Page 46 of Boys Like You

Beth isn’t shocked when we arrive not long after her. In fact, I’m pretty sure she expected it. Rory orders us pizza. The guys go about rearranging my room, setting up blankets and pillows on the floor after they decided we are having an Adam Sandler movie marathon. They pull out a stack of DVDs:

Billy Maddison

Happy Gilmore

Bulletproof

The Wedding Singer

The Waterboy

Big Daddy

They tell me this is the start to the pile and we will now be watching these until we have watched every last one. If we don’t get through them today, we will pick up next time.

Rocky takes Billy Maddison from the pile and gets it started. I take a spot between Maximus and Mercer.

“Why do they get to sit next to you?” Rocky whines, taking a seat beside Mercer.

“Because.” I shrug. “We can rotate after each movie if it makes you happy.”

He thinks about it for a second. “Good plan, but be warned, I like to be little spoon.” He makes me laugh.

“If you’re the little spoon, how will I see over you to watch the movie?” Again he has to think about it, before he just shrugs. I like how our relationship has moved on to spooning and it doesn’t seem weird.

“I get first dibs,” Mercer announces, pulling me to his body; at least he’s happy being the big spoon. I lay my head on his arm, finding a comfy spot. He grabs my hip and stills me.

“Are you smelling me?” I ask him.

“Yes, you smell like sugar.” I tried a new perfume today. It’s one of the ones Carson gave me.

“Let me smell,” Rocky says, leaning over Mercer. “You do; you smell like fresh fairy floss.”

Levi leans over Maximus and Rory gets up. “What is this, sniff JD day?” They all laugh. “You can smell me too if you want, Maximus.” He moves in closer and smells my neck. When he pulls back, there’s a flush to his cheeks.

A knock at the door and Beth yelling out that pizza is here has all the guys on their feet. It feels like one of those jokes; how many teenage boys does it take to pay for pizza? I pause the movie, even though so far no one has even started watching it.

Amidst the chaos, my phone rings, startling me. No one besides the guys have contacted me on it before. The name ‘Lissa” pops up on the screen.

“Hello?”

“Hi, JD, It’s Lissa, just calling to see if you have remembered anything? I was going to ask at the school but so much was going on.”

“Nothing yet,” It’s not a complete lie. I can never actually remember my nightmares, just the feeling of anxiety and nausea afterwards. The few flashes don’t tell me a lot and would be useless to them at the moment.

The truth is, I don’t want to be found, and the longer I can put them off the better. But I know it’s only a matter of time before someone recognises me, and I can’t help hoping no one ever will. I mean, surely if someone cared, they’d have contacted the police by now, right?

“That’s okay, we’ve been taking this slow but we will need to do more. I will call Beth and get her to bring you down to the station, believe it or not finding out who you are is a good thing.”

“If you say so.” I didn’t mean to say that out loud.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“Well, the doctor said I’m basically blocking out my whole life, so that pretty much means I had a shitty life, right? Why would I want to remember that when I have so much now?”

“We’re here to help you now, JD. I can’t tell you what to do but there are options if things are bad when you remember.”

“Thanks, Lissa.”

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