Page 37 of Help Me Remember
“I . . .” He stops, looking out at the quad. “Shit. I guess I have none.”
I laugh and lie back. “See, funless Spencer Cross. Always serious and always breaking hearts.”
“You can put that on my bio.”
I turn my head, squinting to see his face. “It would at least be true.”
“The truth is also here.”
I guess he’s right. I just am feeling defeated. Not that I really thought we would roll into Portland and suddenly my entire life would flash back, but I hoped it would. I wanted to come back to the familiar and find comfort in the unknown.
“Here’s the truth . . . I remember nothing new. There. That’s everything.”
“Then we don’t have time to sit around. We need to move on and keep working, not lie in the grass.”
I sit up, my defensiveness flaring. “What would you like me to do? Tell you some bullshit that I suddenly remember? Oh, now I have it. After going to get coffee, I was walking down the road, and I met someone. He was tall, but funny thing, I can’t remember his name, or what he looks like. Maybe you’d rather hear the story about when I came to see Henry to break up with him. Again, no details because I have none other than what I told you.”
“Brie.”
“No, you want a memory, I’ll make one up for you.”
Spencer cuts me off. “Stop. I’m not asking you to do that. I just want to help you remember.”
“I want that too,” I confess. “I want it way more than anyone could imagine, trying not to be resentful of everyone who refuses to tell me anything.”
“And if we told you everything, would you believe it? Would that make it any easier or would you just end up more confused and frustrated? If I said you quit your job two days before the incident and decided to join the circus as a balloon artist. What would you say?”
My jaw drops but then I scoff. “That you’re crazy.”
“But why? We told you it’s true.”
I shake my head. “I would never.”
“Would you? How do you know? You have no recollection of the person you were in the last three years. That’s why it’s imperative we don’t tell you who you were. You will either remember or you’ll create a new life.” Spencer puts his notebook down. “Brielle, I know more than anyone how fleeting things are. I know what it’s like to lose everything. I know what it’s like to be left behind and forgotten about.”
And he does. When he was a kid, his mother would drop him off at our house, promise him she’d come back the next morning, and then neglect to show up. Spencer would hear my mother on the phone, pleading with her not to do it, but nothing she said mattered. Even though he tried to hide it, I still saw how sad it would make him, and I always wanted to cheer him up. His mother was in and out of his life, only showing up when it was convenient for her. When being a mother wasn’t something that interested her anymore, she would leave Spencer in my mother and father’s care.
“You were never forgotten.”
“It was a long time ago,” he says dismissively. “I was making a point.”
That may be the case, but I’m not letting it go so easily. “Spencer.” I wait until he looks at me. “You were never forgotten. Not by the people who loved you.”
“I know that.”
“Not by me,” I say softly.
His eyes find mine, and the way he’s staring at me has my throat going dry. I would swear he wants to kiss me, which is crazy because Spencer doesn’t look at me that way and we have never kissed . . . well, not like that.
He clears his throat, breaking the spell. “Your family saved me, and I will do anything for you guys.”
I tuck my hair behind my ear. “We appreciate it.”
Spencer rises and extends his hand to me. “Come on, let’s go to the apartments you lived in on the other side of town. We never know what we may find.”
ChapterNine
BRIELLE
