Tell Me What You Hate About Me

40: Remember When

Maybe there was hope for me, too. I doubted it, though.

"Lindsay," he said suddenly and grabbed onto my wrist as we climbed up the few steps to Dr. Reed's front porch. His breathing sped up, and my heart sank into my stomach.

"What's going on?" I asked. "Do you need your inhaler?"

"It's back. I remember everything."

Everything? How would he know if he was remembering everything? But as a few tears blurred my vision and my nose started to run, I felt a similar sensation all the way down in my bones. Of course, I remembered everything that had happened, but for once, I had made something better instead of worse.

Everything. And it was all going to be fine.

"I knew I could fix it," I said to myself as a tiny sob snuck out as well. But I didn't even care that he was about to see me cry. The relief was far better than anything I could have hoped for.

"Oh, don't get too happy. I have a lot of questions, and I know that you have an answer for maybe one, will lie about not having an answer for another, and probably genuinely don't know what the hell the answers are to the rest."

Way to ruin the moment, Dominic. I bit my cheek. "What answer do I know?"

"You did that to make sure Jack's bandmates wouldn't remember the talisman, but you screwed it all up. Right?"

I nodded. "Yep."

"And why the hell would you hold my hand like that? Did you feel sorry for me, or did you mean it?"

I hesitated. "Is that the question you think I'm gonna lie about?"

He nodded. "I don't get it. I completely understand why you would like me, but it doesn't make sense that I would—"

I cut him off. "What are you even talking about? You were mean to me for weeks, and I was cute and fun about it for the most part. The real question is why would I like you?"

"Because you literally told me you do, and I'm smarter than you."

I crossed my arms. "You're not smarter than me. You're just more focused and better at school."

Before Dominic could admit that I was very right (and therefore smarter than him), the lock on the front door clicked. I had forgotten we were standing on Dr. Reed's porch in the moment. Whoops.

"What the hell are you two doing here? It's rude to argue on someone's front porch," she said.

"It's rude to try to trigger someone's asthma with cigarette smoke," Dominic said.

I rolled my eyes. That was a long time ago. "We saw that you were canceling class for the next week, so we wanted to check in on you and bring you a few things."

"And in this case, we means Lindsay," Dominic said.

That was another point for me. I was slightly nicer than him, which was definitely an attractive trait.

Dr. Reed let out a long breath as she took the chicken. "Well, I appreciate it. But I'm really not teaching this week. Every other student besides you in that class is a dumb piece of shit."

I grimaced. "That's a little harsh, don't you think?"

She shook her head. "Not at all. Come on in."

Well, I thought it was a little harsh. I was only doing better than everyone else in the class because Dr. Reed and I had our little deal worked out.

As we stepped inside, I remembered the little stone family that she found on one of her excavations in Titris Hoyuk. If I wasn't mistaken, she had named them after the Turkish word for rock: kaya.