“I don’t want to hurt you, Tanner. But I don’t need to defend myself to you either.”
“I don’t know where we go from here. Where I go.” He ran his hand over his open mouth and then his jaw. “You were with someone else.”
“It’s not like I wanted to want him. You know, I had this whole idea that I was going to preserve myself, keep myself clean or pure or something, for the person I was before I lost my memory. For this Ray person. But time passed, and King and I, we grew close. And after a while I was so tired of fighting it. Tired of putting the life I could have on hold for a life I knew nothing about. So I let him in. I let him tattoo me. I let him…love me.” The words brought back memories that caused tears to prickle in the back of my eyes. “I don’t regret it though. Any of it. I won’t. And it doesn’t matter what you say, because you can’t make me.”
“Jesus Christ, Ray. He’s like thirty, and you’re just a teenager! On top of that, you’re the only girl I’ve ever been with, and the last time we had sex was when we were fifteen! And you’re standing here telling me that you let him…” He took a step toward the window seat and bent over, leaning his hands against it for support. “You let him…touch you.” He finished in a much calmer tone of voice than he’d started.
A lump formed in my throat. “Yes.” I said, fighting back the tears. “Don’t you dare judge me. I can be sympathetic to you because I know how it feels to be confused and overwhelmed, but that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t know you.” I stared him down and held my ground. I was not about to let him or anyone tell me that what King and I had was somehow wrong.
Tanner threw his hands in the air. “Well, that makes two of us. The Ray I knew never once raised her voice, never yelled, never swore. You may look like her, but you’re just an imposter.” His words slapped me across the face. I could feel the sting as real as if he’d used his hand. “Maybe you shouldn’t have come back after all.” He said, the corner of his lip turned up in disgust.
“Leave,” I demanded, stomping my foot on the ground and pointing toward the window he’d used to come in. “Now.”
Tanner stepped up on the window seat and had one leg dangling off the ledge when he hesitated for a moment. Slowly he turned back toward me, his watery eyes shimmered. “I’m sorry. I really am. I just…I still love you, Ray,” Tanner said softly.
I was still in defense mode, but I realized that the only reason Tanner was lashing out at me was because he really was heart broken. I couldn’t let him leave without giving him something. “I can’t tell you the same, but I know I felt something for you, before all this. It’s the only reason I can think of that your eyes were the only thing I recognize in all this. That’s got to mean something, right?” I offered. Tanner smiled a small sad smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I even sketched them once,” I added, hoping that little bit of information might bring him some sort of comfort.
“Do you love him?” he asked with sadness in his voice. “Tell me the truth, Ray. I can handle it.” I didn’t believe that for one second. I searched my brain and my heart for the answer, one that despite all the bullshit, all the lies, all the misunderstanding, I’d never doubted.
“Yes,” I answered simply.
Tanner cringed. He turned and leapt from the window onto a nearby tree branch. By the time I walked over to the ledge he was on the ground brushing leaves off of his pants. He looked back up to my window. “Even though he knew who you were but didn’t tell you? Even though he used you in order to get his own daughter back? You still love him despite all that?” He whisper shouted his question.
I tried to explain my complicated feelings to him the best I could, “You can be pissed off and still love someone at the same time,” I said.
Tanner walked across the lawn but before he disappeared into the dark shadows I heard him mutter, “I can relate.”
Chapter Five
Doe
I spent the next three days in my room, alone. Only getting out of bed for a quick shower and change of clothes. But I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t sleep with the exception of a cat nap here and there when my body argued that it was tired while the rest of me was on high alert.
It was past midnight when I awoke from such a nap and found myself in pitch blackness. The panic started to set in. I tried to take a deep breath but I couldn’t pull in air. I fumbled for the remote, but when I found it and pressed every button on it, nothing happened. Willing myself to keep searching for a light source I felt around on the wall beside the bed for a switch but couldn’t find one. Finally, I ran over to the window and pushed back the curtains, hoping the light from the moon was enough to allow me to catch my breath for a second. No such luck. Storm clouds hung low in the air, rumbling across the sky, vibrating the floor underneath my feet. All I could think of was that I was going to die from sheer panic.
I crouched down onto the floor and wrapped my arms around my knees. My chest was so tight. The room spun around me, books on the shelf blended together in a line. It was then I finally realized something. Maybe my panic wasn’t about being alone in the dark.
Maybe it was just about being alone.
The only person I felt any sort of connection with in this new/old life was Sammy, and I’d only seen him for a matter of minutes. And with the way Tanner and I had left things¸ I didn’t know when I would be able to see Sammy again.
Maybe never.
I could’ve said the same thing about King.
Suddenly I felt like breathing the air in that house, in that room, was like inhaling poison. The more I breathed it in, the more I felt like I was going to die right then and there on the bedroom floor I didn’t remember.
I was going to suffocate.
I had to get the fuck out.
I didn’t bother with shoes. Still in the shorts and tank top I wore to bed, I stepped up onto the window seat and pushed open the window. I shuffled until my legs were dangling over the edge like Tanner had done. There was nothing but darkness beneath my feet. Holding onto the window frame with one arm, I stretched out the other and felt around for the tree branch I knew was there. The second my hand touched it a sense of familiarity encompassed me. The tree and I had long been acquaintances, I was sure of it. I may have not known where to look or what to hold onto, but my body knew. Without a single misstep, I managed to lower myself onto the tree branch and with a second nature type precision, I found a branch to grab and ridges for my footing, without much thought at all. At one point, without knowing exactly how far down the ground was beneath my feet, I felt the urge to jump.
So I did.
Sharp blades of thick grass stung the soles of my feet on impact. I crouched down to brace myself as I landed. When I stood up and a motion light buzzed to life, its soft hum breaking into the quiet of the night like a freight train barreling down the tracks at full speed. Tanner must have known where to step without turning the light on.
And then I ran.
Darting off across the yard, kicking up water, grass, and mud onto the backs of my calves I sprinted as fast as I could make my short legs move.
The short iron fence around the property stopped at the line of bushes that defined the back yard. The natural foliage acting as its own kind of fence. I ran directly for a small tunnel like opening in the bushes, barley slowing down as I ducked down into it, maneuvering through like I’d done it a thousand times before. Leaves and thorns both licked and stung my elbows, pulling at my hair as I passed through, but I continued on until I emerged on the other side of the path onto a small beach.
The clouds took turns slowly passing over the moon; the light reflected off the still water looked as if someone were playing with a dimmer on a light switch. I followed the shoreline, the cool water lapping over my feet, the mushy sand pushed up between my toes with each step.
When I came across overgrown mangroves in my path that were growing from the ‘fence’ of the backyard out across the water several feet, I didn’t give what I was about to do a second thought. I turned and waded into the dark water. It had felt only mildly cool on my feet when I was walking but as the water inched up higher and higher on my legs, it was downright cold.
When the water rose over my waist, I shivered.
I pushed through water, sinking into the soft earth, sending little waves crashing against the base of the trees. Something darted out into the water in front of me. At first I thought it was a snake, the way it slithered from side to side making an S shape in the water. I waded out further to avoid it, but when it slithered right by me, I realized that it wasn’t a snake at all, but a large lizard. It hissed as it passed, like an angry driver giving me the finger.
Once I cleared the trees I sloshed back up to the shore on the other side. My shorts hung heavily off of my hips, clinging to my thighs.
I found myself in a small alcove with an old weathered dock that connected to an even older and more weathered pier. Tethered to the pier was a dilapidated houseboat that was decades over its expiration date. The tethering was entirely unnecessary as the boat was mostly on the beach, resting at an angle that told me it had probably been that way for a long time. As I approached the strong odor of mildew, mixed with the salt air, grew stronger and stronger. Much to my surprise I inhaled deeply and unlike the extreme sense of panic I’d experienced in the house, an eerie sense of calm washed over me.