Round Thirty-Three
ROSE
I’m not sure of the rules and what Ollie expects of me while he’s gone, and now that I think about it, I don’t have keys to his house—to lock up while I’m out, or to let myself back in when I return—but the sun is out today, ish, and the snow is starting to melt, so I wrap myself in my maroon coat and find a beanie hanging on a hook in the laundry.
Pulling on the boots he gave me that first time in the hospital, I step onto his porch and turn back to face the door.
I tug it most of the way closed… hesitating.
Sweating. If I close it, I’m locked out for the rest of the day.
I won’t be able to get back in, and dammit, what if the stupid snow starts falling from the sky again?
Stop being a wuss, Rose!
I hold my breath and slam the door, the boom of solid wood against the frame a ringing finality to announce my decision.
Then I spin on my heels and move to the edge of the porch, pausing before I transition to the top step, all so I can look out at…
well, trees. And more trees. A road, not even wide enough to warrant the painted lines down the middle.
This is the first time I’m venturing into the world…
ever, according to the memories I currently possess.
I have no money. No purse. No ID. I have no way of knowing where to go or how to get back, but I have determination in spades, and a need to get out of that house before its four walls send me insane, so I move down the steps and skip from stone to stone, and when I reach the end of the driveway, I look left… and right.
Digging my hands into my pockets, I drop my head to spite the cold breeze, then I start my trek and wonder, is this how it all started for me a month ago? Did I close my front door and simply decide to go for a walk?
“Ominous.” Snickering to myself, I pass the house directly next door to Ollie’s—Mrs. Gunderson’s—and spy just one wall of the massive greenhouse over her back fence.
A gentle longing overtakes me, a desire to cut my walk short and turn into her driveway.
To knock on her front door and beg for a peek out back.
But that would be wholly inappropriate, so I bring my focus back to the road and continue toward town, passing the time with a song on my breath.
A tune I don’t recall ever learning, but enjoying every bar anyway.
Every chorus and verse. The song speaks of good women becoming the villain in their own story.
Tales of betrayal and love. The good kind and the bad.
Every few minutes, a car putters by, slowing to move around me—to look at me, I think—and then continuing on, because they don’t know me. They don’t care to know.
It takes about twenty minutes to wander from a snowy residential wonderland to something a little more built up. I recognize the police station—but I don’t stop—and I pass a park with a massive, ivy-covered gazebo taking up the middle of the block.
A swing set sits, unused and squeaking in the breeze, and twenty feet from that, a twelve-foot-tall slide, the kind with no safety rails, no plastic, and no soft-fall section at the bottom.
It’s a slide from times gone by, before town planners thought to keep children safe or save them from the discomfort of melting their backsides to the sizzling steel in the middle of summer.
For just a beat, I stand here and see, in my mind, children playing.
Toddlers squawking. A little girl racing up the ladder, swinging her legs forward and throwing her arms high, then squealing on her way down again.
But is it a memory? Or is my brain filling in the blanks of what I know this scene should look like?
I don’t know. And the not knowing is frustrating.
I release a breathy sigh, white fog bursting ahead of me, then I turn and keep going, weaving my way toward what can only be Main Street, where cars park with their noses to the curb, and the scent of fresh coffee and baking pastries fills the air.
Every now and then, I glance back and attempt to stamp my way home into memory.
Worst-case scenario, I could ask someone for directions to the hospital, and knowing I have that safety net in place, I let go of the anxiety curling in my stomach.
My heart beats a consistent pace, quick enough to keep me warm, even when the wind picks up and tosses my hair around my neck and face. I meander across the street with no traffic, then up on the other side, until I catch my own reflection in the mirrored glass of the drug store.
Who is she? Who is Rose, the woman with no surname besides Doe? The one with long black hair and shadows under her eyes. Who was she before Plainview? And is my easy acceptance of this new life nothing more than a confession that I did, in fact, hurt Liam?
God. Who is Liam? And since I have a list now, who the hell is Darcy? How, in this day and age, have I reached adulthood with no tattoos, no distinctive features to help the police, and no files anywhere that would allow facial recognition or fingerprint technology to decipher who I am?
“Oh, hey. You’re that chick, huh?”
I startle and spin, locking eyes with a woman with a striking blue stare and upturned red lips. She wears a knee-length coat, and beneath that, tight black jeans and a black shirt that has no other distinctive descriptive qualities. It’s just… black.
“Rose, right?” She strolls forward, sipping from a to-go cup of coffee. “You’re very pretty.”
“Um…”
She circles me like she’s taking stock. Studying. Judging.
Spinning, I try to keep her in front of me. “Hi.”
“You’re totally cute.” She flashes a devious smile and steps in on my left, scooping her arm around mine and forcing me forward until we’re walking side by side. “Are you lost, Rose, or just exploring? ‘Cos either way, I don’t mind walking with you.”
My heart thrums painfully in my chest. Thundering against my diaphragm. “N-not lost.”
“Just roaming then.” Completely at ease, she nods.
“I so rarely take the time to do that these days. I’m always working, ya know?
Locked away in my building seven days a week from sunup to sundown.
I forget to take a breath and just…” She exhales.
“Wander. And this town… I grew up here. For thirty years, I’ve called this place my home, where everyone knows everyone, and life is slower than everywhere else.
Did you grow up in a town like Plainview? ”
“I-I don’t know.” Let me go. Let me go. Let me go! “I don’t remember.”
“I heard that, too.” She looks down at me, her two-inch height difference may as well be twelve inches.
That’s how small I feel compared to her.
“I heard you got hurt and now you’ve forgotten everything.
I’ve read about these cases, but I’ve never met anyone with retrograde amnesia before. What’s that like?”
“Uh…” I glance up desperately as we pass a bakery, and the scent of coffee pumps through the door like it was designed to draw customers in. I have no money, but sneaking in and sitting down for a little while is tempting.
“I mean… I suppose it would have to feel like you’ve lost a sense, right?
” The woman tugs me along, callously robbing me of my chance to escape.
“Like, if I covered my ears, I can still see, smell, and touch. But not being able to hear feels like a disadvantage. If I covered my eyes, I could still hear and taste and touch, but there’s no way I’m not bumping around and running into things.
I imagine losing your memories feels a bit like that. ”
“I…” God. I don’t know.
“You can see and hear and smell and touch. You can create new memories, and you remember how to do some things, like get dressed and whatnot. But if I ask about your childhood, your brain does…” She meets my eyes. “What?”
“It tries. But it’s like looking through a dirty glass window, where everything on the other side is blurry and dull and impossible to grab on to.”
“But everything you’ve experienced since waking up at the hospital? You remember all that?”
“Yeah… I…” I dig my heels in and bring us to a stop outside a bookstore. I don’t rip my arm from her grip, though I kind of want to. But I pull free with a firm, undeniable yank and dig my hands into my pockets. “Have we met before?”
She sips her coffee and smirks, shaking her head side to side. “No, we haven’t. But this is what happens when you live in a small town. Everyone knows everyone else’s business, whether you like it or not, and I heard you’re staying over at Doctor Darling’s place. I trust he’s been a good host?”
I narrow my eyes to suspicious slits, my temper bubbling and growing in my veins. “He’s been great. I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”
“Eh.” She smiles behind the lip of her cup and taps perfect fire engine red fingernails against the outer shell.
“I didn’t say. And since we’ve never met before, I figured no matter what name I gave you, it would lack context.
Thus, I felt doing so would be useless. What are your plans after all this? ”
I take a long step back, scowling at the beautiful blonde stranger. Could she hurt me? Possibly. Will I let her? Nope. “My plans?”
“Yeah. I mean, eventually you’ll want to move on, right?
At the moment, things are still fresh and scary and confusing.
You got hit by a car—Barbara’s a total bitch all the time, just so you know—and then you woke up in the hospital with a whopper headache.
Now you’ve been discharged and you’re staying at Doctor Darling’s place.
But that’s not a forever plan. You’ll get bored eventually, so I guess I was just wondering what your next step is? ”
“Probably something I should discuss with my medical team,” I counter. “Not a stranger in the street who technically hasn’t even introduced herself yet.”
Impressed, she points with her coffee-finger and laughs. “Ain’t no flies on you, Rose. I like the sass. I heard Doctor Darling blew his date off for Valentine’s Day and spent the evening with you instead.”
“Cool. Are you the date?” I challenge. “Is this some weird small-town razzing thing I’m forced to deal with because I’m the newbie, but it’s worse because you have a crush on Ollie, and my arrival at the ER messed with your plans?
Because that’s something you could probably talk to him about directly.
” I gesture along the street. “Hospital’s that way. He won’t be hard to find.”
Snickering, she ambles closer and twists me around until I’m pointing the opposite way. “Hospital’s that way, actually.”
Dammit.
“I heard you were afraid of everyone and everything. Folks so much as breathe a little too loud in your vicinity and you’d completely lose your shit.” She wrinkles her nose. “But you don’t seem afraid to me. Was it an act to secure Doctor Darling’s sympathies?”
“Sure. And as part of my big plan, I threw myself at a car, hoping to be wounded enough to need his services, but not so wounded that I would… ya know… die. Don’t worry about context now.” I extend my hand. “My name is Rose. And you are…?”
A bell rings above the door of the bookshop, then a woman steps out.
“Oh my gosh!” Alana illuminates with unbridled joy. “Raquel? What the hell are you doing in town?”
“Raquel?” I swing my gaze back and gulp. My stomach drops out of my ass, and my heart simply stops. Dead. Deceased. Oh God.
“Raquel.” Raquel takes my hand and squeezes. “Nice to officially meet you, Rose. You’ve probably heard of me, huh?”
I need a paper bag. Stat.