Forgotten (3 page)

The cops are talking to Nat’s mom now. She’s outside the cafeteria but I can see her through the large glass windows. She’s very animated, gesturing wildly, occasionally pointing in my direction.

The officers seem like they’re trying to calm her down, and I wonder what fucked up shit she’s telling them about me. Is she begging them to arrest me, telling them that I assaulted Natalia? I’m jittery, and my leg’s bouncing up and down. I take a sip of my tea in an effort to calm myself. It’s completely cold now, though, and all it does it make me gag. I wonder if I’m being stupid, cooperating with the police like this. Maybe it’s time to call my dad and ask him to find me a lawyer.

Relax, Cam, and stop freaking out. You didn’t do anything wrong and there’s no
reason for anyone to get arrested here.

I try to get control of my racing thoughts and focus. Nat’s the one in danger right now, not me. Something’s happened to her, and it’s important that I figure out what.

The conversation between Ms. Moore and the cops goes on for what feels like forever. Every time their eyes dart over to me, I get a chill and a queasy feeling pierces my stomach. Eventually, Natalia’s mom shakes her head like she’s disgusted. A few more words are exchanged and then she leaves. She doesn’t even look at me as she speeds off down the hallway like a woman possessed, back toward Natalia’s room.

Officer Riley comes back into the cafeteria and his partner stays outside in the hallway, almost as if he’s guarding the door.

“Cam, we’re almost through here,” he says.

“So I can go now?”

Riley grimaces. “Not yet. We still need to talk to Natalia.”

“She doesn’t remember anything.”

“Still.” He sits down, then sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. “Cam, how did Natalia get the scratches on her face, arms and hands?”

I shrug and swish the tea around in its Styrofoam cup. It makes a hollow sloshing sound. “We took a little hike through the woods.”

“A hike? Why? And where?”

“The motel room got boring so we decided to take a walk. It was stupid. We got scratched up and bit by mosquitoes and everything.” I show him the same scratches on my hands and arms. “See?”

He nods and makes a note. I can’t tell if he believes me or not. But either way, I’m done with this. “I didn’t hurt Natalia,” I tell him. “And I shouldn’t be treated like a criminal.”

He sighs again. “Nobody’s treating you like a criminal. Nobody’s doing anything except trying to figure out what happened to your girlfriend.”

“Yeah, well, tell her mother that.”

There’s a flash of movement outside in the hallway, and I look away from Officer Riley just in time to see Natalia coming around the corner. She looks in through the window and our eyes meet. She gives me a strained smile.

“There she is,” I say, standing up.

“Sit down, Cam, and relax. We need to talk to her. Alone.”

I sit back down, breathing a sigh of relief. She doesn’t hate me. Her mom hasn’t poisoned her against me. At least, not yet.

Officer Riley leaves the cafeteria and he and Officer Hanson start talking to Natalia. It strikes me how totally different Nat is from her mom. Where her mother was wild, frantic and angry, Natalia appears calm. Her energy is soft and she even smiles and laughs a few times. I know she’s scared, terrified even. But she’s holding it together for me. For us. The cops do a lot of writing and nodding and then it’s over. The three of them enter the cafeteria together.

“Campbell, thanks for talking and being cooperative. No charges are being brought against you at this time.” Officer Riley steps forward and gives me his business card. “Please give me a ring if anything relating to the case comes up, or if you remember anything.” He hands another copy of his card to Nat.

As soon as the two policemen are gone, Nat hugs me, burying her face in my chest. I hold her close, inhaling the scent of her hair, relishing the feel of her body against mine.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, and starts to cry.

“It’s okay,” I soothe. “You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“Yes, I do. I’m ruining your life.”

I pull back and try to look at her but she can’t meet my gaze. She’s sniffling and crying still. “Nat, you hardly ruined my life.”

“When I started at Santa Anna, you were happy and popular and you were friends with Brody and Raine and everything was fine. Now you’re miserable and you and Brody hate each other, and Raine tried to kill you and eat your heart, and now the cops are after you.”

She stops to take a breath, and finally looks up to meet my eye. And then we’re both laughing.

“Oh my God,” I say. “That sounded so ridiculous. Raine tried to
eat
my
heart?”

She keeps laughing. I love the sound, love that I was able to give her a moment of lightness. But a second later, she’s serious again. “My mom is such a bitch.”

It sounds wrong coming from her, and I don’t like the fact that she’s saying it.

“Don’t say that. Seriously. That’s your mom. You shouldn’t say things like that about your mom.”

“She called the police on you.”

“Listen, she cares about you. She loves you. She doesn’t know what happened, and so she’s just doing her best.” It’s true. If I were Natalia’s mom, I’d probably have called the police on me, too. Besides, calling her names and getting angry isn’t going to help anything.

“I want to leave together.” Nat says. “Now.”

I stare at her. It sounds great. The two of us getting out of here, hopping in my dad’s truck (which he lent to me without asking when it would be returned), and driving somewhere. But where would we go? We’re just kids. Our parents will try to find us, especially after what happened this weekend. Natalia’s mom would make sure we didn’t get far, and then she’d
really
make sure I wasn’t allowed to see Nat. And she’d be right –

it would be seriously fucked up of me to take off with Natalia.

I shake my head no.

Nat’s face is stricken. “Why not?”

“We can’t leave together,” I tell her. “We can’t run away anymore.”

“But I want us to be together!”

“We will be. Just not right now. You need to go back home with your mom.”

Her expression darkens and she pulls away from me. “Why is everyone trying to control me? Why can’t I decide for myself what’s best?”

“Because. You’re hurt, Nat. Something happened to you. I have no idea what, but I’m going to try to figure it out if I can.” I reach over and grab my tea and swish the liquid around again in the cup. Then I take another sip, mostly just for something to do.

If Natalia’s in my arms, if I’m holding her, it’s going to be hard not to give in, not to take her away from all of this. “But right now what you need is to rest and relax. You need--”

“I need to be with you.” Her eyes are hurt.

“I know. And I need to be with you.”

“Then why do you want me to go back with my mom? And what are
you
going to do? Go back to your dad’s? And then what? We see each other in school and act like nothing happened?”

I take her hand in mine. “I love you, Nat. You know that.”

Her face lightens just a little, and her gaze drifts to the floor for a moment before meeting mine again. “I love you, too.”

“Then trust me. Please. Go with your mom.” She thinks about it for a second, not saying anything. “Please.” It’s my final plea. If she fights me on it, I don’t think I’m strong enough not to take her my arms and run away with her. But she doesn’t fight me.

She nods, kisses me softly on the lips, and then turns and walks away. She looks back at me only once, right before she rounds the corner and disappears.

I’m alone in an empty hospital cafeteria. I stand there for a moment, looking around, feeling kind of dazed, until finally, there’s nothing left for me to do but leave.

A few minutes later, I’m in the elevator heading to the parking garage, and then I’m in my dad’s truck, pulling out of the hospital and onto the traffic circle. In the rearview mirror, I can see the bright lights in the windows of the gray building, and I wonder if Nat is looking out, watching me go.

Chapter Five

Natalia

When I get back to my room, my mom’s waiting for me. And she’s not happy.

“Where the hell were you?” she asks. “I was going crazy!” She grabs my shoulders and starts looking me over, like maybe something horrible happened to me while I was gone.

“I just went for a walk,” I say, shrugging her off. “I was getting stir crazy just sitting here.” Her face softens. Either she feels sorry for me, or she’s just happy that I wasn’t with Cam. Probably both.

“My poor baby,” she says. “We just have to wait for the other doctor to get here and then –”

“No.” I shake my head. “No more doctors. We’re going home.” She starts to open her mouth, probably to tell me no.
“Mom,”
I say. “We. Are. Going. Home.” I’m not using mind control on her, but there must be something in my voice that lets her know I mean it, because she nods.

“Fine,” she says. “But on one condition. If you start to get a headache, or you feel sick, or dizzy, or
anything,
you tell me immediately so I can bring you back to the hospital.”

“Deal.”

We fill out the discharge papers, which seems to take forever. The nurse in charge of them is either new or set on moving at the speed of a snail, and so by the time we get out into the fresh air, I’m starting to go a little crazy. I take a deep breath and turn my face to the sun, happy to be away from the sterile air and antiseptic smell of the hospital.

“Whose car is this?” I ask, as my mom unlocks a gray Audi sedan that’s sitting in the parking garage.

“It’s Jerry’s,” she says.

“Jerry from next door?” I ask. “Why are you driving his car?”

“Because Natalia,” she says, opening her door, “when I got a call saying you were at a hospital in Maine, I needed to find transportation. I had no car because you took mine, remember?”

“Sorry,” I mumble, climbing into the passenger side and buckling my seatbelt.

She doesn’t reply, just starts the car and pulls out, stopping to pay the parking lot attendant before guiding the car onto the traffic circle. We’re on Route 95 before she speaks.

“So you’re not going to tell me anything about what happened?”

“What do you mean?” There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts cup sitting in the holder between us, and I stare at it, squinting my eyes until the orange letters blur together. I wish I had a coffee. I wish I had a mochachino with extra whipped cream, and Cam and I were sitting in a cafe, drinking it together, watching the leaves fall through the window while we listened to the slow indie music they always play in coffee shops.

But I’m not. I’m with my mom, in our next door neighbor’s car, on the way home from the hospital.

“Well,” she says, “you told me you left Santa Anna because you were following Cam. Is that true?”

I turn away and look out the window. “I’m not sure,” I say. “I don’t remember.”

According to Cam, I
was
following him. I had Raine in the car, and he was with Hadley.

But I don’t remember any of it, including whether or not I told my mom I was following Cam. Obviously I wouldn’t have told her the whole truth, but I don’t even know what kind of lie I made up, or if it even involved me following Cam.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see my mom glance at me. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure.”

We’re quiet for a few minutes. “Natalia, this might not be the time to bring this up,” she says. “But I need you to know that you’re not allowed to see Campbell anymore.”

“Yeah, I kind of figured that out when you called the police on him,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Which, by the way, was a really shitty thing to do. You don’t just go around calling the police on people like that, Mom.”

“When my daughter shows up at a hospital in the middle of the night with cuts all over her body --”

“Oh, please,” I say. “I don’t have cuts all over my body. And it wasn’t the middle of the night. Stop being dramatic.” I want to sound angry, but I can’t manage it.

I don’t feel angry. I just feel sad and beaten down.

Besides, how can I be mad at her when she’s right? I mean, as far as she can tell, it seems like Cam took me to some isolated woods in Maine and did terrible things to me.

She’s not acting crazy. She’s acting like a mother. And the worst part of all, the worst part of this whole screwed up situation, is that I can’t even tell her the things I
do
remember -- the stuff that’s been going on with Raine, the crazy things I’ve been seeing and doing. If she knew exactly what had happened, she would realize Cam’s not a bad guy, that he would never hurt me, that all he wants to do is protect me.

“You’re not going to see him,” she says. “And that’s that.”

“What if I get my memory back?”

“This isn’t up for discussion.” Her hands tighten on the steering wheel.

“I’m not asking to discuss it,” I say. “I’m just asking what happens if I get my memory back.”

“If that happens then we’ll talk about it.” Her tone sounds a little dismissive, like she’s already decided that even if my memory comes back, there’s no way I’m going to be allowed to see Cam again. And that does make me angry.

“You can’t stop me from seeing him, you know.” This time, my tone is bratty.

A little bit singsong, like I’m almost daring her to tell me that she can. Which, of course, she does.

“As long as you’re under eighteen, I can.”

“I’ll sneak out.” It’s a ridiculous stupid, thing to say. But I say it anyway, and in that moment, it feels good.

“I’ll come after you.”

I snort, then look back out the window. “In whose car?” I ask. “Yours is gone.

Although I guess you could always call the police on me, the way you did with Cam.” I can’t remember the last time I talked to my mom like this. In fact, I don’t know if I’ve ever talked to my mom like this. But if she’s surprised, she doesn’t show it.

“If that’s what it takes,” she says quietly, “then that’s what I’ll do.”