Bastian washed down his bite
of blueberry pancake with a large gulp from his coffee cup, looking across the
table at me. “You don’t remember anything before that night?”
“I get flashes here and
there. Mom and me in the car. Her with an envelope full of money she was saving
for a rainy day, or so she said. I remember a huge teddy bear, but it didn’t
make it to the group home with me. I don’t know what happened to it.” I
shrugged and looked down at my plate, pushing the scrambled eggs with my fork.
They were dry and unappetizing.
I saw him fiddling with and
twisting his fingers, and I could almost feel the unspoken questions weighing in my mind.
I waited for him to speak, but it was as if he was restricted on what he could
say.
“Is there something in
particular I’m supposed to remember? I mean, a little help wouldn’t hurt. Especially
if you want me to remember as badly as it seems you do.” I looked back to his
conflicted face.
“I’m not supposed to say
anything. You seeing me was, I don’t know, supposed to jog your memory or
something. Which doesn’t exactly appear to be working, but like I told dad, I
was twelve and an undersized, scrawny twig the last time you saw me. Now I’m
thirty-four. Yeah, sure, I look twenty-two, but it’s still a big difference.”
He shook his head. “Even if you could remember, you probably wouldn’t have
realized I was the same person.”
It clicked why he ignored my
earlier question of why he didn’t take me in when I was orphaned. He was only a
kid, too. I wracked my brain, begging it to give me something from my past. It
gave me nothing.
Through the bond, I felt Marshall
nearing. I’d lost track at how close he got while Bastian and I ate. I could
feel his eyes boring into the back of my head. A mass of panic flowed through
me, and the wall dropped, making me aware of the flood of jealousy coming off
of him in waves.
“Hey, Coral Ann, you okay?”
Bastian shook my arm. “Hey?”
I focused on the jealousy,
letting it push the panic away. Good, let him be jealous. It’s not like he
has a good reason to be, I thought.
“Who’s jealous?” Bastian
asked.
“Really, that shit’s
annoying. Get out of my head,” I said, having enough frame of mind to keep my voice
low and level.
“You project. That’s not my
fault. I can’t control what I hear from you. I can only control what you hear
from me. Now, who’s jealous? ‘Cause it’s not me.” He noticed me looking at his
hand on my arm, and he pulled it away.
“Marshall’s jealous. And he’s
here,” I said, turning around and meeting the gaze of the man I hadn’t seen in nearly
a year.
*Subject to further editing. This isn't a final draft.
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