A Need So Beautiful (13 page)

She moves back, continuing to smile. “And look”—she motions over herself—“I’m still very much here.”

“How?” I’m suddenly desperate. She proves it. There is a way to stop the Need.

She waggles her finger in front of me. “No, no. Not yet. You have more to show me before I can tell you all of my secrets.”

“But—”

“Shh . . .” she whispers, and I’m struck silent, unable to move or talk. My thoughts don’t race, my heart doesn’t pound. I’m content as I stare back at her, her words fading to the back of my mind. “I’ll see you soon.” Onika turns and walks toward the front door of the pharmacy, but when she’s halfway there she looks over her shoulder at me. “Oh, and give my love to Mercy.”

I try to ask what she’s talking about when there’s a sudden vibration in my pocket and I yelp, jumping back, no longer mute. My breath comes out in jagged gasps as if I just woke from a nightmare. When I look up, Onika is gone.

It takes a second until I realize that the vibration is my cell phone. I pull it out and glance at the caller ID. It’s Mercy.

“Hey,” I say when I answer. I feel like I haven’t talked to her in a million years, and right now I really want her to tell me everything is okay.

“Don’t you ‘hey’ me, Charlotte. You better be getting your little butt home and to bed. A car accident? And nobody calls me? Tell Monroe he’s gonna be hearing from me later.”

“It’s not his fault,” I try to say, but then realize that I won’t win the discussion. Mercy’s pretty good at standing her ground. “I’m on my way home right now.”

“You’ve got ten minutes before I come and get you myself. And then you’ll be sorry.” She hangs up and I smile a little. Mercy’s idea of sorry was scolding me for an hour and taking away my phone, only to bake something delicious because she felt guilty.

I push my phone back into my pocket, feeling normal for a minute before the day’s events flood back into me. Forgotten. Onika. The journal. Dread grips me—an overwhelming dread that threatens to drown me—until my hand closes around something smooth inside my pocket. It’s the guardian angel that Harlin gave me. It comforts me.

There’s a jingle of the front door of Dell’s as a police officer walks by me toward the back counter. I feel okay with what happened here, because someone was saved today. That’s a good thing. I know it’s good.

But even that doesn’t shake me from the horror that’s become my life. There’s nothing worse than being forgotten. Like I never existed. I straighten and begin walking toward the street, feeling determined. Because I know, no matter what Monroe says will happen, I’m going to want to stop the Need. Even if I have to use Onika’s help. I want to live.

When I open my apartment door, I’m immediately assaulted with Mercy’s hugs and questions. About every other word is Spanish as she demands to know how a car had hit me, how many stitches I’d gotten, and why I didn’t call her. I see both Alex and Georgia at the table, eating dinner, and I wave to them. Alex salutes me and Georgia goes back to twisting strands of spaghetti on her fork. I’m sad that she doesn’t seem happier to see me. I thought we’d bonded last night. That maybe we could be family now.

“I’m sorry,” I say over and over to Mercy. “I didn’t want to bother you at work.”

“Where did it happen? Who was driving? I’m very upset with you, Charlotte. You were supposed to be home.”

I look over and see Alex widen his eyes like he knows I’m in trouble. He’s the one who told her, I’m sure.

“I’m hungry,” I whine, motioning toward the table. Guilt crosses Mercy’s face.

“Okay. Enough third degree. For now,” she warns. “Sit down and have something to eat.” She puts her arm around me and leads me over; checking my stitches to make sure Monroe did a good job. She says he did.

“Looks delicious,” I say, happy to put a pile of spaghetti on my plate. I’m starving after the pharmacy incident. Too hungry to think of anything else. I immediately begin to shove pasta into my mouth, my other hand grabbing bread. It’s a hunger that I can’t fill. I feel bottomless.

“Still can’t believe the clinic didn’t call me,” Mercy mumbles. “Or one of my
children
.” She snatches the grated cheese from Alex as he’s shaking it over his plate, and gives him an annoyed look.

“Don’t blame me!” he says. “I didn’t know she was out running the streets. It’s not like she called me, either. I didn’t even see her yesterday.”

“Whatever,” I say to him. “I heard you and Georgia checking out my stitches while I was on the couch.”

Georgia glances up, a puzzled look on her face, but she continues to eat.

“Georgia,” Mercy says, slapping her hand dramatically on the table. “You told me you haven’t talked to her all week.”

“I told her about the accident,” I say. “And we talked about other things.” I smile at Georgia as she takes a drink, letting her know that I won’t tell about her mother or her scar. Like it’s a secret just between us. Instead, Georgia coughs on a sip of her iced tea.

“Did not,” she snaps. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t seen you in days. Don’t drag me into your lies, Charlotte.”

“Georgia!” Mercy scolds.

I nearly drop my fork. “What?” I murmur.

She’s staring at me, looking completely pissed off. “I didn’t even know you were hurt until Mercy came in all yelling about it.”

“Uh-oh, Ma,” Alex interrupts. “I think Charlotte might be using that wacky tabacky.” He laughs like this a joke. Like my life isn’t ending.

“I heard you last night,” I say to him, feeling desperate. “You don’t remember?”

“Charlotte, I didn’t see you until I found you in your room this morning. There you were with blood in your hair.”

“You had blood in your hair?” Mercy asks, touching her chest in concern. “Poor thing. I wish you had called me. You know I would have taken care of you.”

But her voice is a million miles away. My eyes tear up as I stare between Alex and Georgia, realizing that they don’t remember. They don’t even remember seeing me. The memories are blotting out.

“Are you crying?” Alex asks incredulously. “What the—”

“Excuse me,” I say, pushing back in my chair and tossing my napkin onto the table. I run for my room as Mercy calls after me, but I don’t wait. I burst into my room and collapse on the bed.

I want it to stop. I need it to stop. I sob into my hands, praying, wishing, making deals with whoever will listen. My head pulses with each tear and my bruised thighs still ache, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing will matter if I don’t find a way to stop the Needs.

Because before long, no one will even care. They won’t even remember me.

Chapter 13

I
must have fallen asleep because when I wake up, the room is dark and quiet. No light outside my window, no clinking of dishes beyond the door.

My eyes search for the alarm clock, and when I find it, I see that it’s three a.m. I’m tired, but I move to switch on the light. My day is a blur, a pile of unsorted emotions.

I try to swallow, my throat dry, when I see my coat folded over the edge of my bed. Mercy must have brought it in here after dinner.

I jump out of bed and search the pockets frantically. When my fingers close around the journal, I exhale, relieved. But soon that relief is replaced with anxiety. A frightened curiosity.

For years I’ve watched Monroe take notes in this small bound book, never really wondering why. But now I know that it could hold the key to my survival. And that he had it all along.

Taking the book into bed with me, I ease under the covers, holding it tight. I turn to the first page and begin to read.

12/5

Lourdes never showed up for our appointment. When I went to speak with her husband, he didn’t remember her. Looking over my last journal, I can see the pattern. It seems once the Forgotten get toward the end of their life span, they become less memorable. Almost like the people who they touch have short-term memory loss. And their families start to forget little things, little bits of their lives, until they are erased entirely.

During our last visit, Lourdes told me that her husband didn’t remember their honeymoon. He claimed that they never had one. She pressed him and tried to find the pictures to prove it, but they were gone. Instead her husband said they stayed home, although he couldn’t remember exactly what they did. So she stopped going back to her house. She gave up.

The memories will become foggy—like the person never existed. The writings, pictures . . . all gone. It seems that all that’s left behind is space. Empty spaces or the tricks that the mind uses to fill the time. Filling it with familiar things, almost like how you can drive home without ever having to think of where to turn.

Lourdes’s husband asked me if I was some kind of freak when I showed up at their place. He didn’t remember his wife, and I’m just glad they didn’t have children. I’ll miss her.

3/8

Today I went to see Theresa but she was gone. Her room at the hospital was empty and the nurse couldn’t remember ever having treated her. Again, I’m the only one to hold her memories, and it hurts. She was my friend. I feel lost without her.

She never had children, which is another common thread among her kind. They do not reproduce. There’s no one to remember them but me. And eventually they all withdraw from society when the forgetting becomes too painful, until they disappear from it completely.

I’ve asked myself a million times, Why me? Why am I the one who sees them? From all of my research with religions and early societies, I’ve learned that the other Seers throughout history were thought to be clairvoyant, or ill. But I’m no fortune-teller. I’m cursed with knowing ghosts. I wish I could meet another Seer, but they’re hard to find. I have yet to meet someone else like me, even though I know from the scriptures that they’re out there. Searching for their lights to guide. I’m waiting for my last Forgotten. And when he or she comes, the light will be different. Stronger. It will let me go. I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life to be free of this.

I start flipping through the pages, trying to find out where I come in. I find passages about the Forgotten crossing over, the brilliant burst of light as they fall from some high place so that they can scatter. How it’s the
most beautiful thing in the world
. But I’m starting to hate the word “beautiful.” There’s nothing beautiful about me. And then I find a page that makes me gasp.

8/12

I met her today. Onika Nowak was standing in front of the college when I walked by. As she and I exchanged a glance, a woman in an old Chevy drove up and yelled to her in Russian. She pretended to not hear the woman, but I suspect it’s her mother. I could tell by the way she ignored her. It was kind of cute. Onika is in my class and she’s beautiful and blond, like nothing I’ve ever seen before. She is

The page stops, likes he’s cut off mid-sentence. Like something important had happened, stopping him. I read over the entry again. And then again.

A memory floods back and I can hear Onika tell me that Monroe used to be her Seer. “Oh my God,” I murmur. She didn’t cross over. She’s still here, which means that Monroe
does
know how to stop this. I start shaking with the first real possibility of it.

My heart pounds wildly in my chest as I turn the page.

8/24

Onika and I are going out tonight. She said she’d eat Italian, Thai, or anything that’s not Russian. I think it’s because of her mother. I don’t blame her. Onika makes me feel normal again. I think I’m falling in love with her.

From there, the journal jumps wildly. Some pages are blank. Some are just one-sentence bits of nonsense. By the next full entry, nearly three months had passed.

11/30

It’s happening. I don’t know how I didn’t see it sooner, how I didn’t know she was a Forgotten. I can’t lose her like the others. I have to stop this.

My eyes widen. Monroe was so insistent that there was no cure, but he had tried for Onika. It worked, so why not for me? Doesn’t he care about me, too?

The entries turn into formulas, medication combinations, and lists of names. It’s becoming frantic, impersonal. I start blazing through the pages, looking for the result.

1/6

She found me today in the lab. I injected her with vitamin E and collagen. She said it hurts but that it’s working and her skin is staying on. But I think she’s lying to me, and I think she’s been lying a lot.

She’s holding back the impulses. I’ve restrained her the last few times, and it seems to pass, but only with a lot of pain. It’s hard to watch. But she’s going to classes again, trying to be really present in life, which is completely the opposite of how the other Forgotten let their lives go. But something’s wrong. She’s acting different. But I don’t know what to do. She tells me to trust her.

I scan the next few entries, each one becoming more desperate. Monroe isn’t saying what’s happening to Onika, but with each new page, his notes become more clinical. And then, they stop all together. A chunk of about fifteen pages has been torn out, only jagged edges left behind.

What happened to her? I turn back to the beginning to look again for clues.

“Charlotte?”

I jump, startled by my name being called from the kitchen. What? What time—? I glance at the clock and feel completely disoriented. School starts in thirty minutes but it seems that only seconds ago it was nighttime. Behind my bedroom window, the sun is peeking out over Portland. I pick up my phone from the side table and see that I’ve missed four calls. All from Sarah.

I lost a huge piece of time and I want to keep reading, try to figure out the formulas. If anything worked. But just then, I get a text from Sarah.

Need you today. Are you alive?

I look at the journal in my lap, then back at my phone. The smell of bacon is wafting into my room, but I don’t want to get up yet.

Not coming today
, I text back.