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5

Jolie

“So what happened?”

Elena and Lauren leaned their elbows on the dinner table, where we were finishing the remnants of the étouffée the girls on kitchen duty made this evening. They’d both said they thought I was acting strangely all evening, and I’d finally admitted that something happened today.

Something very confusing.

I hesitated, not quite knowing where to begin. “I hate to bring this up, but do either of you remember the day of the attack against our church? Before the Great Reckoning.”

Elena pursed her lips and looked over my shoulder, as if she were staring right into the past. “Yes,” she said. “I know we aren’t supposed to think or talk about it at all, but I remember it very well. I lost my mother and my older brother that day. I still miss them all the time.”

I patted her shoulder. “I’m sorry for bringing it up.”

“It’s all right,” she said, forcing a tight smile. “Lauren, what about you?”

Lauren’s doe-like brown eyes focused on the plate before her. A pink blush had crept into her cheeks. “Sometimes I worry this makes me a terrible person, but I don’t remember anything from that day. I barely even remember the old times at all. Sometimes I get a flashing glimpse in my mind’s eye of my mother’s hair, or I’ll suddenly remember my auntie’s perfume. But never anything more.”

“That doesn’t make you a bad person,” Elena said, sweeping her long chestnut hair over a shoulder with one hand. “It may be a gift from your own mind; the removal of all your negative memories. That day was awful.”

Lauren nodded slowly. “Yes. Anyway, why did you ask, Jolie?”

Both girls looked at me now.

“Lauren, obviously you won’t recall this, but Elena, do you remember that new family who came to visit for a while that day? The Ashwoods,” I said.

Elena’s forehead puckered. “Were they the family with that teenage boy you spent some time with? Mason?”

“Yes.”

She smiled faintly. “I remember we played that silly game because you thought he was handsome. The one where you pull the petals off a daisy.”

“He loves me, he loves me not,” I said, returning her smile.

Lauren looked at us, uncertainty flashing in her eyes. Then she nodded fervently. “I think I remember that game!” she said.

Elena shot me the briefest of amused looks. Lauren wasn’t dull by any means, but she had an absolutely terrible memory. However, she would often claim to remember or know about things that we brought up, even if we could tell she didn’t.

I‘d always figured that she did it because she knew how smart Elena was, and she desperately wanted to fit in. A natural-born follower. That was silly, though. Elena didn’t care if someone wasn’t as intelligent as her. She was kind to everyone, and she counted Lauren as one of her best friends, whether she knew lots of things or not.

“Well, you won’t believe this,” I began, nervously twisting on one of my long braids. “But he was here today. I saw him.”

Elena’s eyes widened. “Really? In the shelter?”

I nodded. “Yes. My father was showing him around and talking to him. He left him alone for a few minutes, and I—”

I abruptly stopped speaking. Martha Chase was approaching our table. If she heard me telling Lauren and Elena that I talked to Mason despite the rule regarding outsiders, I would be in a lot of trouble. My friends would be in trouble as well, for simply knowing and failing to turn me in.

“Hello, Martha,” I said loudly to alert Elena and Lauren that she was drawing near.

They turned and looked over their shoulders. “Hello,” they added in unison.

Martha smiled. “Are you enjoying dinner?”

“Yes,” we chorused. “It’s delicious.”

She tucked a strand of curly red hair behind her ear. “It is so fortunate that the men found an uncontaminated water supply out in the Wastelands, so that they can fish up all the seafood we cook with. Surely a gift from above.”

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