Girlfriend.
He jogs toward the bright red podium and stretch of velvet ropes leading to the theaters, and I’m left staring at his back, my whole body on fire yet tingling with chills. On the one hand, I can’t believe I ever loved him, someone capable of convincingly pretending I’m a complete stranger to him. On the other, I’m legitimately freaked out. Matt’s familiar blue eyes looked blank—no recognition behind them at all—as if really and truly his brain had erased me from its archives. This has “bad dream” written so vehemently all over it that I open and close my eyes hard a few times, hoping I’ll wake up in my bed.
“Ready?”
I turn to find Mom emerging from the bathroom, and more chills rush down my arms.
“Where’d you go?” I ask, biting back the remnants of angry tears.
“I was in the bathroom,” she says. She grabs my chin. “Honey, what happened? Are you okay?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I just ran into Matt. He has a new girlfriend.” It’s an easier explanation than the whole truth.
“Oh, baby.” She pulls me into her arms, and we stand there until a woman approaches the bathroom and we realize we’re blocking the way. We step aside and head into the concessions line. “We don’t have to stay,” Mom says. “If you want to go home, that’s fine.”
I shake my head. “I need a distraction.”
She nods. “Okay. But if you change your mind, just say the word.”
We pay for our popcorn and head into our movie. Within five minutes, I know I’ve made a horrible mistake. This movie’s the most upsetting thing I’ve ever seen, and there’s no escaping it. My insides are in alarming turmoil, and I’m fairly sure I’m going to have diarrhea for days. I close my eyes and shut out the sounds.
But when I steer my mind away from the awful plot unfolding in front of me, another gruesome image resurfaces with a vengeance. I think of the boy I fell in love with as we sat on a hillside, swarmed in fireflies, and of how, on the night I broke his heart years later, he promised he could never hate me. Then I think of the guy who just treated me like a stranger. I think of the two different Matts my mind can’t reconcile, and then I think of a story Grandmother told me.
“This is the story of Brother Black and Brother Red,” Grandmother said. “There once was a brother and sister who lived in a lodge deep in a forest. They rarely saw any visitors. The brother was different from other people, in that one half of him was red and one half of him was black.
“One day, he went away to hunt, but no sooner had he left than his sister saw him coming back down the path toward their lodge. ‘I thought you went to hunt,’ she said, following him inside.
“‘I changed my mind,’ he told her and went to sit by her on the bed. He seemed different to her, and when he tried to embrace her, she became afraid and fought him off.
“‘Why do you act as my husband when you are my brother?’ she said angrily, but again he tried to hold her as a lover, and she fought him off again, and this time he left.
“The next day the brother returned home, but his sister would not speak to him, though usually they spent many hours talking. ‘My sister,’ the brother said, ‘Why do you treat me as one hated? What have I done to deserve such a change in your love toward me?’
“‘You know what you’ve done,’ the sister answered. ‘You harmed me and broke our bond.’ But the brother insisted he didn’t know what she was talking about, so the sister told him plainly, ‘Yesterday you embraced me as a lover, and today I can’t look at you.’
“‘My precious sister,’ the brother said, ‘I was not here yesterday. I was hunting. You must have met my friend, who looks like me in every way.’ The sister was angry that her brother had given such an outlandish excuse. ‘Do not treat me in that way again,’ she said, and for many days he seemed to be his old self.
“Finally the brother went away to hunt again, and as before, the sister saw someone who looked just like her brother and wore his clothes, hiding in the brush near their home. He followed her back inside, and this time when he tried to hold her, she tore at his face with her nails until he fled.
“Three days passed and her brother returned again with a deer he had hunted. Again she refused to speak to him, and again he spoke gently to her, saying, ‘Sister, you’re very angry with me. Has my friend been here again?’