“Why would you do that?” I ask, unsure of what he’s thinking. Why he’s here at all.
“Because I’m a nice guy,” he offers with a smirk. He’s flirting despite the clearly shitty day we’re both having. Doesn’t he wonder why Dr. Wyatt pulled me into his meeting? Or maybe he just wants to forget about it.
Despite my reservations, I pop the hood of the Jeep. “All right,” I say, a little shaky. “Have at it.”
Wes drops his backpack on the pavement, rounds the Jeep, and props up the hood. I lean down so I can see him through the opening near the windshield. He presses his lips together and stares at the engine, making his dimples deepen. The sun beats down on his cheeks, and they’re slightly red, freckles dotting his nose.
What starts as admiration quickly turns into longing. It hits me how much I need him to know me. Love me again—the way he did in the beginning of us. I want him to confirm that I’m real—that some things were real.
“Well,” Wes says, looking up from under the hood. I quell the rising panic in my chest, not wanting to alarm him. “It could be your battery,” Wes says. “Can you try starting it again?”
I do just that, and, to my surprise, the engine turns over. Wes closes the hood, grinning at me. I leave the engine running and get out of the driver’s seat.
“I swear it wouldn’t start,” I say, temporarily stunned out of my misery.
“You sure you weren’t just trying to get me to come over?” Wes asks, leaning against the Jeep.
Suddenly the engine sputters and dies out. Wes laughs loudly, staring at me wide-eyed like he caused it to stall by making a bad joke. He tells me to pop the hood again, and we try, unsuccessfully, to get the engine running.
After a few minutes, I give up and climb out from behind the wheel. Wes still stands in front of the Jeep, his hands folded on top of his head as he stares at the engine.
“Well, shit,” he says. “Do you have jumper cables?”
“I don’t,” I say.
Wes scans the parking lot. “I can ask around,” he says. “Someone should—”
“It’s fine,” I say, not wanting him to worry about it. “I’ll call my grandfather. Thanks for trying, though.”
Wes closes the hood and comes over to where I’m standing next to the Jeep. He picks up his backpack from the concrete, pulling one strap over his right shoulder. He doesn’t walk away immediately, and I don’t want him to. There are so many questions burning in my mind. In my heart.
Do you love me?
Did you know I was in The Program?
Can I ever let you go?
I finally gather some nerve and open my mouth to ask about our meeting with Dr. Wyatt. A simple start. But before I can, Wes peeks around the open driver’s door and motions inside the Jeep.
“Mind if I check it out?” he asks, his eyes flashing with anticipation.
“Oh,” I say. My question falls away, and I wonder if that was his intention. “Sure. All yours.”
Wes has always loved my Jeep. He’d change the oil and get it washed for me. Every so often I’d let him drive and gaze at him as he drove too fast. The fact he wants to see it now strums my heart, and I don’t want to ruin the moment. It’s too familiar, too right.
Wes climbs inside the Jeep, making himself comfortable in the seat as he inspects the dash and the gearshift. He looks over at me.
“What year is this?” he asks as if he can’t tell. He probably can’t. It’s been rebuilt a bunch of times, something Wes no longer remembers.
“She’s about ten years past her prime,” I say, studying his every movement. Looking for flashes of him.
“Nonsense,” Wes replies, running his hand lovingly across the steering wheel. “She’s perfect.”
Just then I catch something out of the corner of my eye. I turn and see a guy, slightly hidden by his car, across the parking lot. He looks away, pretending he hasn’t been watching us, but I recognize him. I saw him in the Adjustment office; he knows Marie Devoroux. What was his name? It was unusual. Realm. Michael Realm, I think.
“Hey,” I say to Wes, tapping his arm. He looks down at where I touched him before lifting his eyes to mine. “Do you know that guy?” I ask, nodding toward Michael Realm.
Wes leans out, but I stop him.
“Covertly,” I say.
He sniffs a laugh and then ducks down to look in the side-view mirror. He narrows his eyes. “The tall guy?”
“Yeah.”
“Is he your boyfriend?” Wes asks. “I’m jealous.”
His comment catches me off guard, makes me blush. I stare at him for a moment, surprised by how easily he flirts with me, and hoping it means more than it probably does.
“No,” I say quietly. “He’s not my boyfriend.” Wes puts his fingers over his lips like he’s trying not to smile at my answer. I turn back to Michael Realm. “I met him once,” I say, growing distracted as I search my memory. “I’m sure it’s him.”
“Well, I’ve never seen him before in my life,” Wes says. In reality, Wes was with me when I met him.
I watch Michael Realm a little longer, knowing it’s too much of a coincidence that he’s here the same day Wes came back. Same day Dr. Wyatt questioned us. I just don’t know how he plays into all of this.
“What is he doing here?” I say more to myself than Wes.
“Did you want to go talk to him, or . . . ?”
“No,” I say. “That wasn’t what I . . . I’m not interested in him.”
“Good,” Wes responds. “I was worried I’d have to be more obvious.”
I laugh, and the sound of it—the lightness of it—is startling. Surreal and free of consequence. “I’m not sure you’re being that subtle,” I say, making him smile. The truth is, I like how he’s flirting with me. I like how it makes me feel, how it overshadows the absolute wreckage of my reality.
Wes leans back in the seat, carefree. He doesn’t have the weight of his memories, his past. He’s not a tortured soul. At least, not anymore. I barely remember this version of him. In fact, I’m not sure I ever knew this version of him.
I throw an incautious glance in Michael Realm’s direction, and he hurriedly gets into his black car. He could be here to remind me of Dr. McKee’s warning to stay away from Wes—to keep his past from him. I promised I would. I begged the doctor to save Wes’s life, and he did.
This is the cost.
I look at Wes and know that I can’t ask him the questions I want. I can’t tell him who he is to me, who we are to each other. Even though he’s right here in front of me, he’s never felt so far away.
“Do you want to grab lunch with me?” Wes asks, climbing out of the Jeep. “There’s a pizza place—”
“No,” I say too quickly. Rejecting him doesn’t come naturally to me, and we both shift uncomfortably. I avoid his eyes when he turns to me.
“Do you . . . I mean, your Jeep won’t start,” he says, a slight insecurity in his voice. “And it’s lunchtime. What are you going to eat?”
I look over at him, standing close enough to touch. Knowing how easy it would be to fall into a relationship with him again.
“And not to sound pathetic,” he adds, “but I don’t have any friends. So if you’re feeling charitable—”
“Do you like pancakes?” I ask.
“I happen to fucking love pancakes,” he responds immediately. “Why do you ask?”
“There’s a place that serves breakfast all day. None of that IHOP shit either. You know Lulu’s?” Wes and I had only been there once before.
“I don’t know it,” he says. “But it sounds perfect. I hope you’re inviting me and not just taunting me with your talk of all-day pancakes.”
I laugh. “We can probably get there and back before next hour,” I say.
“Or . . . ,” he offers, shrugging one shoulder. “We don’t come back.”
“Huh,” I say like he’s got a novel idea. “I’ll think about it. But do you mind . . . ?” I motion to my nonstarting J
eep. “I doubt it’ll start a second time.”
“It would be my absolute pleasure to drive you to brunch,” he replies. Wes smiles, and it’s the purity in his expression that reminds me of how Wes makes me feel like the most important person in the world. Like he can see me. Like he can make it all real again.
Sharing a stack of pancakes together can’t hurt. In fact, being near him is the only thing that doesn’t hurt right now. We’re in our own private universe.
Wes closes the door of my Jeep, and we start toward his parking space.
“Hope you don’t mind the open air,” he says, pointing to his motorcycle. “I have an extra helmet.”
“I don’t mind,” I tell him, not wanting to give away that I know what he rides, and I know he always has an extra helmet—a habit he started when we got together.
We get to his bike, and Wes pulls my helmet from the pack and holds it out to me. As I take it, he runs his eyes over me. He seems to debate what he’s going to say next. “It was Tatum, right?” he asks.
I nod, and neither of us acknowledges that it was Dr. Wyatt who mentioned my name in the first place. Wes climbs onto the bike, moving up on the seat so I can get on behind him.
“And do we know each other, Tatum?” he asks, snapping the chin strap on his helmet. He doesn’t look back at me, but something in his voice tells me he’s been waiting to ask that question from the first moment he saw me in class. I must be familiar to him.
My entire body warms with the depth of the answer, the love between us, but I can’t explain it to him; I won’t put him in danger. But I can’t outright deny it either.
“Yeah,” I say quietly, putting on my helmet. “We do.”
Wes kicks the bike to life, and it sends a vibration over my entire body. I put my hands on either side of his waist, a familiar movement that is suddenly anything but. He doesn’t follow up on the question, and I’m grateful. I don’t want to lie to him. And I don’t want to tell him the truth.
I’ll have to figure out exactly what I can say, but for now, we’re going for a ride on his motorcycle, wind in our faces, free.
And as Wes revs the engine and drives us toward the parking lot exit, I glance back at Michael Realm and find him watching us leave. His expression deadly serious.
CHAPTER FOUR
WES AND I DON’T TALK as we ride toward the restaurant. Normally, Wes would turn back to me at every stoplight, continuing a conversation the entire way. We have less to say to each other now—odd, considering we have so much more to talk about. But there’s intimacy in conversation. An intimacy based on shared experiences. He doesn’t remember those.
Lulu’s is a house-turned-café with overflowing flower beds, pale yellow siding, and a white picket fence. Their pancakes are legendary, as is the usual wait time to get a table.
As we pull up, Wes glances around and then smiles at me. “Now, this place is goddamn delightful,” he says emphatically.
“It is,” I agree. “It’s usually really busy, but it doesn’t look too bad today.”
We stash our helmets and go inside. Even though there’s not a wait, it’s a little hectic, nearly every table taken. The café smells like hazelnut coffee and maple syrup, the air warm from all the bodies in here. The music is on, but it’s not loud enough to make out what’s playing. Right now it sounds like moaning whales.
It’s a seat-yourself situation, and Wes and I go stand at a table near the window just as the guy sitting there packs up his laptop. When he’s gone, Wes and I sit across from each other, perusing the menu. The server comes by, and we order coffees and two stacks of pancakes.
Wes puts his elbows on the table and leans in. “Before we address the psychotic school administrator with the out-of-line interview tactics,” he says, “I feel like we should talk about your fists of fury in the Jeep. I mean, I wasn’t going to bring it up . . . but you . . .” He scrunches his nose as if making sure it’s a topic he can mention. “You were crying during first hour too. I was worried.”
I study him to see if this is all a ruse somehow, like he might remember. Otherwise, why would he worry? Why would he ask me to lunch? I’m probably projecting, but then again, maybe it’s still there—our love. But the way his soft brown eyes study me, trying to figure me out, confirms he’s not the old Wes. Not the one I knew.
“This morning, when you saw me,” I say, lowering my gaze to the table, “my best friend had just told me something devastating. Life altering. And I . . . I’m not handling it all that well.”
There’s a sudden and aching fear creeping into my lungs, squeezing. Grief surrounds me. I’m scared because it feels like I’m all alone in this. In my whole life, I’ve never been truly alone until now.
“You can tell me,” Wes says, and I look up at him. “I know I’m sort of a stranger,” he adds, “but I don’t have any ulterior motives. At least none that I can remember.” He offers me a small smile.
The server appears and drops off our coffees. I nod a thank-you and wrap my hands around my hot mug.
“To be honest,” I tell Wes. “That’s why you might be the only person I can trust right now.”
“Exactly.”
I watch him, his concern, and imagine things are different between us. The way they used to be. But that only lasts a moment because there is no “used to be.” Wes and I were just as big a lie as the rest of it. The only real thing is now. This moment.
“What did your friend tell you, Tatum?” he asks. “What could be so bad?”
“I was in The Program,” I murmur, the words breaking my heart. “I was in The Program, and I don’t remember any of it.”
Wes tilts his head, seeming confused. “Isn’t that the point?”
“No. I was supposed to forget my problems, or at least what they considered problems. But I remember the bad stuff. I mean, some of my memories are wrong, but overall, I have them. It’s The Program that’s gone. They made me forget the wrong stuff. They’ve done something. They changed me.”
“You’re not who you used to be,” Wes says, grabbing sugar to pour into his coffee. “Funny story, neither am I. Seems we have that in common, Tate. Two lost souls.”
He called me Tate—he must remember that. Or maybe it’s proof that, given the chance, most of us would make the same decisions, same mistakes, even if we don’t realize we’re making them. Maybe that’s what fate really is.
“I don’t know what to do now,” I confide. “Because it’s not just that I forgot. No one told me. My family, my friends, they kept it a secret. How can I face them, knowing they kept something so huge from me?”
“I can relate,” Wes says, stirring his coffee, the metal spoon clinking on the ceramic. “My parents act like I’ve been away at summer camp. None of us has said a word about my past. So I can tell you that eventually, you’ll accept it. And you’ll forgive your family because you have to.”
I’m not sure if Wes is right, but the level of sadness in his voice bothers me. Forgiveness is voluntary. There should be no “have to” about it.
“Besides,” Wes adds. “I’m starting to believe that our memories can be a dangerous place. Part of why I’m so damn charming is because I don’t remember how royally fucked my life has been. So I refuse to look back,” he continues. “I’m afraid it will kill me. You’re welcome to join me in my blissful ignorance if you’d like.” He smiles, hopeful.
That’s why he didn’t immediately bring up my inexplicable presence at his meeting with Dr. Wyatt. Blissful ignorance—it can have its advantages in this world. And honestly, I want to say that I’ll join him. But I can’t let this go so easily. It’s not fair—it’s not fair to me. To be lied to. Betrayed. I have to know how deep it goes before I can put it behind me.
“You’re not going to take my offer,” Wes says, sounding disappointed.
“Not yet. But . . . maybe I can once I have answers.”
Wes lifts one eyebrow like he doesn’t believe me, sets his spoon aside, and takes a sip of his coffee
. He hums out that it’s good.
“Well,” he says. “Speaking of answers, we should get back to that psychotic administrator. Dr. Wyatt, was it? She’s kind of weird. Why does she care if I was in The Program?”
“She’s obsessed with returners,” I say. “Monitoring them and looking for signs of another outbreak, I guess.”
“Outbreak?”
I stare at him blankly, not sure how to begin explaining an epidemic that killed so many of our friends. I could never illustrate the gravity of it. What it did to us.
“Oh,” Wes says. “You mean the suicides? I read about that,” he adds quietly. Which means he knows the reason both of us ended up in The Program—they thought we were a danger to ourselves. True or not, that was the excuse they used to erase our pasts.
“Dr. Wyatt is acting like they did something else to me,” Wes says, lifting his eyes to mine. “Do you know what she was talking about?”
I swallow hard, but before I can figure out what to say, the server drops off our pancakes. They smell both sweet and buttery, and Wes lets the question drop as he digs into his food.
We’re quiet for a while, and when we’re nearly done eating, I absently look over to the counter. My stomach sinks when I see Kyle Mahoney there, picking up two coffees to go. Her white-blond cascade of hair, her tan legs and bare shoulders—I’m not imagining that Wes’s eyes drift toward her.
It’s a stab in my heart, and I want to tell him to stop. Stop looking at her. Stop noticing her. But Wes once told me that the heart has muscle memory . . . and that would apply to her, too. I wasn’t the only one who took up space in his life.
I push away the unfinished pancakes and grip my hot coffee cup. When I lift my head, Wes is watching me.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I say unconvincingly.
“Is it her?” he asks, nodding at Kyle’s back. “Do you know her? Wait, do I know her? Never mind. Don’t tell me. It doesn’t matter.”
“But maybe it does,” I say quietly. “Not just her—but maybe it all matters.” I want to believe his past matters—that I matter to him. But my conscience screams at me. Don’t tell him. Don’t hurt him.