Tell Me What You Hate About Me

36: Things We Found

"I've been ignoring what everyone's been saying, but that one is just really weird. I'm pretty sure I know which pictures you're talking about, but lots of people here don't," I finally replied out loud.

Hopefully, they were the ones that Dr. Reed gave him of the talisman. If they weren't, that was going to be a new, separate issue I had with this school and education.

"There's this picture of a metallic object with strange markings on it printed out with Lindsay's name written on it in Dr. Rainier's office. Are we all on the same page now?" Harvey looked around the room, and although there wasn't any light besides Dominic's phone, the other two guys in the band nodded.

I had been friends with Jack (and therefore his band) for a year, and I still didn't know their names. Whoops.

"Okay, look, it's probably my fault that I haven't actually bothered to get to know any of you besides Jack, but I'm pretty sure that it means that this isn't any of your business. So if you all agree to just sit still while I try to figure out how to erase some memories, I'll let you all go when I'm done," I said.

"It's that important?" Harvey asked.

"It is if you're the family disappointment who's about to get kicked out of college with no sort of future ahead of you."

"Lindsay, come on. You could always work for Butterfly for the rest of your life," Jack said, but that wasn't nearly as helpful as he thought it was. The only positive thing about that was that I could take more pretty things from her shop.

But instead of telling him that, I didn't say anything else about it. All I could do was move on and try to get my way in the future.

Dear Talisman,

I know I only talk to you when I need something, but I was being totally serious about erasing Harvey and the other two guys' memories. If that's something you can do, that would be great. Thank you in advance.

Sincerely,

Lindsay Hughes

P.S. If you can change the weather and cause life-changing medical emergencies, I know for a fact that you can alter memories. Don't mess this up for me, or I will take us both out.

The lights flickered back on, which seemed promising. Maybe it was some metaphor from the talisman that everyone was completely in the dark about what was in my back pocket and that everything was going to be fine despite the fact that I had put us all in a bad situation once again. But it was mostly Dominic's fault. And Harvey's.

Maybe the past few minutes had disappeared from everyone's mind. That certainly happened to me on plenty of occasions, usually in a classroom setting.

"Now it's cold and bright in here. What a significant improvement," Dominic said.

But also maybe not.

Before I could ask another favor from the talisman, Harvey spoke up. "You know, Rainier told me that nothing about you two added up, and he was right. There's something big going on here, and I'm not letting anyone go until I get a part of it."

I knew this would happen too. As soon as people found out about power, no matter how small or unassuming, it was their way to fix every mistake, to control others, and to make for an easier time with life. The same logic applied to me, but I didn't have any big, crazy intentions. All I wanted was to figure the talisman out so I could finally not be such a failure.

I couldn't say the same for anyone else, besides maybe the people who had stuck with me all the way through without screwing me over yet.

"Shit," I muttered, and my hand mindlessly covered up my back pocket to protect what was inside. "I thought we were having a moment and building a real relationship."