False Memory Read online

  Coma? There’s that word again. Did my mother just say coma? I’m in a coma?

  My chest flutters, something inside it, under my ribs, skittering like a scared mouse.

  “Heart rate’s climbing,” Dr. Smartphone says as a nurse comes in, her scrubs top white with big red hearts all over it. Must be Julie. Julie smells like sandalwood and cats, and she has a smile that reminds me of Mom.

  “She doesn’t like our conversation,” Dad says slowly, watching me like he’s rethinking his opinion of his daughter.

  “Hmmm,” the doctor says, noncommittal. They must learn that in medical school. Every doctor uses that when they don’t like what Mom or Dad is saying.

  Every breath I take feels like I’m starting from scratch. It’s like training a muscle. I’m so aware of it. Except, unlike training on purpose, my body makes me breathe. It’s a weird combination that doesn’t make sense. Involuntary muscle movement that I’m hyper aware of.

  It makes me anxious.

  It makes me feel pain.

  Pain is everywhere. My arms, my legs, my neck, my shoulders. There is a spot right over my ear that feels like someone caved it in with a rock. A brick. A hammer. It feels hollow and full. It feels like all the pressure in the world is on that spot.

  Of all the pain I feel, it’s the hardest to manage.

  Opening my mouth, I try to tell them. Beg them. Ask them to do something to make it go away.

  And then Dr. Smartphone takes my hand, his eyes on mine. He pulls out a small flashlight, the size of a ballpoint pen. Shines it in my right eye.

  More pain.

  “She flinched! Sweetie, does that hurt?” Mom asks, taking my other hand.

  I squeeze them both.

  The doctor almost drops the penlight on my face. Fumbling, he’s so focused on making sure he doesn’t hurt me that he can’t keep the neutral mask he’s been wearing. Emotion pours into his face. My eyes are open, so I see it.

  I see it all.

  And my heart rate zooms.

  All of these medical professionals have written me off. Every single one. Each day, nurses come in and out of the room on a schedule. I can’t go to the bathroom by myself. Can’t eat or swallow. Can’t scratch my arm. Can’t speak.

  Can’t anything.

  Coma. I’ve been in a coma? For fourteen months?

  I squeeze their hands so hard, the doctor yelps.

  Now his face is filled with fear.

  My heart beats even faster.

  Because fear? Fear means he’s realizing he misjudged me.

  And that gives me hope.

  “She’s squeezing your hand, too!” Mom calls out to the doctor, as if he doesn’t know that. “I told you.” She begins to weep.

  This is starting to feel familiar.

  Words line up in the back of my throat. So many words. I have questions. I have pain. They need to know what I know. I need to know what happened to me.

  I need to make sure the bad man doesn’t come back.

  “She’s in pain,” the doctor finally says, that fear never leaving his face. It’s etched into the lines at the corners of his eyes, sprinkled across the light stubble on his chin, skimming the surface of the hair on the backs of his hands as he makes notes in a handheld electronic device they use to track my life inside this room. All I am is observed data.

  A nurse touches the IV station to my left, eyes moving from reading to reading, and then warmth washes over me.

  I don’t want it.

  I want to stay cold and alert.

  Because I have to tell them.

  Tell them about the bad man.

  The door to my room opens. I’m hazy, the fog of something cold and hot in my veins making my pain stand aside. It shuffles away, hiding in the corner, watching me. The nurses never really make the hurt go away.

  It just finds a place to hide where no one notices it.

  Except me.

  As the bed begins to rock side to side, like I’m on a rowboat in the middle of the ocean, I see him. Them. Both of them.

  Suits. Earpieces. Hidden guns. One of them has a scar along the side of his face, pulling his eye down. He smells like lemon, like wood shavings, reminding me of my great-grandpa in Missouri, where we used to visit until he died when I was eight.

  The other man is my killer.

  “Her heart rate’s rising,” the doctor says. He steps over to where the nurse is standing by the IV and they confer quietly.

  Mom squeezes my hand and bends to my ear. Her breath tickles the edge. I want to squirm. I can’t.

  More pain. My chest burns with fear.

  “Sweetie? Duff’s here. You remember Duff, right?”

  I don’t look at him. I don’t look at him on purpose. Because if I look at him, the man standing next to him will know I can respond, and if he knows I can respond, he’ll kill me.

  “Jesus, that’s a crazy spike,” Dr. Smartphone snaps at the nurse. “We need more sedation.”

  “Hi, Lily,” Duff says. He doesn’t smile.

  Duff hardly ever smiled before, though.

  Before.

  “We heard she was coming out of the coma,” Duff says to my Dad, who walks across the room to shake his hand like they’re old friends. I want to scream at Dad, tell him to run away, tell him to take me and flee, because these are not friends.

  If Duff is with my killer, then he’s the opposite of my friend.

  Mom has told me the story of how Duff saved me. That Duff is the reason I’m still alive.

  How can that be true if he’s standing here, casually talking to my killer like they’re friends?

  Sensation turns to pain when you have no control. A full-body flush of horror ripples across my skin. Mom frowns as she senses it, her eyes tracking my arms, my legs, my face.

  “There,” the nurse says, looking up at the red numbers on the IV machine. She fiddles with a clear tube. “That’ll help her.”

  The doctor seems satisfied, a small huff of breath his only reply.

  “Lily? Lily, what’s wrong?” Mom asks as my arms, my legs, every inch of skin turns to hot air, floating away as I disintegrate. The pain is my only tether.

  My killer turns so fast, facing me, that I can’t look away in time.

  Our eyes meet.

  I close mine.

  I open them. I can't help myself.

  It’s worse than I thought. My killer smiles at Duff, who looks back at him, not smiling, but clearly engaged. Familiar.

  Duff is in on it. Duff was trying to kill me, too. He didn’t pull the trigger, but he’s in on it.

  He has to be.

  For the first time since I’ve woken up, I wish I were dead.

  Because I’m about to be, if they get me alone.

  Chapter 3

  “Hi, Lily!” Donna says, watching me watching her. “Love the eye tracking.”

  That’s another really annoying part about being bedridden but conscious: you get praise for the stupidest things. I don’t need an attagirl for being able to look.

  It’s been two days since I last saw my killer. The doctors say I’m breathing fine on my own, but pain management has been changed. They drug me more now, I think. I can squeeze hands and tell them. They always overdo it.

  So now I have a choice: be aware but in pain, or be out cold and unsafe.

  Unsafe because they could kill me with a pillow if they got me alone.

  How do you protect yourself when you can’t move more than a few fingers and one toe? I’m up to that now. Yay, Lily. Maybe I’ll get a medal from the physical therapist. Or a gold star from the respiratory therapist.

  Tap tap tap.

  My amazing eyes that impressively track like an Olympian dart to the door.

  It’s Duff.

  “Hey, Lily,” he says, not smiling but with eyes that seem soft. Gentle. Caring.

  He’s one hell of an actor.

  He’s wearing his standard dark suit and white shirt, but no tie today. A tiny coffee container is in h
is right hand. In his left, he carries a manila folder.

  All business, right?

  Killing me off is just another work task, like checking email or filling out a reimbursement report.

  I swallow, hard, and try to move my left hand towards Donna. The hem of her scrubs top is so close. I close my eyes and push push push my hand.

  No movement.

  My jaw aches, pain running up from where my tongue rests against the inside of my teeth and into my eye socket. Breathing becomes my sole focus. If I hold my breath, my oxygen sats will drop. And if they drop, the doctors and nurses will worry about me.

  Wait a minute.

  That could be the answer.

  The more trouble the hospital staff thinks I’m in, the less likely they’ll be to leave me alone with Duff.

  So I hold my breath. On purpose.

  Ten seconds pass. Twenty. I look at the second hand on the clock on the wall behind Duff. At first, he thinks I’m watching him and he gives me a small smile. It’s polite. Simple. Contained.

  Because why would you give your prey anything more?

  You don’t realize how quickly the blood in your body starts thumping against your veins and arteries when you hold your breath. It happens fast, the pain in my head exploding.

  “What’s going on, Lily?” Donna asks, alarm rising in her voice. “Is something in your airway?” A gloved finger pokes at my lips. I tighten them.

  Bad mistake.

  She moves her ear close to my nose, hair tickling the tip. It startles me. I jolt, then inhale sharply.

  “Hmm. Weird.” Eyeing me with a skepticism I don’t think I really deserve, she narrows her eyes. For someone who is always so cheerful, this is unnerving.

  “She okay?” Duff asks. There’s real concern in his voice.

  Correction: he’s really good at faking concern. Why would he care whether I’m okay or not when all he wants to do is kill me?

  “Huhhhh,” I say, the sound light, like a feather caught in my throat. Every part of my mouth is dry, so the sound makes my tongue stick to my tonsils as I let it come forth. Then I cough. My back arches, lungs burning.

  Donna holds my shoulders as the spasms calm down. My head throbs. My feet tingle. Duff’s watching me, brow down, hand on his smartphone.

  I’m a case to him. A client’s friend. A mark. Whatever he sees in here, he’ll report to his bosses.

  Bosses who clearly ordered him to help have me killed.

  The dark-haired man walks in. I avoid looking at him. I close my eyes, heart screaming for Donna to help me.

  “Huuuuuh,” I say again, the word involuntary. I can’t stop.

  “Lily, are you trying to say something?”

  I am.

  Help.

  Help me.

  The dark-haired man looks at Duff and thumbs towards me. “What’s wrong?”

  “She’s coming out of the coma.”

  He nods. “Any signs of brain damage?”

  “Don’t know.” Duff’s voice is low, filled with meaning I don’t understand.

  And then suddenly, I do.

  If I’m brain damaged, I’m not a threat.

  “Gentian’s rescheduled the weekly meeting,” the man says. “Today at five.”

  Duff looks at his phone. “That’s in forty-five minutes, Romeo.”

  That’s right. His name is Romeo.

  Romeo.

  “Better get moving,” Romeo grunts with a half smirk, the kind of macho bullshit ribbing guys like them do to each other. Duff grunts back, a sound that says I hear you but also Shut the hell up.

  My senses are on edge. I’m trapped in a body that doesn’t work.

  And now I remember the name of my killer.

  Romeo.

  “I’ll be right back, Lily,” Donna says, grabbing her electronic device and staring at it with a frown.

  No! I want to scream. Don’t leave me alone with them!

  But all I can do is say, “Huuuuuuh” and track her as she leaves.

  Duff jerks, walking closer to me, peering into my eyes. I don’t look at him. I stare straight ahead and pretend.

  Pretend I’m not really here.

  “She doesn’t look like she’s all there,” Romeo declares, eyes dark and mysterious, looking to Duff for confirmation.

  “I dunno,” Duff says, voice low and deep. “She’s a fighter.”

  “Fourteen months,” Romeo says. “Should have died a long, long time ago.”

  “What?” Duff gives him a WTF? look.

  I blink.

  “You know. Gunshot wound to the head like that. Should have killed her.”

  “No video from the flower shop. Her dad is against ‘Big Brother’ and refused to have it installed,” Duff says, his tone making it clear he thinks my dad is full of it. “No way to know what happened. Someone snuck up on her from behind, though. We know that from the forensics report.”

  I close my eyes.

  And remember.

  My friend Jane was in the back of the shop, going to the bathroom. We were making hundreds of boutonnieres for some event. A dance at a university? Something with fraternities? I don’t remember.

  The bell over the door never made a sound.

  The silence of that won’t stop ringing in my ears.

  I was taping a pin, the green florist’s tape wrapping in a careful spiral around the glinting metal. I felt him before I heard him, my eyes drawn to the small mirror Mom kept on the shelf in front of me.

  Those dark eyes caught mine.

  And then it all went black.

  If I open my eyes right now, I will see his again. The pain. The void. The abyss that calls to me when I think of him is too great, too much, too terrifying.

  Come back, Donna! I want to shout to my nurse, but I can’t.

  Because I have to pretend I’m less than I really am.

  I can’t let them know I remember he tried to kill me.

  It’s the only way to survive.

  Chapter 4

  Memory is a fickle beast.

  Good memories are soothing, joyful, weaving a fabric that feels like a soft blanket on a cold winter’s night.

  Bad memories are terrifying, triggering a biochemical reaction that makes us relive the trauma our brains store forever.

  And then there are the memories that fall into neither camp, caught in the in-between.

  Sometimes those are worse than the relived horror of bad memories.

  Because the brain is left to fend for itself.

  I’m running through the last few weeks I can remember before being shot, how I met my friend Jane, how I bought a new comforter for my bed at home, how I helped Mom with pumpkin-season orders, remembering the cute barista at the coffee shop around the corner, Hot Cup of Hope. The banal parade of memories that don’t matter suddenly makes it clear that they do.

  They do matter.

  They are the glue that holds the fabric of my life together.

  I can’t live with only the good and the bad. There has to be a middle.

  I need the middle.

  “Lily?” I open my eyes to find my little brother standing there, Bowie’s face a tight mask of awkwardness. His voice is gentle. Questioning. Soothing.

  Sometimes I panic when I’m surprised by someone. When that happens, I forget how to breathe. It’s not conscious. Never intentional. I just stop.

  Beep! Beep! Beep!

  The machine isn’t there to remind me. It’s there to warn other people that something is wrong with me. Right now, it’s my friend.

  Inhaling hurts, but I do it.

  Bowie’s frozen in place, mouth slightly open as his eyes dart from the machine to me. The beeping stops. He stays in place, uncertain, frightened. He looks like my little brother, small and sweet and annoying all wrapped up in a teenage package.

  “Buh. Buh,” is all I can manage, but it makes his eyes get round as moons and he sprints out of the room.

  So much for welcomes.

  “The nurs
es said she was saying ‘huhhhh’ but you swear, Bowie? She said the letter B? Buh?” Mom appears by my side, her soft, round body warm as she takes my hand, the circles under her eyes filling me with guilt.

  “B for Bowie! I know it, Mom. Lily looked right at me and said ‘Buh,’ twice.” Bowie’s seventeen and looks like a surfer, with long, angled bangs and a pointed chin. No facial hair yet, but that’s because he surfs so much that the tan burned off any hope of it, Dad jokes.

  “Buh,” I say, to prove him right.

  “See? See, Mom? Told you!” Bowie’s breath comes out in big bursts of excitement. My skin feels like I have ants running through the blood underneath, and a horrible heartburn tears its way into my throat.

  Tears fill my eyes.

  “Muh,” I say.

  Mom gasps.

  “Muh.”

  Sweat prickles along my brow and upper lip, and a creepy-crawly feeling ripples across my whole body. This is it. A tipping point. No turning back now. I can try to talk, but once I try, if I succeed, the man with dark hair–Romeo–will know I can tell people he’s the one.

  And then Duff will know.

  And then what?

  Despair makes my eyes wet with tears as Mom sobs with joy. “Lily!” she says, her hands smoothing the hair off my face, pinkie finger catching on a piece of adhesive tape. The pull makes my cheek hurt, but I can’t tell her that.

  “Mmmmmm,” is all I can manage.

  You would think I just gave a valedictory speech.

  Flushing red, she looks like a goddess, a moon fairy, a good witch. Every part of the universe that is loving and kind is swirled into my mother’s face in this moment, and all I can do is say “Mmm.”

  Mom.

  Me.

  “Get the doctor!” she orders Bowie, who runs off, yelling, down the hall. A nurse I don’t know comes in, smiling without my mother’s intensity, clearly used to her.

  “What’s going on, Bee?”

  “Lily talked.”

  The nurse’s face changes, a condescending expression that pisses me off so, so much. “I’m sure she just–”

  “Mmmmuh,” I say. “Muh.”

  Her name tag says Linda. One eyebrow cinches up. “Holy shit.”

  “Get. The. Doctor. Now,” Mom growls.