Chapter 12
Molly
I slam my apartment door, clicking the lock. Confusion twists my thoughts into knots.
Straight to the bathroom. I turn on the shower then stare into the mirror as I undress. "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, am I foolish to let myself fall?"
I let the warm water cascade down my body. It's the only comfort right now, this steady rush drowning out the world. I can't call my friends from the auction—they're enjoying the beginnings of their happily ever afters.
At this hour, there are no muffled conversations seeping through the walls, no TV droning from next door. My neighbors are asleep or gone. I won't bug them. What would I tell them anyway?
And my father? The man from those fractured memories… I don't know how to reach him. Would I even want to go back home? My stepmother doesn't seem too fond of me.
Fleeting memories of the argument with Toby and Dylan leave me full of shame and anger, but are too vague to clarify why.
Can I trust them? Siblings argue. Did they do something so horrendous, I truly wanted them out of my life or was that the heat of the moment speaking?
I don't exactly have instincts to trust after they failed me phenomenally over the decision to try brussels sprouts. Not only do they taste disgusting, their scent lingered so strong I had to buy air freshener. They're worse than apples.
Still, something tells me to trust my stepbrothers—if that's even who Toby and Dylan are.
My plan solidifies in the sanctuary of my shower. Tomorrow, I'll circle back to their place, probably safest to stay in my car, then wait for them to come out. I'll tell them to meet at Keep Yer Belly Full Diner, a neutral ground where I can question them.
The warmth of the water gives way to a hint of cold. I jump out and wrap myself in a towel. Bummer, I'd thought the warm water might last longer when no one else is awake to use it.
I towel dry my hair and put on my comfiest pajamas.
Phone in hand, I flop onto the bed and scroll for a voice notes app—something simple I can use to record and organize my memories.
Knock, knock, knock.
I sit upright and check the rideshare app. Did I leave something in the car? Would they notify me if I did? Nothing.
Stepping into my living room, I wait.
The knocks repeat.
Through the peephole, I see Toby and Dylan.
My pulse quickens.
"Nikk—Molly, we need to talk." Toby's voice booms low.
I press my forehead to the door. I did mention the possibility of talking to them in the note. They must have heard me sneak out. Dammit.
"We can't lose you again." Sincerity thickens Toby's tone.
"Please let us explain," Dylan chimes in softer.
It’s so reminiscent of my memory, and I want answers, but is it safe to trust them?
Dylan pleads, "We tried to talk to you before the auction, but they wouldn't let us. So we had to win you."
My instincts, for what they're worth, tell me I can, but the logic in his statement is lacking. "You couldn't find time after you won me?"
"Nikki, I mean, Molly. It's complicated. I wanted to, but if you rejected us..."
Toby adds, "This isn't a conversation to have through the door."
He's probably right.
"Here, look at these." My mail slot creaks but before I moved in someone rigged up a latch to hold it closed.
For the first time, I unhook the closure. I'd always wondered if the mail used to be delivered to each apartment. We have a bay of mailboxes now. "Go ahead."
Polaroids slide through and I take them. They show a woman who looks like me, full of life, so happy and yet so foreign. I'm with Dylan and Toby. That feels right.
"Okay, so we know each other." I keep the stepbrother possibility to myself. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Toby's tone is strained. "The last three months have been the worst of my life. I aged ten years thinking I'd lost you."
How old is he? Inappropriate thoughts of how handsome he is flash through my mind. The faintest hints of gray in his hair and his muscular build. Dammit. "Doesn't explain why you held back."
"We have more of your things in the car. We'll answer everything."
I want to let them in, get every answer, get my life back, but I'm still cautious.
Thanks to my next-door neighbor using me for backup one time, I have an idea.
"I want your driver's licenses. I'm going to send pictures of them to my friends.
If anything happens to me, they'll know who to look for this time. "
Asshole move? Maybe. But when the metal of my mail slot creaks and two driver's licenses come through, I'm sure that I made the right decision.
I snap photos and text them to my neighbor with a message: Just in case
Her reply pings almost instantly: Everything okay? Those guys are hot as fuck.
I text back: Fine. Just being careful
I return their licenses and unlock the door. Toby's rushing up the stairs with a box. It feels right to let them in. Instincts win this round—no brussels sprout betrayal.
"I grabbed your things from the car. Maybe something will jog your memory."
The box is insanely tempting, but I want more from them. "You knew about the amnesia before tracking me here."
It's not lost on me that their eyes dart to my surroundings like they’re afraid the place will collapse on them. Fair. I've wondered the same, just can't afford more.
“It hasn’t been easy tracking you down. If not for a picture on the internet, we might have lost you forever.” Toby seems ready to come clean.
"Really?"
"Reverse image search," he clarifies.
"And how did that lead you to the auction?" Not only did Laz not reveal who was being auctioned ahead of time, but I only joined at the last minute. No time for them to get here.
"It led to Peach Bottom Valley. We spotted you at the grocery store…" Toby hangs his head. "We followed you from there."
“So you won me and decided that instead of returning my items to me, you’d jog my memory with a good pounding?”
Toby stammers.
I have too many questions to wait for him to answer. "Were we lovers before I went missing?"
"We wanted to be." Toby meets my gaze.
Interesting. "Are either of you married?"
"No." They answer over each other.
I keep my cards close to my chest. “Then what was the complication?”
Toby waits for Dylan to nod before answering, “You're our stepsister.”
The accuracy of my memories is reassuring. "Answer this…"
"Anything." Dylan answers eagerly.
"I'm getting fragments of memories, happy mostly. But in one, I'm furious. I slam the door and tell you to stay out of my life. Yet here you stand. What sparked that?"
"We..." Toby halts.
Dylan jumps in. "Violated your privacy by reading your diary."
"Why would you do that?" The bigger question is what did they read, but I'm not ready to face whatever caused the shame and anger.
Dylan takes a deep breath. “At first, it was just a peek, a big brother messing with his little sister. Thought I’d find something stupid like a celebrity crush I could razz you about.”
Toby pulls a sunset-colored diary from the box and flips through the pages while Dylan continues, “But when I saw that you had feelings for us, I couldn’t stop.”
I wrote about them? That would explain the shame and anger.
Toby hands it to me. The handwriting is definitely mine.
I read the pages, the graphic descriptions of a fantasy that I’d just lived. They brought my words to life.
I snap the diary shut and clutch it to my chest. "Why didn't you look for me at the hospital?"
"You told us to stay out of your life. You ignored our calls and texts." Toby rubs his neck.
Dylan nods. "We’re sorry Ni—Molly. We thought you were just mad. And as far as what we read, it doesn’t make it right, but we felt the same way about you. What we read gave us permission to stop denying our feelings.”
I’m not ready for apologies. “Do you know how depressing it was that no one came looking for me?”
“We tried, but with privacy laws it wasn’t easy. Thanks to a friend risking her job, we tracked down the woman’s shelter you went to, but they protect their clients too.”
"Look." Toby thrusts his phone at me. “This was our group chat."
I scroll through the messages. The dates match when I was admitted to the hospital. They apologize profusely, beg for my forgiveness, swearing they'll never tell anyone what I wrote…
Dylan’s saying something but I’m absorbed in the messages, even a proclamation of love, a promise of a lifetime together if that's what I want. It's all there.
Toby's voice pulls me from the screen. "Our best guess is that you booted us from your place and went for a jog—your go-to way to blow off steam. A Jane Doe was admitted to the hospital that day, discharged the next with bumps, bruises, and memory loss."
I wave him off. "They were supposed to let the shelter know if anyone came looking for me."
"By the time we realized you weren't just ghosting us, you'd already left the hospital."
Reading their increasingly concerned messages warms my heart more than anything. They tried. They got vulnerable. In some ways it's like them reading my diary, seeing the most protected side of someone.
I glance at the box of my things. A medal from a marathon rings a bell.
I'll go through the contents later. And since I was so explicit in my diary, maybe it holds answers to parts of my life no one else would know, although I doubt I'll find anything more shocking than my confession about my stepbrothers.
Toby continues, "I did reverse image searches daily. The hit on the reindeer ranch was our only hope."
Dylan adds, "It seemed like a longshot since the woman was holding a kid, but we had to know if it was you."
"That was Jolene's little one. I was helping her. She was in the auction."
Dylan smiles. "She’s lucky to have you as a friend. You always clicked with kids, helped with the after-school running group."
The room spins as memories flood in. "I need to sit."
They help me to the couch, sit beside me, and hold me.
There’s no way I could have faced them after they read what I wrote… except the way it happened. My clean slate. My second chance?
Toby's hand squeezes my knee. "Take your time."
Dylan leans in, his breath warm on my neck. "No rush, we're here for you now."
Am I really considering going through with this?