Remember Me

XXII

"How?!" Samir whispered harshly.

"I don't know that's what I'm asking you. He said I was with you last before it happened."

Samir rubbed his temples, she was with him last but he had nothing to do with the outcome of her life. They were technically still together when she disappeared. Samir huffed, glad for the short interruption from a waiter offering them free samples of some new coffee flavor they were trying. Both Samir and Toryn took a sample and began taking small sips, staying quiet.

Toryn allowed him to gather his bearings. She didn't want to rush him or pressure him. She just hoped no lying would be involved. She was too done with the bullshit to be into the games at this point.

Samir cleared his throat. "You were having an episode that day, I should have known better. I should have seen it coming but I didn't."

Toryn didn't even notice she was curling her toes inside her heels, "What do you mean."

Samir looked off as if he was thinking about that day. "It was a couple weeks after your prom. You were eighteen and you had moved in with me...we lived in New Jersey. You'd gotten into some huge argument with your friend weeks before—"

"Who? Takashi?"

"Yeah so you guys weren't speaking."

"Do you remember what the fight was about?"

"You lost your virginity to me on the night of your prom. You came to my house and we did it there then you went back home. I'm guessing he noticed or you told him yourself because you called me crying and when I came over there he tried to spazz on me for no reason. After that day you moved with me," Samir smiled, "so like I said this was a few weeks later and things were going good between us and everything; but you started to say you were getting homesick."

Toryn soaked in the information trying so hard to picture anything or come up with a way to remember all of this.

"You kept saying how you wanted to go back to New York with your best friend and his mother. Each and every time I would calm you down and tell you it was alright and everything would go back to normal in the house...but this one day you just snapped. You weren't on your medication. You were angry, breaking shit, hitting me, just going crazy about how you wanted to go back to Laura and ole boy. I mean it took you hours to relax."

Toryn saw a quick flash in her head and felt it was a moment of what happened that day.

"So we ended up going to sleep that night and when I woke up the next morning you were gone. You left me a note saying you went back to New York. But I'm guessing you never made it. You must have gotten lost or someone must have picked you up."

Toryn slowly nodded her head. For some reason she believed his story and she knew that was probably the case. She circled the rim of her plastic cup with her pointer finger. "So I was your girlfriend and I told you I went back to New York...you didn't come back for me to see if I even made it?"

Samir sighed, now that he looked back on it he knew it was dumb to assume someone in her condition would have made it back unscathed. But he honestly did assume she did. Or it was probably his hurt and anger that made him think. "Toryn I was your boyfriend for three years. I literally saved up money just to buy us an apartment together. It hadn't even been five weeks yet and you left me to go back to another dude that's suppose to just be your friend. I was angry, I didn't wanna come look for you. I just assumed you made it back and that was that."

Toryn couldn't lie she was hurt, even if she couldn't remember she felt hurt. She grabbed some tissues from the table and began to dab at her eyes.