The Forgetting (17 page)

“Georgie. Georgie.” Warm hands cradled my face and I opened my eyes. Nate pulled me close and kissed the tears that had frozen on my cheeks, my eyelids, my forehead, my temples. “It's okay. It's okay.”

“No,” I gasped. “It was never okay. It was never okay for her here.”

“But you're not her,” Nate murmured into my hair. “You're okay.”

I hung on to him, trying to bring myself back to the surface. Nate kissed my lips, soft and gentle, and light began to edge out the darkness. Bit by bit, breath returned to my body. I was Georgie. I had a home with two loving parents. I forced everything else out as Nate held me, his hands moving slowly up and down my back.
I
am
Georgie. I am Georgie. I am Georgie.

Somehow, Nate found a cab and got me inside. I curled into him, not paying attention as the cab wound through streets I didn't know. I was going to make sure Sutton paid. I'd tell Sally Klein about him the next time I saw her. I'd get him investigated…

The cab ground to a stop and I looked up. “Where are we?”

Nate helped me out onto the sidewalk in front of a purple-and-red Victorian house. Neat boxes filled with holly adorned each of the windows, and the front lawn had a burbling koi pond. It looked like an Alice-in-Wonderland version of a gingerbread house. “This is my place.”

I started and pulled back from him. “What, the whole house?”

Nate laughed. “No, just the parlor level. My landlords live on the upper floors.”

I peered down the street. “What neighborhood is this?”

“Hyde Park. Come on.”

I followed him through the intricate wrought-iron gate and up the front steps. “I guess I just assumed you still lived with your parents.”

“No, I moved out after I got my GED.” He unlocked the front door. The main hallway was brightly lit by a dangling crystal chandelier. A Persian-style runner ran along the floor, and a massive walnut sideboard stood against the wall. “This way.” He unlocked the first door in the hallway. Before I followed him inside, I peeked up the stairs. Another chandelier hung on the second floor.

“Nice apartment building,” I said.

“It's not really an apartment building,” Nate said. “It's more of an illegal duplex that my landlords converted so they could get a little income to pay their mortgage.” He flicked a light switch, and the room lit up with a warm, golden glow. Another crystal chandelier hung in the center of the room. Nate caught me looking at it and flushed. “That's more my landlords' style, not mine.”

“I like it.” I plucked my gloves off. The room was sparsely furnished—exactly what you'd expect from an eighteen-year-old guy—but it was comfortable and lived in. Nate took my coat and hung it on a peg by the door. I sat on the couch—which was actually a futon—and curled my knees up to my chest. I could still feel Annabel swirling inside me, her pain an ache in my chest that would not ease. All she had wanted was love, to feel safe and cherished like she had before her mother had shot it all to hell. My throat tightened again and I laid my cheek on the top of my knees.

Nate handed me a glass of water and sat down next to me. His eyes never left me as I took a long sip and set the glass down on the floor next to the futon. “Are you okay?”

I nodded even though I was far from okay. “It was just…upsetting.”

“I know.” Nate ran his hand through his hair but I still felt his eyes on me. “But that was still a, uh, pretty extreme reaction.”

I swallowed and didn't say anything. I couldn't lie to him anymore—but I couldn't tell him the truth either. I took another sip of water. I felt stretched in all directions, like my skin couldn't quite cover my bones.

“Georgie,” Nate said, and I looked up to meet his eyes. “What
was
that back there?”

“What was what?” I asked, even though I knew exactly what he meant. My insides squirmed but I didn't look away.

“Look, maybe this is just too overwhelming.” His brow furrowed. “I love that you've gotten so into the program at All Saints. But you've got to have enough info to write your article by now. Maybe you should…take a break from coming to the church.”

“No!” Nate started; I hadn't meant to speak so loud and sharp. “I don't want to stop coming to All Saints.”

“Why?” He shifted closer to me, his eyes searching deep into my own. “Why does it mean so much to you?”

Time slowed, and the only thing I could hear was his breath. I had stopped breathing, and I couldn't even hear my own heartbeat. Now was the time to tell him. Now.
Tell
him…

“Because I love you,” I said instead. Nate blinked. I still couldn't breathe. It wasn't a lie. There was love inside me for him, but whether it was my own or Annabel's, I still didn't know. I reached out and took his hand. “I–I'm sorry… I shouldn't—”

He grasped my hand and pulled me onto his lap. “Don't apologize,” he whispered and kissed me. His lips were gentle at first, but it was almost like we became aware at the same time that we had nothing and no one to interrupt us. With one breath, we closed in on each other. I wrapped myself around him and let him devour the darkness out of me. In his arms, there was no Annabel. There wasn't even Georgie. I could just disappear into his light.

Warmth spread to the outer reaches of my body. He tilted me backward until we lay pressed together on the futon. His mouth descended to the hollow of my throat and I twined my legs through his. I arched up into him and a moan escaped me as his hands crept up under my sweater. His fingers were like butterfly wings on my skin—soft, warm, and impossibly gentle. I kissed the side of his neck.

“Don't stop,” I murmured into his ear, my voice little more than a breath that raised goose bumps on his skin. I slid my hands up his back and under his shirt, feeling every curve and contour of his muscles and bones.

He didn't stop; there was no one to tell us no, and all my barriers were down. I'd just told him I loved him. Those three little words had broken down any walls I might have still had up.
You
still
haven't told him the real truth
, niggled a little voice in my brain, but I told it very firmly to shut up and pulled my sweater off.

He kissed the length of my scar and covered my bare skin with his mouth. I tugged his shirt over his head and held him against me. I wanted to melt into the heat of him. I wanted to dissolve into his flesh. I wanted…I wanted… I had never
wanted
so badly. I shifted so the full weight of him was on me and wrapped my legs around his hips. For a moment that was sheer bliss, he moved against me, our bodies molding into one.
Yes…yes…
I reached between us and began to undo his belt.

He stopped.

My whole body shuddered with disappointment. Nate sat back on his knees and I scrambled up. “What's wrong?”

He ran his hand over his face. “We can't do this,” he said, his breath ragged.

“Why not?” I reached my arms around his waist and tried to draw him down to me again, but he was immovable.

“Because you're upset,” Nate said. His voice was becoming stronger, his breathing normal. “You're not in the right frame of mind to make a decision like this. It would be wrong.”

All the warmth he'd generated inside me went cold. That wrongness he felt… It was Annabel. He could sense
her
even as he held
me
in his arms. I shrank away from him.

“Hey,” Nate said, reaching for me. “Hey, hey, hey. It's not that I don't want to. Trust me,
I
want
to
.” He tried to pull me in to him, but I pushed him away. “Georgie…”

“
Don't.
”

I wanted to tell him that it wasn't him, it was me…that I was a monster with someone else's heart. That the part of me he wanted didn't belong to me at all. But my mouth wouldn't form the words. We stared at each other, a sudden gulf between us where just a moment before we had been melded together. My brain was all jumbled, my body firing messages that my mind couldn't compute.

Nate rubbed his face with his hands. “Look—”

A loud buzzing cut him off. We both looked around wildly for a moment before I realized it was my phone. I dug into my bag and pulled it out; it was a number I didn't recognize. More to avoid Nate than out of curiosity, I answered it. “Hello?”

“I'm looking for…George?” said a gravelly male voice from the other end.

“Do you mean Georgie?”

“Oh. Yeah. Yeah, that's right.”

“That's me.”

“You left me a note. About the apartment.”

I scrunched my face up. “Apartment?”

“At 826 Emiline Way.”

I bolted to my feet, the confusion in my brain blasted away. “Yes. Yes, I did leave you a note.”

“Are you still interested?”

“Yes—definitely,” I said. Nate got to his feet and nudged me, but I ignored him. “Can I come see it now?”

“Now? Uh, yeah. I'll be there in fifteen.”

“Great. See you soon.” I tossed my phone back into my bag and pulled my sweater over my head.

“What was that about?” Nate asked.

I didn't answer as I put my coat on. I could feel Annabel creeping back in, grappling for my heart again, and I let her. It was easier to deal with than whatever I was feeling for Nate.

“I have to go,” I said and turned to the door. It was only after I was in the hallway that I heard the door close and his footsteps behind me, and I let him follow me out into the cold, darkening night.

I called Manny to pick us up in his cab. His friendly chatter covered the tense silence between me and Nate. I also called Mom to tell her I wouldn't be home for dinner, and I actually told the truth. “I'm out with Nate,” I said when she asked who I was with.

“Well, I guess that's okay,” she said. “You took your meds this morning, right?”

“Yeah. I feel fine.”

“Alright. Be home by ten.”

Nate watched me as I hung up the phone and stashed it back in my bag. “Where are we going?”

“Someplace near All Saints,” I said, peering out the window. Long streams of headlights flashed by. In the reflection of the glass, I saw his eyes on me, his pupils dark and unreadable.

Manny pulled up in front of 826 Emiline Way. I paid him the fare and climbed out. Nate grabbed my arm halfway up the litter-strewn path.

“This is where it happened, isn't it?” His voice quivered; with anger or sorrow, I couldn't tell. I met his eyes and didn't say anything, but I didn't have to. “This is where she died,” he whispered.

I pulled my arm out of his grasp and continued up the stoop. A shadowy figure moved inside the door and pulled it open. “You Georgie?”

“Yes.” It was dim inside the vestibule, lit only by a single bulb that swung naked with the rush of wind from outside.

“I'm Harvey,” the landlord said. He pulled a ring of keys out of his kelly-green Celtics jacket and clicked through them with his pudgy fingers. “The apartment's upstairs.”

A handwritten sign on the elevator read “Out of order.” Harvey led us to the stairwell. “It's five flights,” he said, “but you two are young. You can handle it. Me, on the other hand…” He patted his sizeable gut. “It's probably good for me. Wife keeps telling me to exercise.”

At the third-floor landing, I put a hand on the wall, my breath short and shallow. My scar burned. “Wait,” Nate said, and Harvey turned. “She needs to rest.”

Harvey squinted at me. “You okay?”

“She had surgery recently,” Nate said. I flashed him a pinched look, but he ignored me. His shoulders were hard set, his jaw tight. I could feel the anger just beneath his surface. Whatever happened on the fifth floor, whatever we found, I'd have to tell him something. Something real.

“Let's go,” I said.

As we rounded the landing on the fourth floor, Harvey glanced at me over his shoulder. “How'd you know there was a vacant apartment in the building?”

“Uh, I didn't.” I gulped in air. “I was just, uh, passing by, and the building looked nice so I left a note.”

He stopped and faced me, his hands on his hips. “This place is a shithole.”

“Yeah, she's lying,” Nate said. I stared at him, my mouth open. “We're friends of the girl who died here. We need to see it.”

Harvey shifted so that he blocked the last set of stairs we needed to climb. “Hey, I ain't running a sideshow here.”

“For fifty bucks, you are,” Nate said and fished a few bills out of his wallet. Harvey stowed them in his pocket and moved aside.

A creeping blackness stole into me with every step upward I took. When we reached the fifth floor, tremors overtook my body. Nate grasped my arm. “Are you okay?” he muttered.

I shook my head, my teeth chattering. A terrible ache spread across my heart, reaching its fingers out until every inch of my body was in pain. It wasn't a physical pain; it was deeper than my skin and muscles, deeper even than the marrow of my bones. I followed Harvey to the door of the apartment, each step an effort.

He unlocked the door and stood aside for us to enter. “I gotta fix the place up,” he said. “Apparently she was squatting for a while before she… Well, you know.”

“And you didn't know she was staying here?” Nate asked. He stood just inside the door, taking in the room.

“I ain't here much,” Harvey said. The two of them moved deeper into the apartment, leaving me on the threshold.

Deep down, I knew if I walked through that door, everything would change. There was something in there that I wasn't sure I wanted to know. But I had to know it. I lifted my foot and stepped into the room.

The memory washed over me like the sea. I closed my eyes to take it in.
I
place
the
picture
on
the
little
mantel
against
the
wall, where a fireplace would be if this apartment were nicer. I touch the picture, tracing my five-year-old face as I lean forward to blow out the candles on my huge strawberry shortcake. My gut twists as I move my finger to touch Mama and Daddy's faces. I drop my hand and turn to look at my new domain. A sleeping bag and a duffel with my clothes…that's all that's mine in this borrowed home. But it's more mine than any other home I've ever been dumped in…

I open my eyes. And there were windows. Not like the dank basement at the Suttons'. Windows that she looked out of every night, searching the stars for a future that would never come.

A bittersweet taste filled my mouth. It wasn't that Annabel was happy here—she had never been happy, not since her mother killed her father—but this was the first place she'd ever lived where she didn't have to answer to anyone else. The small joy of that independence echoed inside the Catch as I walked in her footsteps. I stood in the place where she put her high heels on every night, where she sat next to her little space heater and ate ramen noodles.

From across the room, I felt Nate's eyes on me as he let Harvey lead him around. I looked toward the one place I had avoided—the balcony. My heart beat quickly. If I stepped out there, would it all be over? Would I remember the night she died? Would she let me go? I moved until I was right at the glass door to the balcony, until my fingers could just reach the knob. I stretched my hand out.

“Oh, you can't go out there.” Harvey's voice was right behind me. I became aware that he and Nate had followed me to the door. The Catch crescendoed inside me as I turned the knob. “It's still loose. It's too dangerous.”

His voice was muffled, drowned out by the Catch. I could hear nothing else but Annabel's whisper.
Open
it. Open it.

She wanted me to know. She wanted to let me go.

Two pieces of crime-scene tape crossed the doorway. I tore the tape aside and stepped out.

“Georgie,” Nate said, his voice sharp.

He sounded far away. The cold air slapped me, whipping my hair across my eyes. The moon was clouded, the stars veiled. I tasted moisture on my tongue. It would snow soon.

The wrought iron creaked beneath me as I took another step. Nate said my name again. I barely heard him. I was listening, listening, listening inward…trying to pull forth the memory that I wanted, the one that would release me from her hold…

But no memory of Annabel's came. It was just out of reach, like the Warehouse. I had come to this place too early, before she gave me the other memories that she needed me to know.

I pressed my hands to the side of my head, trying to squeeze the memory out. The Catch ripped through me, its insistence almost violent. Another memory rose to the surface, but it wasn't Annabel's.

It was mine.

A
great
big
push, two invisible hands shoving me back into consciousness.

I gasped, sending a shot of icy air to my lungs. The very first thing I'd felt when I woke up after my surgery. A great big push. Like someone pushing me back into life.

I reached out and touched the rail lightly. “Georgie!” Nate's voice was right behind me. “Stay back!”

“No,” I breathed. The frozen iron burned beneath my fingertips. My heart swelled with the force of the Catch. And then, like the nickname I'd given it, I caught on.

I hadn't been pushed into life.

Annabel had been pushed out of hers.