Page 65 of Amnesty

She giggled, and I laughed.

The moment didn’t last long, though.

Her voice went low once more, matching the gloomy tone of the pounding storm. “I started to run out of energy. I was so cold, sluggish. I thought I was going to drown. Drown while I listened to the sounds of your desperate yells.”

I closed my eyes.

“Just as I started to slip beneath the surface, someone lifted me out of the water and dropped me into a boat.”

My head shot up. “What?”

“I thought it was you at first. That you’d found me.”

It wasn’t me. We both knew it wasn’t.

“It washim. I hadn’t been scared at first. I thought he was going to help me. After all, he saved me from drowning.”

I nodded, trying to encourage her.

“He said my life was his because he saved it. He told me right from the start I was his.”

“I’m so incredibly sorry, Sadie. So sorry I couldn’t find you that night.”

“I don’t blame you, Eddie,” she said. “This wasn’t your fault.”

“I never should have gone out on the lake that night.”

“You just wanted to complete the dare. The dare Robbie gave you.”

I glanced up. “You remember?”

“I remember everything,” she said, her voice kind of hollow.

The storm raged on, the rain pelting the windows. Sadie shivered, pulling in on herself.

“You okay?”

Slowly, she shook her head. “Will you hold me?”

Immediately, I went to her side and put both arms around her. She laid her head against my chest, clutching the front of my shirt.

We sat there a while, quiet, her in my arms. I stared at the wall, going over everything she went through that night.

If only…

“Eddie?” she asked, lifting her face.

“Hmm?” I replied, pulling back enough to look down. She had brown eyes like Amnesia, but hers were a deeper brown, wider, and something else… Older. Wiser.

Amnesia had a certain innocence in her stare. Noting the difference between the two women now, I wondered if it was because of the memory loss. I wondered if Am would look older if she recalled everything that befell her.

“Why aren’t my parents here?”

I stiffened. How did you tell someone, after everything they already suffered, that they would never again see the two people they loved most?

“Did they move away? Are they having to travel back?”

“No, sweetheart, they didn’t move away.”

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