He couldn’t explain how he knew it was her, really, other than he just did. She was standing on the edge of the dance floor, her arms crossed, and she was staring at him without any subtlety. He began walking toward her, his heart pounding. She didn’t move, didn’t meet him halfway, and she wasn’t smiling.
She just looked so familiar somehow, but the way déjà vu is familiar—it could be a real memory, or it could be that one of your synapses just fired weirdly for a second.
As he came closer, he saw she had brown hair, pinned back, and olive skin. She was sort of skinny-fat: skinny but not toned like Ashbot. Most of all, she stuck out. She didn’t belong here. But instead of pitying her, or tattling to a security guard, Gideon immediately recognized himself in that.
Finally he reached her, and they faced each other.
“Who are you?” he asked apprehensively, then made a face. “God, this is so melodramatic.”
She shrugged. “I’m Anonymous. Obviously.”
“What’s your real name?”
She continued glaring at him, ice-cold, and deadpanned: “You don’t think my parents named me that?”
“If they did, you should call Social Services.”
Bantering with her felt as natural as eating or sleeping. Weird—he was usually so quiet.
“So. Your dad’s empire is doing well.”
“Do you go to Pembrooke? Is that why I recognize you?”
Her mouth twisted in a sad smile.
“I’ve only been in your grade for, like, eight years. Sometimes in your class.”
Gideon pushed on his temples, like it might shift his mind into place. Frustrated, he said, “I remember, but I . . . don’t remember. Does that sound crazy?”
She shook her head, then glanced around them rapidly.
“We shouldn’t talk here.”
*
They walked briskly out of the industrial back door, her in the lead, and after five minutes wound up sitting on a curb just near the highway. It had rained, and the black pavement was strewn with shining puddles. The curb was damp, but the situation itself was too surreal for either of them to make “damp formal-wear ass” a priority right now.
“What’s going on?”
She turned to him and took a breath, like she’d been preparing for this for months and knew she didn’t have much time.
“They wiped your memories of me. And some . . . other things, which are also related to me. We were friends for a really, really long time. From when we were kids to when they found out.”
“How would they wipe me? And they found out what? Just get to the point.” Gideon was wondering if he should call 911 on this crazy girl. He was also beginning to notice that damp formal-wear ass right around now.
She halted and glared at him.
“Wait. First, can I just say, I can’t believe you’re doing what you’re doing.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re dating a Miss Ordinaria because someone told you to. You’re hanging out with that human defect Jason Tous because someone told you to. When’s the last time you made a decision by yourself?”
He was speechless.
“Exactly!” she yelled at him, emotion welling up in her eyes. Then she squashed it, and her tone was businesslike again. “If you came out as anti-Ordinaria, it would be huge! It would be, maybe, one of the only ways to stop this before it gets totally out of control.”
“I don’t get any of this. Just tell me, what don’t I remember?”
She looked close to tears, which didn’t make him feel that removed guilt he usually did when a girl cried. This time, he felt like he was close to tears.
“I’m sorry; I just don’t remember!”
With wild eyes, she reached into her purse and pulled out a long screwdriver.
“You don’t remember this?” she asked, her voice rising.
She raised her arm up as far as she could and slammed the screwdriver into her thigh.
Even before it came down, this thought popped into his head: The screwdriver hits metal.
As soon as that came back to him, with a click that felt like a brief migraine, he remembered everything. How they were drawn together as kids and didn’t really know why. They’d spend every day together.
“You’re Scarlett, aren’t you?”
She nodded.
He remembered when she’d told him, crying, that her mom had simply stopped blinking. She said in that moment, the truth just occurred to her, even though she’d sort of known it all along. It was too crazy to believe. Gideon said maybe her mom had had a stroke. It sounded serious; her mom needed to go to the hospital.
She’d shaken her head slowly, looking around the room, eerily calm, then reached into his parents’ junk drawer. Grabbed a screwdriver. Gideon had jumped up to stop her, but before he could she jammed it, hard, into her own leg.
The screwdriver hit metal.
They stood there, staring at each other.
“That’s not possible. No.”