Chapter Three
The next morning happened the same way. Karen pushed me into Tim’s room before she went on her merry way. I don’t mean to sound conceited, but his face seemed to light up when he saw me come in. I’d been more prepared this morning, so I’d quickly dragged a comb through my knotted hair before Karen turned up.
“Hey, Mystery. How’d you sleep?” he asked as soon as I crossed the threshold into his room.
I blushed. Very well, actually, since I was dreaming of you, I thought. “Yeah, I slept fine. And yourself?” I asked in return.
“My dreams were sweet,” he said, looking into my eyes. I blushed a little deeper, and looked down.
“You can come closer, you know. I won’t bite,” he laughed. I struggled to bring myself closer to him, so he held out his hand to me. Which was when the second freaky thing happened.
A man in a hooded cloak. I couldn’t see any part of him, but I could sense the cruel smile on his face. That was the feature of today’s wacked out, second-long vision. Once again, it made no sense. From what I’d seen, no one seemed to own a jumper in Cloverfield, let alone a hooded cloak. When I emerged from it again, I remembered something else. Not a big thing, but something.
“I have a little sister and my parents. My sister is twelve and her name is Leah. I remember!”
Tim smiled softly. “I remember my younger brother, Ty, and my parents. I guess they don’t know about Nath, or me. Ty would have noticed we were gone. He’s only three and used to spend a lot of time following us around.”
“Same with my parents. And Leah... I can’t imagine where they would be.”
The next week went more or less like that. I would join Tim every morning after breakfast. Whenever we touched I would get some creepy vision which had nothing to do with the bits and pieces we remembered of the world we lived in. I would share it with him, explain why I thought it was a bit off, he would agree. I saw scythes, darkness, blood; heard screams, pleas for mercy- all in a second. Hard as I tried, none of the visions connected in any way. Blood covered the outer wall of a city building- there were none of those in Cloverfield, I was sure- animals cried, scythes, axes and knives appeared in otherwise normal family routines.
Then we would remember some little piece of our past. He remembered he played guitar, I remembered my love of piano. He recalled his brief stint at football (until he injured himself, and in his time out he got into music which he loved more.), and I prattled on about how I couldn’t stand sport. Among the other things I remembered were that my favourite subject was English, particularly when we studied poetry and classic literature and that I loved animals. I didn’t remember having many friends either- I seemed a little more reserved in my daily life than I was in my mind. Tim’s history wasn’t that surprising. Adoring friends and parents, love of physical activity and, much to my jealousy, a group of girls wishing he would notice them.
We would share stories about what we remembered. There was never a shortage of new things to talk about- there was something new every day. He talked mainly about his family- he was basically a people person. He loved his family, spent a lot of time around his wide circle of friends on the weekend, and was the type of person to make sure everyone was included in group activities. I told him about my being a lone wolf, apart from my best friend, James.
We’d known each other before we came close to starting school. I remember his family lived next door to ours, in a red brick house with a white picket fence. He had a younger sister, Ebony, who was a year younger than Leah, and two older sisters who’d moved out years ago. We used to play in the mud before we started school, during primary we would play on the swing set in his backyard and come high school, we would sit on the beach and talk about life.
“So, you have a boyfriend?” teased Tim. It was most likely just my imagination, but I thought I heard a tinge of jealousy in his tone. I shook it off- he wouldn’t think of me in that way, surely, we’d only just met. But then...
“Definitely not. I guess I’ve just known him for far too long to be interested in him like that. To tell you the truth, I’ve never really felt that way about anyone I’ve ever met,” I said. Apart from you, I added in my mind.
“Sure you have,” he said, with what I thought was smugness in his reply, but he let it drop.
Every night, I would lie in my bed and dream of him in his past life- surfing with Nathan, playing little games with Ty and playing guitar to his quietly listening family at night- and some nights, dreamt of him saving me. It couldn’t have been accurate, I know- I’m guessing there aren’t many knights in shining armour hanging around Cloverfield- but it was nice to think of me as the fair maiden he would rescue and ride off into the sunset with on a white horse.
It felt like I knew Tim better than I’d ever known James. Tim and I were getting to know ourselves all over again, and discovering each other in the process. I guess that makes you feel closer to a person. As far as I’m aware, I’ve never been in this situation before- well I hoped not. Being the cause of someone’s death isn’t something you’d want to go about doing every day.
At first it’d seemed surprising he wasn’t bitter with me. He’d just told me I shouldn’t blame myself for something beyond anyone’s control. But I knew that last part definitely wasn’t true. If I wasn’t the cause of the accident, someone- or something- had to have been. Three people don’t get injured and, in Nathan’s case, killed, for no reason at all, or even of natural causes.
Nothing made sense to me, except my past, which was now stable. Honestly, my life had seemed a lot more logical when I was a victim of memory loss than it did now. But it was about to get a heck of a lot more confusing.
