Chapter 4
Lost and Found
Julien comes rushing over to me and Fallon when he sees us sitting against the hood of my car in the student parking lot. The first bell rang five minutes ago, but I'm not going inside until I’ve talked with Jules and Jay first. But Jayson is nowhere in sight. Where'd he park his truck?
“Was it really her?” Julien asks, a tad winded from his fast sprint over to me.
“Yeah. It was her.”
“How is she? How did she look? Is she okay?”
I wearily collapse back on the hood, my body feeling so very tired but also amped up at the same time.
Echoes of Elizabeth’s tinkling laughter rattle around in my brain.
Rubbing my hands over my face in a futile attempt to wipe off some of the emotional exhaustion weighing me down, I somehow conjure the words to answer Julien’s questions.
Sitting back up, I tell him, “She looks the same but different. God, I can’t even describe it.
” I try to recount what happened, even though I’m struggling to wrap my head around everything as well.
“I heard laughter and I just knew. I knew it was her. I had just been thinking about her. It was like my brain magically materialized her right in front of my eyes. She was standing next to this guy. When I called her name, she turned around and looked right at me.” I rake my hands once more across my face and look around, breaking my train of thought. “Where’s Jay?”
“We’ll get to him in a minute. Finish what you’re saying first. I need to hear it all.”
“Jules, she didn’t recognize me. She had no clue who I was. Fallon was there. He saw her too. She didn’t remember him either. Julien, what is going on?” My words are barely articulate because I'm choking back tears.
“I have no idea. Hey, Fallon,” Julien finally acknowledges him. "Thought you were done with high school.”
“Just here to see Ry. But I got to tell you, this entire situation with your girl is messed up. I know I was gone all summer, but did you guys really not know where she was?”
“Her uncle took her someplace. We never could find out where to.”
Julien's phone makes a loud applause sound to notify him of a text coming in. As he reads it, his eyes grow concerned. “Jay found out where she lives. He's heading over there now.”
“How did he find that out?”
“When we got here, he parked at the front visitor's lot. All he said was that he was going inside to find Darrel.”
Darrel is a computer geek who did some not-too-legal infiltration of social media sites for Fallon last year.
Darrel was the one who helped get the video of the fight with Marshall taken down.
I have a feeling Jayson must have asked Darrel to hack into the school's student records to get Elizabeth’s address.
“Tell Jay to send you the address and that we're right behind him.”
“He already sent it,” Julien informs me, showing me the screen.
“Fallon, if you're coming with, hop in the back. Let's go.” I have a bad feeling about what’s about to go down.
Not even a minute after I hang up the phone with Daniel, there's pounding on the front door.
“Elizabeth!” a guy’s voice shouts my name. More pounding. “Liz! Liz! Open the door!”
Each pound against the door is like a boom of thunder. My body jerks at every hit his hand makes against the door.
Pound. Pound. Pound.
“Liz, are you in there?” the guy yells.
Clearly, he knows me because he's saying my name. I carefully inch my way to the front door. My hand shakes as it hesitantly hovers over the doorknob. Stupidly, I open it.
A very tall, very muscular, very handsome guy startles when he sees me. His wild silver eyes lock on me and before I can even blink, his arms band around me so tightly, I can’t breathe. And then he’s kissing me.
“Jesus, baby. It’s really you.” His mouth crashes back to mine and I try to pull away, but his hold on me is too strong.
“Let go!” I shout, struggling with all my might for him to release me.
“Liz, it’s really you,” he says and kisses me again.
The initial shock of him kissing me wears off, and I’m able to think clearly once more.
I try to recall what a girl is supposed to do when she's being accosted like this by a guy.
Stomp down on his foot? Kick at his knee and drop down?
Go for the eyes? How am I remembering this stuff, and why am I not doing it already?
Since he won't let go of me, instinct finally takes over. I shove him back with both hands, curling my right hand into a loose fist, and striking out. Either this guy saw it coming or his reflexes are lightning quick. He dodges the swing I aimed at his nose but doesn’t see my open left palm fly upward under his chin.
It’s like hitting granite. Ow! That really hurt.
The guy makes a grunting sound and looks at me with bewilderment. “Liz?”
A black Hellcat similar to mine pulls up in the driveway, and three guys get out. My gaze cements on the one person I recognize. I push past the crazy guy and fly down the porch steps heading straight for Ryder. Jumping into his arms, I hold on tight. Why? I have no idea.
“Help me,” I beg him.
Ryder’s arms band around me protectively. “Jay, what are you doing?”
One of the other boys who arrived with Ryder comes around the side of the car toward us. Wait. How did the crazy guy change clothes so fast? Am I having another blackout episode?
The doppelganger looks at me with an expression so full of emotion, it makes me tighten my hold on Ryder even more.
He brushes a hand down my hair in a soft caress.
My eyes track him, and I do a doubletake as he walks over to block the path of the crazy guy.
There are two of them? Same faces and height, but clearly different people.
The doppelganger has shorter hair, his body is leaner, but still packed with muscle.
He and the other, more menacing version of himself start yelling at each other, exchanging shoves and curses.
“Both of you, knock it off!” Ryder tells them.
The third guy has dark blond hair and mesmerizing blue eyes.
It takes me a second to recall that I saw him this morning in the school hallway with Ryder.
The third guy forces his way between the twins to break up their argument.
As I cling to Ryder, my body begins to tremble wildly as a cold chill takes over—more than likely caused from the adrenaline high I was on.
“You’re safe, Elizabeth. Nobody’s going to hurt you,” Ryder’s deep voice promises me. I drop my head to his shoulder and a calm comes over me. I nod, letting him know I heard him and believe him. He’ll keep me safe.
“Don’t let go,” I whisper.
“I won't,” he whispers back.
“Liz. Baby. Please. Look at me,” the crazy guy pleads.
“Jay, shut up,” his doppelganger snaps at him. “Give her a minute.”
“Can I take you inside?” Ryder asks me. I nod against his shoulder again.
As Ryder carries me past the other guys, the crazy one reaches out to me. “Here, give her to me," he says and tries to take me from Ryder's arms. I flinch away from his outstretched hands, and the doppelganger grabs his look-alike's arm and pulls him back.
Ryder takes me inside the house and sits down on the floor near the front door, bringing me with him. The other three shuffle in.
The blond guy makes a move to shut the door until I yelp out, “Don't!”
There are now four strange men in my house, and even though I feel safe with Ryder, I need to know that I have an easy escape route open just in case.
“Elizabeth, I know things must be confusing for you right now. It’s the same for us. You’re acting like you don’t know any of us,” Ryder says to me.
“I… I don't.” I turn in Ryder’s lap to face the other guys who are now sitting on the floor across from us. “I don’t know who any of you are. I don’t remember.” All four boys’ eyes widen in disbelief.
The doppelganger leans over and places a hand on his look-alike’s knee like he's giving him a silent command. “Liz, what do you remember?” he asks me.
My lips press together and form a thin line, hesitant to answer. I don’t know these guys, and right now, I’m scared out of my mind.
Ryder gently turns my chin with his finger so that my eyes meet his, and I get lost in the warmth of their golden-brown color. A snapshot from one of the memories that besieged me earlier clicks into place.
You make me happy, Ryder.
I find myself telling him, “I remember waking up. I had been in a coma. I was in a car accident.”
“We know,” Ryder speaks softly to me. “But you just disappeared. We were with you almost every day when you were in the hospital. And then you just vanished.”
I hesitate once more before answering. “I woke up in a hospital in Durham.”
With slow, deliberate moves, Ryder takes out his phone from his side pocket.
Showing me what he’s doing, he scrolls to a folder named Elizabeth and taps it.
Then he taps on an image thumbnail. A picture with me in it pops up on the screen.
I’m standing with him next to the black Hellcat that’s currently parked in my driveway.
His arm is around me and my arm is encircling his waist. His head is tipped back in laughter and I’m smiling up at him.
We look happy. I drag my fingers down the screen, trying to infuse the image into my brain.
“That looks just like mine,” I remark.
“What does?”
“The car. Mine is red.”
Ryder pulls back, shock on his face. “The red Hellcat parked outside is yours?”
A small grin tips my mouth when I think about my car. “Yep.”
“Liz,” the doppelganger says to get my attention. “Do you remember me at all?”
I shake my head no.
“I’m Julien.”
As he’s speaking to me, I’m swiping from one picture to the next on Ryder’s phone. I stop on one.
“Is this us?” I show Julien the picture.
“How can you tell that’s me?” he asks, looking at his twin.
“The hair.” I keep swiping. I come to one of me on a swing. A huge tree is behind me and so is the crazy guy, Jay. I hold the phone out. “And this is you?”
“Yes.” He moves to lean in, but Julien holds him in place.
I look at the fourth guy. “And who are you?”
“Fallon,” he simple states.
I turn back to Ryder. “You said today you’ve known me since you were nine.” He reaches up and pushes a lock of my hair behind my ear. Jay growls—yes, literally growls.
“We met in third grade. You’ve known Jay and Jules longer. You guys have been best friends since you were all six. We lived on the same street. We all grew up together.”
“You are my girlfriend, Liz,” Jay interrupts, his tone hard and desperate. Now it’s his turn to show me pictures from his phone.
I don’t know how long I sit there looking at photo after photo.
There are hundreds of pictures. Some of me alone.
Some of me with Ryder, Julien, and Jay. Most are of me and Jay.
Intimate ones. Us kissing. Us holding each other.
Selfies of us snuggled in bed. I ask Julien to see his phone.
His has as many pictures of me as it does of him and another guy I don’t recognize. Oh. They’re a couple, I realize.
“You guys make a cute couple,” I comment to Julien.
“That's Elijah. He goes to Highland High.”
“Liz.” Jay again. “Please, sweetheart. I’m dying here. I need to hold you. Can I please hold you?”
“Why?”
Why would I let this stranger who forced himself on me, touch me again? I know what I saw in the pictures. I saw images of me and him together as a couple. But right now? I feel nothing. He’s a stranger to me. He’s the scary guy who barged into my home uninvited and unwelcomed.
“What do you mean why?”
“Jay, chill,” Julien warns him.
“Liz, you’re my girlfriend!”
A spark ignites inside of me. It grows and burns until it’s a raging inferno. Seventeen years of my life are an empty void, but I won’t allow this guy to bully me into feeling something that I can’t just because of things that once were. Things I don’t remember.
“I’m sorry if my amnesia upsets you. I’m sorry if my nonexistent memory causes problems for you.
But I’m the one who can’t remember. You can’t barge into my house—into my life—and demand I feel something that doesn’t exist for me!
Screw you! I may have been your girlfriend before, but I am not now. Jesus, I don’t even know who I am!”
I jump up from Ryder's hold and stare down at the four boys; their faces a myriad display of different expressions.
Exhaling loudly, I say, “Look, I’m sorry.
I know this must be hard on all of you, too.
From the pictures you showed me, I get that we were close friends.
I can’t imagine how you all must feel. But please understand how this is for me.
This entire situation is confusing and frightening.
I don’t know any of you. You’re all strangers to me.
” All four boys stand up and I take a wary step back.
“Let's take a breather and regroup,” Julien suggests. “Maybe get something to eat. Then, I think we should all sit down and talk, yeah?”
“What about school?” Ryder asks.
Jay shakes his head. “This is more important.”
Ryder lifts his chin at Fallon. “You got any place you need to be?”
Fallon is the only one of them who has remained impassive the entire time. If I hadn't already noticed the intense way he's been watching me, I would have said he was bored and not wanting to be here. “I'm good. Still on vacation,” he says, with a smirk.
“Yeah, okay,” I relent.
Julien drags Jay out the front door against his angry protestations and tells us they'll be back in five minutes. There’s an awkward silence in the room after they depart.
“It’s good to see you, kitten,” Fallon says to me, breaking the quiet. Kitten? He gives me a half-tip grin that weirdly has me wanting to grin in return, but I don’t. Ryder gives me a tender look of understanding when I meet his gaze.
“You guys can make yourselves at home, I guess.” I point in the direction of the living room.
This is so awkward. Is there a decorum on how to treat house guests, especially those who show up uninvited?
If so, I'm at a total blank. “Um, want anything to drink? Is bottled water okay?” I offer.
As soon as they say yes, I escape into the kitchen, grateful for some space.
Once away from everyone, I close my eyes and bend over at the waist to rest my head on the kitchen countertop.
Feeling completely overwhelmed, I count backward from five down to one and repeat the sequence until my hands no longer shake.
I remind myself of the promise I made only this morning that I wouldn’t run the next time I saw Ryder. Well, he’s here.
I’m still not sure how to handle the crazy guy who insists I was his girlfriend, though. Okay, Elizabeth, you can do this, I say to give myself a pep talk. I grab two waters from the fridge and walk back into the living room.