My hands slid from my face. “Images?”
He pulled his knees closer to his chest and rested his arms across them. “Only one image, actually. But it’s real. Like something I’m remembering, Victoria.” He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the knotted skin. “The electricity. It’s tearing memories free. I can feel it in here.” He pointed to the breastbone beneath his red tree-branch scars. “And here.” He touched his temple.
I scooted closer. “Tell me about them. What are they like?”
“I saw a house. There was an address painted on the curb in white. 4-0-8.” He recited it carefully like he’d been trying very hard to memorize this exact sequence. “It’s only for a second and then—” I inched forward. “It sucks.”
“What does?”
He held his hands out and shook them. “Bbbzzzzzzzzzzzz,” he said, mimicking being electrocuted. “Everything. It burns and my head feels like it’s being stabbed.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” I should have seen past his stoic routine. Adam wasn’t going to win any awards for self-expression. In fact, he was a locked box when it came to his feelings. All the signs had been there. Clenched jaw. Furrowed brow. I’d ignored them.
“It’s not your fault.”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak. Because the truth was that it really was all my fault. Every single moment of this story was my fault. “I’ll help you find it,” I blurted out. I felt my eyes tighten at the corners. I wasn’t sure I’d wanted to volunteer that. But my heart softened when he sat up straighter. My Adam. I could do this for him. I should do this for him. “The house. I’m sure we can locate it, just give me some time.”
“Really?”
I felt a worm of guilt niggling its way into my stomach. If there was a piece of him that I could help click into place, I knew I’d rather it be shaped like a house than a girl named Meg. Houses, at least, didn’t ask questions.
*
I RUBBED MY temples, wishing another mug of coffee would materialize in my hand. Instead, a girl in a band uniform slammed into me with her tuba case. My shoulder throbbed. The stress of Adam’s disappearance, his near re-death, and the knowledge that he was remembering hit me like a bag of bricks to the face.
I looked after the band girl. “Excuse you,” I called, my words drowned out in the hustle and bustle of the hallway. I was an island in a sea of blissful ignorance, and that sea was called Spirit Week.
Everywhere I looked students were tacking up posters. Student council members were selling tickets to the Homecoming dance. Hollow Pines High pride was at its all-time peak. It was such a stark contrast to my night that I felt as if I’d entered a very peppy alternate dimension.
Historically, I dreaded Spirit Week with the fervor of my annual teeth cleaning. It’d be way more interesting if it had to do with spirits of the paranormal variety, but instead, it looked like a monster had vomited pom-poms and streamers over the entire school.
I ducked under a pennant smeared in puff paint. The energy this year, though, was electric, and that was Adam’s doing. Adam, the most talked-about boy in school and ostensibly my best friend. People I hardly knew waved at me as they went by. They smiled. They called me Victoria instead of Tor. The only thing missing was a soundtrack.
I spun the dial to my locker and pulled out my physics textbook and stuffed it into an already overstuffed book bag when out of the corner of my eye I saw Cassidy dressed head to toe in orange and black. She squealed as soon as she saw me lurking and dragged Paisley over.
“Happy Junior Class Spirit Day!” she said as though this were as natural a thing to say as Merry Christmas!
Bah humbug, I thought while struggling to zip my bag. I was losing track of the days, but if it was the junior class’s day, that must have meant it was Wednesday. Freshmen on Monday, sophomores for Tuesday, seniors on Thursday. Yes, Wednesday. I made a mental note. Each class was in charge of making one of the days of Spirit Week “special.” I didn’t take my duties seriously.
Cassidy spun her bag around and unfastened a giant round pin that read Get Loud in school colors. “Thank God I thought to bring you one, Victoria. We’re selling them for student council. You look the opposite of spirited. You look…” She curled her lip, taking in my fitted black shirt and sneakers. “Apathetic.”
“I’m not apathetic,” I insisted, feeling defensive. “Apathy is for kids pretending to be smart and stoners. I’m neither of those things. I’m an independent thinker. Like, I don’t know, Galileo.” The zipper finally closed, pinching the tip of my finger and causing me to jerk it back. “Or something.”
Paisley sputtered out laughing. “I told you not to waste your time, Cass.”
A heart-shaped pucker formed between Cassidy’s eyebrows. A slight frown creased either side of her mouth.