The Forgetting (16 page)

“Ella, I'm sorry.” I sank onto my bed. “But please try to understand. I have someone else's heart inside my body. Do you not
get
that?”

“I get it, okay?” She ran her hand through her hair. “But I mean, did I do something? Did Toni do something? Why don't you want to hang out with us anymore?”

I picked at a loose thread in my bedspread. “No, you didn't do anything. It's not you.”

“What is it, then? Is it this guy?” She half smiled. “No guy is worth changing yourself for. How many
Seventeen
articles have told us that?”

“I'm not changing myself for him.” I looked at her for a long moment. “But I'm not the same old Georgie. I'm just not. I woke up from that surgery different—”

“So, what? The new you doesn't want to hang out with your friends?” Ella planted her hands on her hips.

“No, that's not it—”

“You'd rather hang out with druggies and hookers?”

“Ella!” I jumped to my feet. “That's a really mean thing to say.”

“You're right. I'm sorry.” She brought her fingers to her temples. “I would've thought that after a near-death experience, you'd want to be with the people you love even more. Not less.”

“I do want to hang out with you guys.” My voice climbed higher and higher. “But I've got other things going on in my life—”

“What other things? Clue me in!” Ella glared at me. “That's what friends do, Georgie. They share what's going on in their lives. They ask for help.”

“You can't help me with this. Trust me, if you could, I would've asked for it a long time ago.” I folded my arms and leaned back on my pillows.

Ella stared at me for a searing, stretched-out minute. “So that's it, then?” she said finally. “You're really not going to tell me what's going on?”

“Ella…”

“Fine.” She started buttoning her coat, shaking her head. “I can't believe you, Georgie. I thought we could tell each other anything. I guess I was wrong.”

“Ella, please.” I launched myself off my bed. My chest tightened and I had to steady myself on my feet. “Please just trust me on this.”

She snorted. “Yeah.
Trust
you
. Okay, Georgie. Whatever.” She jammed her hat on her head. “I'm sorry you had to have a heart transplant. I'm sorry you don't feel like the same person anymore.” Ella bit her lip. For a second, I thought she was going to cry. “But I'm really sorry that the new Georgie doesn't feel like she can trust her friends. Because I would've trusted the old Georgie with my life.” She flung open the door. “The new one? I'm not so sure.”

Right after Ella left, Mom knocked on the door but I didn't answer. I stood in the middle of the room, my whole body shaking, my scar prickling. It wasn't the new
Georgie
who couldn't trust her friends. It was Annabel, insinuating herself into me. Annabel couldn't trust anyone, and she'd imprinted that instinct on her heart.

I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself, trying to get warm even though the cold came from inside me. There was no place that was off-limits to her, no place where she didn't knock me out of the way and take over. Playing Hearts with my family, dancing at the annual Valentine's Day party, hanging out with my friends…either the Catch or the discovery of a lost memory interrupted. Nowhere was safe.

I blinked. There
was
one place she couldn't enter. I marched to that corner and dragged my music stand to the center of the room. When I fit my oboe together, the keys were warm beneath my fingers, the heft of the instrument so right in my hands. I ripped through a set of scales and went right into the Mozart concerto, gliding up and down the notes as if I'd been playing them since I was in the womb.

Warmth spread up my spine. The old Georgie was still here. As my fingers danced over the keys, any shred of Annabel left me. She had no place in this world, the world of reeds and symphonies and intricate fingerings. This was my world, the one I'd always felt at home in.

I played for so long that Dad had to knock on the door and tell me to stop because everyone was going to bed. After he left, I sat on the floor and pulled the oboe apart to clean it. I took a long time, polishing in between the keys until the rosewood gleamed. Then I nestled the pieces back in their velvet-lined case and sat with the case open on my lap.

I really did want to volunteer for the Teen Crisis Line. I really did admire the work Nate did with FAIR Girls, and I wanted to help him. But as much as I knew that, the oboe was still who I was. I was still destined to go to Juilliard and play with the New York Phil. Music was still my core, and not even Annabel could change that.

• • •

The next morning, I texted Ella to apologize. I didn't expect to hear back right away; she was at school and Hillcoate had a strict no-cell-phone policy. That didn't stop me from tapping my foot against my chair and glancing at my phone every other minute during Blowhard's lesson.

She still hadn't texted back by her lunchtime, when I knew that she always sneaked a peek at her phone.
Fine
, I thought and went upstairs to grab Annabel's file after Blowhard left. I texted Nate that I'd meet him at Starbucks instead of All Saints and headed out. I just wanted one of those delicious tea lattes, I told myself. It had nothing to do with what Ella had said last night.

When I passed from the bitter cold sidewalk to the warm coffee shop, Nate emerged from the back. He'd taken off his green apron and was buttoning up a non-uniform shirt. “Hey.”

“Hey.” I nodded to the couch. “Can we sit for a minute?”

“Sure. You want something?”

“Can I get the same thing you made me last time?”

“Sure.”

I waited on the couch while he made the latte. A couple of teenage girls were hanging out at the table in the corner, but otherwise the place was empty. When Nate returned with my drink, I pulled my bag onto my lap and slid Anna's file out. Without a word, I handed it to him. He flipped it open and his eyes went wide. “That's Annabel,” he breathed. He scanned down the page and looked up at me. “How—where did you get this?”

I shrugged. “I have my ways.”

“Seriously, Georgie, this is a big deal.” There was shock in his tone but the expression on his face was impressed. A little squiggle of pleasure squirmed through me.

“I wanted to know who she was,” I said. “For real. Not just her street name.”

He sifted through the papers in the file for a few minutes, then lowered the folder to his lap. “You're amazing,” he said, reaching for my hand.

“No, I'm not,” I said, but I let him take my hand and stroke my palm. “I just need to know who she really was. For the article,” I added, but Nate raised his eyebrows.

“It's not just for the article, is it?”

“What do you mean?” My heartbeat skittered.

“You're like me,” Nate said. “You have to get to the bottom of things. You can't just leave it alone.”

“No,” I murmured, and my heart returned to normal. “No, I can't.”

We sat for a long moment, our eyes devouring each other, distinctly aware of the two teenage girls and Jan, who stood at the counter reading a book. If we kissed, we'd have an audience, and I was definitely ready to make this a more private show. With a pang of reluctance, I picked up the file. “But the real reason I wanted to show you this was because it has the address of her last foster home.”

“Yeah?”

“I want to go there. But I don't want to go alone.” I squeezed his hand. “Will you go with me?”

Nate sucked in a breath. “Are you sure this is a good idea? What is talking to these people going to accomplish?”

I looked at our entwined hands. I couldn't tell him the real reason I needed to go there, but lying to him so much made my insides twist. “I don't know. I feel like…maybe they can give us a clue as to why she killed herself. Why she got on the streets in the first place.” I swallowed hard and met his eyes. “Maybe it won't help much, but it might help us understand why a little bit more.”

Nate lifted my hand to his mouth. “Okay,” he said, his lips moving against my knuckles. “Let's go.”

He led me up the street to the bus stop and wrapped his arms around me to keep the wind away. I leaned my cheek against his chest, listening to the steady
thump-thump-thump
of his heart. The old Georgie would've stopped to think this through, to question how wise charging off to an address would be without knowing what she might find there. Sense probably would've gotten the better of that Georgie, and she would've stayed home.

But now I had this new heart, propelling me forward without stopping to overthink. Was that how Annabel lived her life? Was she teaching me to do the same? I couldn't be sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. Nate's heart beat strong and solid beneath my cheek. At least I wasn't charging ahead alone.

The bus barreled up the street and screeched to a stop in front of us. We took two seats in the back, and I watched the streets blur by, boarded-up storefronts and liquor stores with bars on the windows. The houses were old and shabby here, like they'd once been great but had long since passed their prime. I thought of my old Victorian, like a grand old lady—but only because my parents could afford to replace the plumbing with copper pipes and install central air.

At last, Nate reached up and pushed the stop button. We came out of the bus onto a deserted sidewalk with a vacant gas station and a doughnut shop that had gone out of business who knew how long ago.

“It's a couple of blocks from here,” Nate said. “Come on.” He held my hand tight and kept me close to his side. Across the street, a couple of guys in hooded jackets watched our progress. Nate nodded to them, and they turned away.

We headed up a hilly street lined with crumbling brownstones, the yards out front patchy and covered with piles of trash. I hugged in closer to Nate. My neighborhood, with its pristine facades and English-garden lawns, was just a handful of miles from here. How could one city contain so much contradiction?

Nate halted in front of a brown and white house, its paint peeling so that raw wood showed through. One of the windows on the second floor was broken and boarded up. Yet a BMW sat in the driveway. I stared at it until Nate nudged me. “This is it.”

My belly coiled itself. I touched the chain-link fence that ringed the lot, expecting a flood of memories to rush in. But my mind was blank. Annabel was curled inside me, hiding from this place. She didn't want to remember.

We walked up the path to the front porch. Inside, a television blared. My hand shaking, I raised my hand and knocked.

A moment later, the door opened a crack and the sliver of a man's face appeared. “Yeah?”

“Mr. Sutton?”

“Who's asking?”

I found Nate's hand. He clenched my fingers. “My name's Georgie and this is Nate. We're friends of Anna's.”

“Anna?” The single eye that was visible through the crack squinted. “Anna who?”

I jerked back, my insides cold. “Anna Leeland. Your foster
daughter
.”

“She don't live here anymore.” He started to close the door, but Nate put his hand flat against it and pushed. Sutton stumbled back to avoid getting knocked over by the door. “Hey!”

“Can we come in?” Nate stepped over the threshold without waiting for an answer. I followed him, listening closely to my heart. But the Catch was silent. I touched the wall just inside the door. Still nothing.

“I didn't say you could come in.” Sutton planted himself in the middle of the living room.

“We need to talk to you about Anna,” Nate said, squaring off to him. He glanced at me.

I didn't say anything, just turned in a small circle to take in the room. A large HDTV hung on the wall across from a leather couch and a fancy armchair, one of the ones that had a cooler built into the bottom. A plush rug covered half the floor. I leaned forward and peeked into the kitchen off to the side of the room. The cabinets seemed new but the appliances were old and a stack of pizza boxes sat on the small seventies-era table. I rubbed my arms. Something was off here, and I didn't need the Catch to point it out to me.

I looked back at Sutton. “Where are the kids?”

“They're around. Not that it's any of your business.” He crossed his arms. “What about Anna? I ain't seen her in—”

“Since her birthday, right?” I said. “Since you kicked her out on her eighteenth birthday.”

Sutton narrowed his mud-brown eyes at me. “Now wait a minute. I didn't kick her out. The State don't give me money to keep them here after they turn eighteen. That ain't my fault.”

“And that's all you care about,” I said. “The money.”

Sutton's jaw tightened. “Get out.”

“She's dead.” Nate's voice was strangled. I tore my gaze away from the strange luxury of the living room to look at his face. His skin was mottled, his brow knitted together with anger. “Did you know that? She died over a month ago. All alone.”

“How was I supposed to know?” Sutton ran his hand through his thinning hair. “I hadn't seen her in months. What was I supposed to do?”

“Care about her!” Nate roared before I could even open my mouth. “Did you have any idea what she was doing? That she was a prostitute, even when she lived here? Did you?”

“Don't fucking yell at me in my own house!” Sutton bellowed back.

Beneath their furious voices, I heard the Catch. Annabel unfurled inside me. I tiptoed away from the two men. They were so preoccupied with yelling at each other that they didn't notice me creep upstairs.

A print of Monet's
Water
Lilies
hung at the top of the stairs. There was only one bedroom up here, and it was just as comfortable as the living room, with a rich mahogany sleigh-bed and a huge vanity that I'd seen in Pottery Barn. The master bathroom had a Jacuzzi tub and a marble sink. I stared at my reflection in the mirror above the gold faucets. What the hell?

I closed my eyes and listened to the Catch.
The
basement
. My eyes flew open. Of course. How could I be such an idiot? One of my first memories from Annabel was of her dank, windowless bedroom…in the basement.

I galloped down the stairs, past Nate and Sutton.

“If you had cared one tiny iota, maybe she wouldn't have turned to the streets—”

“That girl was whack from the minute she got here! She wouldn't listen to nobody!”

“Because nobody ever talked to her—”

I raced through the kitchen and pulled open the basement door. The stench of dank sorrow washed over me. My insides cracked open and Annabel flooded in, her pain and loneliness saturating every nook and cranny of my being. My knees buckled and I caught the rail before I could fall. It shook beneath my grip as I made my way down into the dimness.

An old couch stood in the middle of the room, its cushions stained and sagging. There was no rug on the floor down here, just the cold concrete.
My
toes
are
always
cold…
I squeezed my eyes shut but I couldn't keep the memories from tumbling over one another.
Having
to
pretend
we're allowed upstairs in the living room whenever a social worker comes over…getting screamed at for daring to touch the BMW…sneaking in to take a bath in the Jacuzzi when the Suttons are out…

I opened my eyes. My ribs ached with the effort to breathe. Five doors ringed the basement, one room for each of the kids they always had in rotation, bringing in six figures a year from the state that they spent on themselves while the kids had holes in their shoes.

All
I
needed
was
love, and there was never any to spare here.

The darkness closed in on me. I fled up the stairs, my scar searing like a physical manifestation of everything Annabel had endured in this house. I collided with Nate and clung to him, my body racked with sobs.

“Georgie! What's wrong?”

“Get me out of here,” I moaned and Nate half carried me to the door. Just before we escaped, I turned back to Sutton. “Someday you'll pay,” I whispered. “Someday you'll pay for what you did to her.”

We made it to the sidewalk before I sank to the ground, fighting for breath, fighting to find myself inside Annabel's abyss. I couldn't contain her; she had come out of hiding and was everywhere. The darkness was going to swallow me whole, eat me alive…