“Just MRI today. The rest tomorrow.” She should tell her, but something was stopping her; she didn’t want to be the only one. “You’re all done?” she asked, fishing.
“Yeah, what a waste of time.” Kristen shook her head. “Like, what did they think they’d find? The memory guy was at least interesting.”
“How so?”
“He’s cool. Kind of hot, actually.” She slipped off her sandals and put her bare feet up on the dash; a blister was forming near her left pinkie toe. “We were talking about memories as units. Like how when you have a memory it had a beginning and an end. So what triggers those beginning and end points, like who’s the editor in your brain? Why do you remember one minute and not the minutes before it?”
“Does he have any theories? About what happened to us?”
“He doesn’t know, except maybe it was some kind of experiment. Which is a better theory than aliens or perverts, though I suppose it could be two out of three. I can’t breathe.” Kristen slid her feet back down to the floor, slipped her sandals back on, opened the door and got out and closed it, and headed for the playground gate.
Scarlett got out, and then felt a tweak of pain in her gut.
Imagined it.
Surely.
Unless . . . ?
Was it possible?
That whatever it was . . .
Had hidden sharp edges
. . . and could rip her right open?
Had to push push push
the thought away.
Followed Kristen to the swings.
Who else could she trust if not the others?
Started to form the sentence in her head.
There’s something inside— “I remembered something about you right after the session,” Kristen said. “About us. Just a feeling, and I had it again as I walked toward your car.”
/
/
/
“What?”
/
/
/
Kristen sat on a swing, twisting its chains. “I remembered that we don’t really like each other.”
The stabbing feeling again.
This time for real.
Lucas
He was on foot, heading for the playground, wondering who would show up, half hoping it would be only him and Scarlett.
What would he even tell her?
Or them?
Did they know how to load guns, too?
If he hadn’t come across a gun, he wouldn’t have even known.
Maybe he should have brought it?
Tested them?
No.
Why had he felt so still, so calm, with that gun in his hand?
Why had he . . .
ONE RIGHT TWO LEFT
HISS CLICK
SNAP UP DONE
. . . liked it?
Would they remember the carousel, too?
GOLDEN SADDLES. PEANUTS. WHITE FIRE.
Or a man carrying something that looked like wrapping paper?
SANTA. BEARD.
Would they have tattoos?
CLICK CLICK.
And if so, the same as his or different?
It was finally starting to cool off, and the sun had shifted from blue to gray as evening sank in.
Maybe his brother was right not to trust him.
Maybe Avery was, too.
Why did he know how to load a gun?
Kristen and Scarlett were sitting beside each other on swings, not swinging.
“Hey.” He approached.
“Hey.” Scarlett stood; Kristen pushed off gently on her swing, setting herself in motion.
“I’m so sorry.” Scarlett walked toward him and then stopped as if encountering an invisible force field. “About your father.”
He nodded, wishing she’d come all the way to him. “Thanks.”
Kristen said, “Yeah, sorry about all that,” sounding like she was already over it.
“It’s hard to even know how to feel about it.” He spoke to Scarlett as if Kristen weren’t there. “On the one hand I barely knew him.”
“You can’t really be a suspect,” Scarlett said. “They have to realize it was an accident. Right?”
“They will.” He had to believe it, himself. Then, “How are things with you guys?”
He couldn’t ignore Kristen the whole time.
“I’m okay,” Scarlett said. Her black tank top showed off her figure in a way he found distracting.
SKIN. VALLEY. BONES. LIPS.
A memory?
A fantasy?
She said, “My mother is a crazy person who thinks aliens took us.”
He’d seen a note about that in the RV and had hoped it wasn’t actually true. At least not anymore, not now.
“My parents, who are amicably divorced, vote for pervert with a basement prison,” Kristen said. “Mother is pretty much treating me like a foreign exchange student from some war-torn, godforsaken country, which feels right, in a way?”
“That’s a lot to have to deal with,” Lucas said.
“I’ll manage,” Kristen said.
“That explains why your address didn’t sound familiar,” he said.
“Exactly.”
“You guys don’t remember Max, do you?” Lucas asked.
Scarlett shook her head; Kristen, too.
“And do either of you know anything about a man carrying wrapping paper? Being followed? Anything like that?”
“No, why?” Scarlett said.
“I said I was being followed the week before. I told my brother about it. I thought maybe if you’d been followed but hadn’t told anyone . . . I don’t know. I remember stuff from before . . .
WALKER. SUPERMAN. CUBBIES. READY OR NOT.