school threw it.”
“Okayyy.”
“I was in seventh grade.”
“Fuck. That wasn’t a good place for you to be, but what does this have to do with anything?”
“I’m getting to that.”
“Was I there?”
I nod, but don’t look at him.
He grabs my arm, gently but firmly, and pulls me to a stop. Stepping in front of me, his eyes are wide and haunted. “Please tell me we didn’t hook up at that party when you were thirteen.”
“God. No. Not in the way you mean.”
He drops his hands, closes his eyes, and releases a relieved breath. “Thank fucking Christ.”
“And I was twelve.”
“Twelve? At a high school party?”
“My thirteenth birthday was, like, a week away. My sister didn’t always make the best choices.”
“Clearly.”
“It was a big part of the reason we ended up moving away from Chicago for a few years. She couldn’t stay out of trouble.” I was always the easy child growing up. Cinny was the one who got into all the trouble. Apart from that one party.
We start walking again.
“So I didn’t commit a felony, which is good. Did I talk to you?”
It hurts that he doesn’t remember at all. “In a manner of speaking.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“One of my sister’s friends was playing a game. I didn’t realize what it was until it was too late.” I have to look anywhere but him in order to get out the rest. “They were playing Seven Minutes in Heaven.”
Lance comes to a dead stop again. I don’t want to look up, but I have to because he’s not moving. “You got locked in a closet with some high school douche when you were twelve?”
“Almost thirteen.” As if that makes it better. “I didn’t get locked in there with a douche; I got locked in there with you.”
“For seven minutes?”
“Yes.”
“Did we make out? Wait. Don’t answer that. We’re close to your house, right?”
“It’s down the street.”
He laces his fingers through mine and tugs. “Come on.”
“What are you doing?”
“Hoping to jog my memory.”
When we reach my door, it takes me a minute to find my keys since they’re stuck at the bottom of my purse. Then I fumble and drop them on the mat.
Lance bends down to grab them. “Here. Let me get it.”
When the door swings open, he pushes past me into my foyer. He goes straight for the hall closet, opening the door and parting the hangers.
“What’re you doing?”
He laces my fingers with his. “I want you to show me.”
“Show you wh—”
He steps into the closet and pulls me inside with him, closing the door behind us.
A hat falls from the hook inside the door, and I bat it away in the dark. “This is a really weird way to end a first date.” I’m so nervous right now.
“Just go with it.” He brings my fingers to his lips.
“What am I supposed to be showing you, apart from the inside of my closet?” My heart is beating so hard.
“What our first kiss was like. I want to remember it the way you do,” he pleads.
“You were probably drunk.”
“There’s a good chance. But I’m not now. Please.”
I can tell him no. He won’t push me for something I’m not willing to give freely. But I recognize the vulnerability in this. In him. It makes me want to see if I can resurrect the sweet boy inside this closed man who stole my heart so many years ago.
My biggest fear is falling for real this time. I don’t really know him or understand the crazy life he seems to lead. I never have, and I’m not a kid anymore, but actually spending time with him has pulled me way beyond any romantic fantasies.
I pull out my phone and key in the code.
“What are you doing?”
“Setting a timer.”
“What for?”
“Because I’m re-creating the moment, and this is what you did.”
“I set a timer?”
“You honestly don’t remember at all?”
He cups my face in his hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t make a lot of nice memories before I got drafted, especially not when I first moved to Chicago. I had to shut a lot of things out. Please give me this one good thing back?”
He’s so sincere. What’s more, he’s so very sad. It makes me want to know what could’ve been so bad that he’d choose to forget everything he could.
“Okay.” I cut the light on my phone, submerging us in darkness again. It’s easier to do this if I can’t see his face.
I can feel him playing with the ends of my hair. “Why did I set a timer?”
“You were being sweet. I was freaked out. You set an alarm so you wouldn’t lose face—those were your words. I didn’t understand what you meant at the time, but then you started asking me questions. I told you my name.”
“Poppy like the flower,” he whispers.
My stomach does a little flip at the thought that maybe he does remember. “That’s what you said to me.”
“I did?”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “And you asked me how old I was. I lied and said I was fourteen. You were turning fifteen the next day.”
“Why would you lie, pretty Poppy?” His fingers are light, following the contour of my lips.
Is he playing with me? It’s like he’s giving me back the words he used all those years ago. I don’t want this to be a game for him. It’s not for me.
“I knew you wouldn’t kiss me if you knew I was only twelve.”
“Fuck. No, I wouldn’t have. I guess I’m glad you lied then.”
“I’m not twelve anymore, so it’s fine. And even then, I made the choice to be in there with you. I remembered you from the year before, when you went to my school. I thought you were cute. Anyway—” I swallow thickly at the feel of his fingers trailing along my neckline. His light touch sends my mind spinning into the past, and heat rushes through me. “You asked me if I’d ever been kissed before.”
“And what did you say?”
“No.”
“And what did I say?”
“That you should be sorry, because you were going to take something from me that I couldn’t get back.”
“But I kissed you anyway.”
“You did.”
“That was selfish of me. That kiss belonged to someone special.”
“It felt special at the time.”
“I’m glad. And I’m still not sorry the way I should’ve been.”
“What?”
“For taking something that didn’t belong to me. I wasn’t sorry then. I’m still not sorry now.”
He remembers.
CHAPTER 14
SLAPPED IN THE
Face WITH MEMORIES
LANCE
When a person chooses to bury memories, there’s usually a reason. The span of time between my brother dying and my aunt realizing my mom was beating the shit out of me—verbally and physically—was the worst of my life. When we moved to Chicago, her beatings got worse instead of better, so I shut down. I locked everything away—all the good and the bad and everything else in between—and kept it stored in the dark place in my head.
It was almost like the mental place I go to when I get into a fight on the ice. Keeping the memories on lockdown is a lot easier than contending with them. Or at least I thought it was. But everything just changed.
I’ve been slapped in the face—not literally, I don’t think Poppy has a violent bone in her body—with a deluge of memories.
Now I understand why Poppy’s always felt so familiar. She is. Flickers of things long buried start to surface: my first week of school in Chicago, the still-healing bruises on my back and legs and knees, wearing pants when it was hot, all the attention from the teachers and other students.
A lot of the memories aren’t very pleasant, but the good ones that contain Poppy come hurtling to the surface now, obliterating everything else. She’s the strawberry blond girl with the long ponytail who looked like home.