Don’t Look Back (House of Eights #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Bizzy (Elizabeth)

Ahandful of pills and a heart full of agony. I could end it all right now. Before my next ‘episode’, before my mind cracks any more than it already has.

End it. Do it.

It’s eerie how calm I feel, wiping away the tears falling silently. Almost like this is the right choice. I’ll stop being a burden on my parents, Siler…

“Biz, don’t forget to call me when you wake up.”

How long before Siler comes to find me?

He should be at basketball practice, which won’t be over for at least an hour.

But I picture him finding my body…

I can’t do that to him.

His normally sunny face crumpled. Panic… blame. He’d blame himself for it. Thinking he wasn’t enough to keep me going.

I’m midstep from my doorway when a stabbing pain shoots through my head, falling as my limbs jerk. Vision reddening until it goes black.

My tongue is bleeding when I roll to my side groaning. Seconds or minutes later… time loses meaning when an episode hits me, I don’t know how long I have until the next one strikes.

Days can go by, sometimes a week. Then I’ll have three in an hour. There is no consistency, no answers.

My body is shutting down.

Doctors have scratched their heads over my sudden symptoms, while tests show nothing useful. Treating the symptoms has proven difficult.

Impossible really.

Fixating on the threadbare corner of my purple shag rug, I wiggle, testing my arms and legs. After what Siler calls a ‘glitch’, it can take several minutes to feel strong enough to move. Blood drips from my nose, my left side pulsates painfully in the aftermath.

I passed terror long ago.

Now I willfully refuse to get caught up in my feelings.

I’m simply done. Angry and done.

But the physical repercussions of this illness is nothing compared to my memories slipping away.

My childhood feels removed from me, even my parents feel like strangers.

Not Siler, though.

Even with the holes in my past, I know him. He mentions something to jog my memory and I get back pieces that had swam away.

He is the only person I cling to.

Slowly I sit up, wiping the back of my hand across the blood trickling from my nose. The pills I’d held in my hand are partially crushed, lying on the floor several feet from me.

Do it. End it.

I would if I could guarantee that Siler would be okay.

Each time he leaves me, he says the same thing: “Promise me that you’re still fighting and I’ll see you later. Promise me.”

Because he knows. He’s seen the pills piling up on my desk. He sees the despair in my eyes. He’s heard my angry rants over the unfairness.

Eight days before my eighteenth birthday, it started. I was climbing out of Siler’s truck when I convulsed. For almost ten minutes I felt excruciating pain while Siler frantically called for help. It tore the very fabric of my soul because, before that moment, I had been healthy.

My life radically changed.

“Elizabeth?” I hear the front door close downstairs as my mother bustles around. “E-bet?”

I bristle at the name she uses for me when I prefer Siler’s nickname, Biz’ or ‘Bizzy’.

Even if I can’t recall it, Siler says that I earned the nickname at six, when he told me I didn’t look like an Elizabeth.

“It’s none of your business.” I had said.

He squinted at me before a smile spread across his face, “Business… Biz…”, which morphed into Bizzy.

He then proceeded to make me his best friend.

I crawl to the bed, pulling myself off the ground. My parents don’t need any more reason to hover. Coughing slightly to force my voice to carry, I call out,

“Yeah, I’m coming…”

She’s at the counter in our outdated kitchen, staring into the cupboard where we keep the spices, her hand shaking slightly.

With a tremor in her voice, she says, “You didn’t answer when I called…

I…” Tears shine in her eyes as she turns toward me.

“I was worried you were having a…” but she doesn’t finish.

We don’t know what they are… seizures, episodes, events? Nothing sums them up adequately.

“I had my headphones on. Sorry.” The lie comes easily. Watching the tension leave her stance and the worry fade from her eyes is all the confirmation I need that the lies are better than causing further anguish.

Pictures dot the house of me. Four are stuck by magnets to the stainless steel fridge.

Me at four with a tooth missing, ice cream smeared on my Hello Kitty shirt; me at ten in a softball uniform with my arms around my parents; me at twelve sitting at a piano performing a recital; me at fourteen in a lacy pink dress next to Dad in his suit at a father-daughter dance.

They all look just like me. But I have no memories of any of the times they commemorate.

I remove the youngest picture of me, staring at it intensely. My mother stops putting groceries away to watch me. “Do you remember that day?” Her voice is tentative, so soft I almost miss what she asks.

Shaking my head, I put it back under the insurance agent magnet. “I wish I did. Do you think Dr. Fraine may be able to help me get my memories back?”

That is… if my body holds out?

“It couldn’t hurt, right?” She leans back against the counter, giving a quick sniff to stop the tears. “Does that mean you’re willing to see him?”

A month ago, when our family doctor had exhausted referrals, he told us about Dr. Fraine. He’s treated other difficult-to-diagnose cases with some success.

But I’m at my limit. All hope has been depleted after my blood tests came back normal each time, my brain scans only showing areas of increased activity but no abnormalities.

I’ve been misdiagnosed, overmedicated, accused of making up my symptoms, and even accused of causing them. It’s been downright impossible to keep a shred of faith.

I shrug. If I decide to see him, it’ll be for my parents, for Siler. Because I don’t see what good could come of it.

Mom takes my hand, leading me to sit on a stool at the kitchen island. “You’ve been symptom-free since starting the last regimen of medication, right?”

No. But I’d rather no one else knows that.

Noncommittally, I sigh. My shoulders slump as I move forward to cover my face with my hands. Muffled, I reply, “Do you want me to see Dr. Fraine?”

“You graduate in two weeks. Have you given more thought to Cornell?”

My acceptance to Cornell University was all I’d ever wanted, or at least that’s what my parents said. I have no recollection of it. When my health nosedived, keeping me alive became my focus. Moving eight hundred miles away from our home in Decatur, Illinois felt impossible.

I mumble to myself, “How would I know?” My mind has become slippery, to the point of not recognizing my own face in the mirror one morning.

She pats my leg. “You’d be closer to Dr. Fraine.

With his residency at Rockefeller Amherst, just down the road from Cornell, getting treated by him would be easier.

I’m not saying we wouldn’t still worry, but I think it would feel like we’re doing something useful,” Her voice catches on the last words, soft and fragile, as if saying them aloud gives her hope she doesn’t fully feel.

If I want to continue trying…

I’m on edge, constantly wondering when my body will throw something new at me.