Page 85 of Stealing Chances

I turned toward my desk, my trembling hands hovering just over the wood there as I took slow, measured breaths. Trying to calm and control the battles raging and building inside me.

My want to keep Scarlet at arm’s length and my need to hold her close. My fear of what I’d done and my rage over the inability to access my own memories.

All of them creating this chaotic, destructive storm until it felt like I was going to explode.

Grabbing one of my drawers, I yanked it open. Reaching in and looking over in surprise when I didn’t find what I was looking for. Rolling my chair closer, I ground my teeth and continued trying to control my breaths as I studied the neat rows of different inks when I’d expected to find my catch-all drawer.

Slamming the drawer shut, I quickly opened and shut other drawers. Finding everything all out of order and getting more and more frustrated.

“Someone rearrange my desk?” I asked just as I opened the drawer I was looking for.

“Code,” Brian said as if that should’ve been obvious. “We don’t touch each other’s shit.”

Except nothing—

As soon as the thought started entering my mind, I realized it was entirely possible I’d rearranged my own desk years before, and I just didn’t know.

Pushing aside the pens and gum, I grabbed one of the pencils and my earbuds. Tossing them both on the desk before reaching back in instinctively, only to remember my sketchbook wasn’t in there because I hadn’t brought one with me.

Just as a mumbled curse began slipping free, my fingers touched something at the back of the drawer that had a sickening chill spreading across my body. Quick and sudden.

And there it was.

ThatthingI’d been waiting for—had beenhopingwould appear this morning in the coffee shop. That pleading pounding at the back of my mind, begging me to understand. To remember.

I curled my fingers around the small, spiky ball and pulled it out of the drawer. Eyebrows furrowing as I looked at the inoffensive, crumpled-up paper in my hand. My heart pounding out this unforgiving beat because the twisting in my gut told me this was what I’d been looking for. And somehow, I knew there were more.

Dropping the paper onto my desk, I yanked my drawer open even farther and bent to look inside as I reached for the very back. That twisting becoming nearly incapacitating when I grasped at what felt like a half dozen more of the same.

Once I was sure I had them all out of the drawer and on my desk, I sat back. Staring at them as if they had the power to destroy everything.

Heart still racing and my throat feeling like it was filled with broken glass.

“Some kind of weird origami?” Brian asked as he appeared beside me, making me tense because I hadn’t even heard him come near me.

“I don’t know,” I said as I reached for one of the papers. Curling my fingers around it, I held my fist up and looked at him. “But I have this feeling—”

“You’re fucked up, you know that?” I’d asked Brian as I’d stepped back into the shop, a laugh slipping free as I’d held the balled-up paper between my fingers.

He’d straightened from where he was tattooing a guy’s calf. “My dude,” he’d said, one hand out to the side. “This isn’t news.”

An amused hum had built in my throat as I’d hurried back to my desk and tossed the weird-as-shit note that had clearly been a prank into my catch-all drawer. “Keeping this forever now. And just for that,” I’d gone on before Brian could comment, “I’m going to consider not getting food for you.”

Brian had slammed his hand against his chest as Jeff, one of the other artists, had loudly laughed. “Betrayal,” Brian had yelled. “Absolute betrayal.”

“I saidconsider,” I’d called over my shoulder before heading back outside and to my truck. Another laugh had scraped up my throat as I’d glanced at my windshield where the note had been. “What an idiot.”

“I thought it was you,” I told Brian, who was waving at my face as if he’d been trying to get my attention. I smacked his hand away. “I thought these were from you.”

“I can’t origami, my guy,” he said as if I should’ve known.

“No, Brian,” I began, then raked a hand through my hair as I shifted the paper so it was between the tips of my fingers and directly in front of his face. “I thought you were pranking me. Leaving weird notes on the windshield of my truck. Here. At the shop.”

Understanding lit in his eyes half a second after confusion and denial began filtering in. “You remember something?”

“Yes. These. I remember these. And I don’t know how, but I know I found out it wasn’t you.”

“Well, what are they?” he asked hurriedly. “You can’t sayweird notesand not open that shit up.” Before I had the chance to do anything at all, he pointed at me. “You told me, ‘I didn’t know.’ This isit, my guy. This is it. I know it.”

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