Chapter 1 #2
“With my aunt in North Shore,” I reply, my voice dying slowly when everyone’s faces fall. “What is happening? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because you don’t remember almost nine months of your life.” That icy voice from before speaks again, and this time I whip around to face the direction it’s coming from. I almost wish I hadn’t. All the air in the room seems to get sucked out, and my lungs spasm.
My eyes collide with steel gray ones. The color is almost shiny and metallic, but sitting this close, I can see the dull void in them.
It’s as if he’s looking through me and not at me.
He’s sitting in a hospital chair, like he owns the place, lounging in gray sweats and a white T-shirt and a black zip-up hoodie pulled up over his head.
I would guess he’s around my age. He has dark hair peeking out from his hood, which looks long enough to run my fingers through.
I feel myself frown at the thought, not sure where it came from.
He’s as much a stranger to me as the woman and the other young kid from earlier.
Those silver eyes, so pale they almost look unnatural, travel over my face, and a sense of foreboding snakes through me, sending chills down my spine.
My stomach sinks, and my heart feels heavy.
His face is gorgeous, the type of male perfection you only read about or see in the movies, with his high cheekbones, sharp jaw, and ridiculously plump, red lips.
If it wasn’t for the way his eyes are regarding me as if I’m less than human, I’d say he’s beautiful, but the only word I can think of right now to describe him is deadly.
“Do I know you?”
His lips pull back, showcasing straight, white teeth, and he smirks.
“You don’t even know him?” The guy from earlier walks back into the room.
I glance at him again, this time noticing he’s also wearing a black hoodie.
They match, and I can sort of see some resemblance in their facial features.
His face is pale now, and I don’t miss the quick flicker of disbelief in his eyes.
“Should I?” I glance between them, then back at my dad, who is still conversing with the doctor. My forehead hurts, and all I want to do is sleep.
“I want Aunt Loreli,” I manage to get out before lying back in the bed again and closing my eyes. This has to be a nightmare. I must be sleeping, and when I wake up again, everything will be fine. I squeeze my eyes shut, and I can’t help the tear that falls from my frustration.
“Heath, Madden, let’s leave her alone.” The woman speaks softly, as if she cares about me even when I still have no idea who she is.
“Maybe we should take this to my office,” Dr. Carson announces, and everyone leaves the room. Except him. Now that he has made his presence known, he’s all I can feel in the room. I refuse to look his way again, though.
“Who are you?”
“Your ex-boyfriend.” His voice sounds gravelly with a hint of anger in it.
My eyes open wide, but I still refuse to look at him. Boyfriend. I’ve never dated in high school, and I definitely don’t remember ever seeing him in my school. He would stand out; he wouldn’t be missed in the hallways.
“That was my mom and my brother in here. Your dad is engaged to my mom, and you came to live with us at the beginning of the school year. You don’t attend North Shore anymore or live with your aunt.
You live in our house in River Falls, and I was the one who pulled you out of the water.
” I listen while he tells me his version of the story of my life for the past nine months.
Cliffs notes, really, because obviously he’s leaving out a huge chunk of it.
I wouldn’t have chosen to leave Aunt Loreli, and I definitely wouldn’t want to live in River Falls. How did I get there?
“Did you become my ex-boyfriend before I was in the water or after?” I ask, and this time I glance at him.
Bad decision because his eyes somehow manage to look even chillier. “Before.”
I nod, hating that a slice of my heart feels cut open even though I have no idea why.
This guy says we dated and broke up, and I don’t remember a thing.
Nothing about him feels familiar to me except for the warning signs in my brain screaming that he’s dangerous.
“You said our parents are getting married, so we’re going to be stepsiblings?
I guess that makes sense why we broke up. ”
His lips curl up mockingly. “You never seemed to mind before when you had my cock in your mouth.”
I flinch at the crass way he exploits our past relationship. We must not have ended on good terms, and even if we hadn’t, how hard is it really to at least pretend to be nice?
“Obviously, it wasn’t too memorable.” My mouth speaks faster than my brain can think, and all the ways I was just about to scold him for his immaturity go right out the window.
Something flares in his eyes, and the steely depths almost look alive for once. I blink, and he’s back to looking at me like a bug he stepped on. “According to the latest rumor, it’s because you don’t get to sit on my dick anymore that you tried to off yourself.”
My mouth drops open. I hate high schools, they’re nothing but pits of gossip and drama.
I can only imagine the type of rumors that would be coming out of River Falls High School.
River Falls is one of the wealthier parts of the state; it’s the same town my dad grew up in, the place that breeds a certain type of elite class that doesn’t mingle with outsiders.
Not to mention the underlying secrets of the town and the gossip that its citizens are hiding secrets; some say they even practice magic.
Of course, those rich and entitled kids would make up a rumor about me.
I’m nothing like them. If I transferred from North Shore to River Falls, I was most likely an outcast from the beginning.
My mind fights to remember, but I can’t.
Still, I don’t think I would do that to myself, harm myself or try to end my life because of a guy.
“Did you?” He glares at me, leaning forward.
“I can’t remember. That doesn’t sound like me,” I whisper, my chest feeling like it’s breaking open. Sadness creeps in along with anger. How dare they?
He huffs. “Spoiled, hot-headed, ugly, a bitch…that’s all the adjectives that I would use to describe you, Skully Morgan. Now I can add desperate, since you were stupid enough to jump off the bluffs as some attempt to get my attention.”
My skin flushes, and anger boils in my veins.
I hate that he belittles me, and yet somehow it also makes my heart race faster because he called me by my preferred name.
Skully. Usually only those closest to me call me by that name.
I like it and hate that he used it. Who does he think he is?
I may have lost my memories, but I know myself.
There is no way I’d try jumping to my death over some guy.
My eyes rove over his face intently, looking for any sort of sign that he’s joking with me, that this is some deluded prank.
I can tell by the way he stays closed off, his features impassive, the bored tone he’s using with me like he can’t wait to get rid of me, that he believes what he said.
“Listen, I may not know a whole lot right now, but I know myself. I can feel in my heart that I wouldn’t be that careless or make a decision that impactful.
I have dreams; I have a whole life ahead of me.
” I shake my head, refusing to believe any of what he said.
“And if that’s how you see me, you never knew the real me.
There is no way I’d ever be desperate enough to want your attention. ”
He bares his teeth at me in a cruel smile.
“Oh, little Skallan, there is no one in River Falls who knows you better than me. You might have the doctor and our parents fooled, but I see through you. I know you lie and cause destruction. So when your aunt gets here and wants to take you home…go with her. Stay in California and forget about this family, my friends, me, and River Falls altogether. We don’t want you here anymore. You aren’t welcome here.”
I can’t explain what happens next, only that it’s as if an invisible force ripples through the room.
His words stir something in my heart, and there is a nagging feeling to get away from him.
I want to run, but I can’t make my legs move.
I want to hide, but I’m still hooked up to these machines.
I so badly want to leave with my aunt that I don’t even care where we go as long as it’s away from him and the icy shadows in his eyes.
His grin grows larger as if he can sense the turmoil he’s causing me.
For some reason, I believe it’s because of his words that I feel this way, but I don’t know why.
I just want to leave. He has my attention as he unfolds himself from the chair he’s been sitting in, like some angel of death waiting for a moment alone, so he can tell me how much he hates me.
I watch him walk to the door, noticing the words River Falls High on the back of his sweatshirt in white writing.
The pounding in my veins escalates until I can feel the painful swooshing of blood in my head, like a drum getting louder and louder until I have to lay my head back and squeeze my eyes shut.
Everything in the room feels as if it’s vibrating.
Pain radiates behind my eyes. My fingers move to hit the nurse button on my bed, but I’m yanked back into the shadows until there is only darkness once again.