It was a brown leather album, one of those with sticky film, with enough room to hold either one picture vertically or two horizontally. I opened it up, expecting to see pictures of Nick’s family, but what I saw was a baby dressed in pink. There was no writing, only pictures, and my first thought was Nick had a daughter? I knew we’d just began dating, but still, how could he not mention that yet? And now I really began to wonder why he never wanted to discuss his family, or what the real reason was for him fleeing to this small town in Oregon.
I kept flipping pages, and what I saw disturbed me. The girl kept getting older and older.
And familiar. Way too familiar. As were the people in the photographs with her as she grew up.
No…
I didn’t believe it. Nick couldn’t do this, wouldn’t deceive me so badly. Not the guy I was completely falling for, who I just shared my deepest, darkest secrets with.
No…
The bathroom door opened and heavy steps made their way towards me. I never even heard the shower go off. I stood before him, waving the album in the air. “Nick? What is this?” When he saw what was clenched within my grasp, all expression fell from his face. “This is that girl that thought I was her sister. And that couple you insisted you take care of the other night? They’re her parents, right?” I hesitated, but still received nothing on his part. “Is that why you’re here? Why you work at my diner and asked to room with me?” My voice kept rising and rising because he wasn’t even offering a head shake to deny he’d been invading my personal space for his own agenda. And that just really pissed me off! “Fucking answer me already!” I yelled, chucking the photo album at him.
He caught it awkwardly, and the jerky movement brought him to life. “Yes,” he stuttered. After releasing a deep sigh, he gave me a more profound yes. My eyes narrowed as my head began to swing with slow, determined shakes. His hand patted the air before him in attempt to calm me down. “Please, let me explain. I’m just here to watch over you.”
Watch over me? He was ready to bed me!
“Why?” I asked bitterly, gritting my teeth and fisting my hands. I already told that girl I wasn’t her sister. Why the hell were they secretly hounding me?
“Fuckin’ shit,” he muttered, dropping the album on the coffee table. Resigned, he said heavily, “You were so close to figuring this out on your own. The album… I was going to give it to you once you began fitting the missing pieces together. God, Claire, you’re so close.”
“I am not Claire,” I declared slowly.
“Yes. You. Are,” he replied, just as slowly. “I was with you when you got that hydrangea tattoo on your hip, so unless you have a twin in the world with that exact tattoo, then you are Claire.”
Annoyed, I spat, “My mother took me to get that tattoo when I aced my SATs. It was my reward.”
“No. You got that tattoo as a birthday present to yourself when you turned seventeen. I was with you when you swiped your sister’s ID and I went with you to get it. And I was there to make fun of you the entire weekend afterwards because the damn thing wouldn’t stop itching. I have pictures on my old phone if you’d like to see some proof.”
I crossed my arms and shook my head. It was like talking to a brick wall. “This is f**king ridiculous.” I got four steps closer to the door before Nick rushed over and wrapped his arms around me from behind, holding me firmly in place. Oh, hell to the NO! Fuming, I very distinctly said, “Nick. Let. Go.”
I struggled against him, but my effort was futile, as his physical strength far surpassed my own. I was just about to start screaming when he pleaded, “Just hear me out for five minutes. If you don’t like what I have to say, I’ll walk out that door forever.”
I huffed in exasperation. “Like I can trust what you say. You’ve been lying to me!”
“No, I haven’t, Megan. I may have omitted a few details or intentionally avoided a few subject matters with you, but that’s only because I didn’t want to lie to you.”
Apparently, he’d never heard of lying by omission.
His arms slacken around my body, but still kept me captive against his chest. “I promise. After I tell you everything, you’ll know in your heart what I said feels right.”
So long as he lets go. “Five minutes,” I said sharply through gritted teeth.
“Fine. Five minutes. But you have to listen to what I have to say whether you agree with it or not.”
Bitterly, I snapped, “Fine.” He released me then, and I stepped a few feet out of arm’s reach, my arms still hugging my body.
“Since I only have five minutes, I’m not going to waste too much time over the obvious similarities.” He began ticking off his fingers. “You and Claire having the same height, same age, same brown hair and eyes and a matching tattoo you’re trying to play off as common, because it’s not. I’m going to just hit you with those nightmares you’ve been having. I’m not shouting for you to look up in the air. I’m shouting Claire. And that sense of fear, the danger that always seems to get you in the end? I’m trying to warn you that the danger is your so-called parents.”
I rolled my eyes and groaned. So not only was I not me, but now my dead parents were a threat to me. Please.
“Don’t do that,” he demanded, pointing his finger at me. “You agreed to hear me out.”
Narrowing my eyes tightly, I began chewing my lower lip. I didn’t like that coincidence, but when I didn’t protest any further, he continued.
“Claire was a senior in high school when she went missing October 30, 2010. Nine other girls disappeared that same day. Some, like Claire, were in a car that got hit. Some were off walking by themselves. Shit, two of the girls were apparently walking together when they went missing. The police said all ten of the girls were most likely stolen by traffickers, who came into the city, abducted a handful, and got the hell back out again before anyone even realized what was happening.
“Those people in your dream, who you think are your parents, were probably your handlers. They kept you for as long as it took to brainwash you into thinking whatever lies they needed you to believe. And I doubt they’re dead like you think they are. And that man you said was a family friend that took you in? Your handlers sold you to him. And when you didn’t go along with the transition, he locked you away. Because if he couldn’t have you willingly, he was going to have you…”
One way or the other.
Nick couldn’t finish that sentence out loud. Probably because I began cringing the moment he mentioned that sick bastard. And now that Nick knew what that ass**le did to me, he had to know my head was filled with images I couldn’t keep suppressed. And the thought that I may have possibly been sold as a sex slave completely disgusted me.
I didn’t like how my story began to align with Claire’s. I had always feared she may have suffered a similar fate, but now to imagine her story and mine were one in the same? The pain behind my eyes had been building the past few minutes, and I roughly stroked my brow bones in an outward motion. Could I really be Claire? The same girl who looked like my twin and apparently shared the same tattoo on the very same spot?
It never occurred to me before, but there were a lot of holes in my memories regarding my parents. I had some, but there were more holes than not. But on the other hand, I had absolutely zero memories regarding the people related to Claire. If I had really spent seventeen years of my life with them, wouldn’t I remember something about them?
This was all just too confusing.
“Why do you think brainwashed? Why would you know something like that?”
“Because that’s one of the things the cops said could happen to you, and since you didn’t recognize me or Thea, either that or the trauma has done something to make you forget. I think the cops told us that to prepare us…to expect that you’d never come back to us.”
“If what you’re saying is true, then why brainwash me? If all those girls were stolen to be sold as…you know…” Was I the only one that escaped? Were they being sexually assaulted right now? I groaned as my stomach began churning the acid within, making me queasy at just the thought of that shithead violating me even one more time. “Why even bother if they’re going to lock us up in a room somewhere anyway?” I forced myself to finish.
“So you’d be hopeless,” he said sadly, like it was the most obvious answer in the world. “Those people had you believing that you lost everything. Your family. Your home. You had nothing. Nowhere to go and no one to look for you. So even when you escaped, you never even knew you were loved. He wanted you to stay and live with him in that house willingly. If he had intended to lock you away in a room then no, I don’t think they would’ve bothered brainwashing you first.”
Whimpering over those last few words, my feet stumbled backwards until I hit the wall, and I willingly allowed my body to slide and collapse to the floor. “Why would I… Why would Claire believe any of that? If she had a loving family… How could they just erase all those memories and fill her head with such nonsense?” My lower jaw quivered and I fought the sting as tears began to well behind my eyes. But the dam broke and flooded my face with zigzagging streams. “And if I’m Claire, why would they ever want me back? If I forgot them so easily, how could they ever forgive me for that?”
Nick had been keeping his distance, but his expression became suffocated with pain, and he threw himself to his knees to sweep me into his embrace. My chest heaved uncontrollably as I gasped for air to pass through my swollen throat and fill my lungs.
I wasn’t absolutely sure I was Claire, but everything he said made sense. The lack of memories. The nightmares where my parents seemed so disappointed in me, the fear that always overcame me when I dreamed of them, and how they could ever leave me to someone so vile. Sometimes I wondered what made them choose that guy above all their other friends.
“It’s not your fault,” Nick soothed, gently swaying me, comforting me. “There’s no telling how long it took them to break you. Or how they went about doing it.”
Ugh. That was a horrible thought. What did they do to convince me of these lies? Part of me was pissed enough to go searching inside my head for answers, but the other part of me was scared shitless to find out the truth.
“It was their job to go after you until you broke. Your family won’t hold that against you.”
Choking on the nasal fluid rushing down my throat, I cried, “But I don’t remember those people. There’s nothing in my head, not even in my dreams. How am I supposed to consider them family when I don’t even know who they are?”
“You didn’t remember me either, did you? But once I inserted myself back into your life, your dreams and your subconscious recognized me. Even if you didn’t.”
I pulled my head from the soothing niche between his neck and shoulder, and gazed into his loving emerald eyes. “When did I recognize you?”
His smile warmed my heart. “When you called me Nickolas.”
“I did call you that, didn’t I?” Yelled it, in fact.
He nodded. “I never gave you or anyone else that name here. You remembered it all on your own. And you only ever called me Nickolas when you were pissed off or upset with me.”
Like I was when I shouted it earlier. How did I not catch that? “Nick?” I said, searching deep within his eyes. “You weren’t in that photo album, but you said you were here to watch over me. So who are you to me?”
He gently tucked some stray hairs behind my ear. “I think you already know that.”
11
We slept the rest of the day, with his body spooning mine underneath the covers. Nick called Paul to tell him I was in no state to work and he refused to leave me alone to work himself, so for the first time since I began working there, Breenie’s Diner wouldn’t be open for the night shift.
It was Paul that initiated the downward spiral my life took these past three weeks. Or maybe it was considered an upward spiral now, as it seemed to have resulted in a positive outcome. He’d seen the missing girl flyer for Claire Whitaker when he traveled to Seattle one weekend. Apparently, he’d always been suspicious of my past since all my legal documents burned to ashes and I couldn’t remember my social security number. And with such a common name like Megan Smith, it’d been impossible to run some type of background check on me. He’d only taken my word at face value because he saw the burned flesh on my arm when I reached out for the application paperwork. It was because he thought I was running away from a bad situation that he offered me a job and a place to stay.
Thea had taken Paul’s call, and took it upon herself to check me out. She didn’t want to tell Nick or her parents, to give them hope when she feared there was none left, so the shock and awe on her face that night was honest and sincere. The police had long since warned her that even if I was ever found, I may not remember them anymore, so she knew not to push me just yet. Though I’m sure it was the most difficult thing she probably ever had to do, Thea forced herself to say goodbye, then consulted the others. Her parents wanted to just whip me up and take me home, but their Psychologist friend told them it would do more harm than good, and that forcing themselves on me would probably push me further away.
It was Nick’s idea to work beside me, to befriend and ease his way back into my life, the boyfriend I never even remembered. Guess it was lucky that my heart was just as enamored as Claire’s was. But my parents couldn’t just keep away. They had to see me with their own eyes, too. That’s why Nick was so determined to wait on them when they came to Breenie’s that night, to make sure they could handle hanging around without letting their emotions run away them. Nick wouldn’t let me take over their table until he was confident they wouldn’t say anything to make me suspicious. No wonder they stuck around so long, needing endless refills of coffee.