The Drawings Never Lie

Chapter Five

Richard laughs. "Well, it's good to know that some things never change."

I feel my eyebrows furrow. "Is that some sort of crack at my sniffing abilities?"

Bonnie smiles. "Sort of. Back at our old house, I used to bake every odd afternoon as a stress reliever, and my baking schedule was so irregular. But every time I baked, you and Sebastian always made a direct beeline for the kitchen as soon as you came back from school."

"Sebastian?"

The name rings a distant bell. It resonates within every fiber of my being, because even though my mind may not remember, I can feel that my heart does.

It's aching again.

Bonnie's smile fades and Richard gets a far away look in his eyes--a haunted look. "Our son. You don't remember him, but he was--"

"My best friend."

The words slip out before any of us can fully register them. I suddenly have this overwhelming urge to burst into tears so I have to ask, "Why isn't he here? What happened to him?"

Richard walks out of the kitchen. Bonnie's eyes are welling up when she finally manages to find her voice.

"You'll have to excuse Richard," she says. "What happened to Sebastian... It's still a touchy subject for him. It's only been a few months, after all."

"A few months since what?"

But I already know the answer.

I can feel it in the sorrow that resonates within me; that rolls off of Bonnie the way it would for a mother in the process of mourning.

"He was murdered a few days before your accident."

Even though I knew it was coming, it still hits me worse than a punch directly into my gut ever could. The intense feeling of loss brings tears to my eyes.

"We still don't know the details of what happened or who did it to him," Bonnie adds. "The police didn't even bother investigating his case because a girl in our neighborhood went missing a few days later. Richard thinks Sebastian knew something was going to happen to her and tried to stop the guy, but got stabbed in the process."

"But we'll never really know what happened that night until the police decide to investigate his case," Richard says, walking into the room with a picture frame in his hands.

He handles it as if it's the holy grail and wordleasly holds it out to me.
I wipe at my eyes and grab hold of the picture frame.

The image shown to me of a boy and a girl brings even more tears to my eyes.

The girl's hair is bright red. It flows in waves down her back and her eyes are filled with so much mirth and happiness, but it's nothing compared to the curly, brown haired boy that has his arm slung across her shoulder. Seeing his mischievous face, seeing a moment where he was alive and well brings back a memory so vivid that it chokes me.

You're supposed to be smiling, Seb, not making funny faces.

Well, maybe if you stopped ruffling my hair, I could stay still enough to take a normal picture.

You wouldn't know how to strike a normal pose if your life depended on it.

Watch me, Red. Watch me.

Two tears escape the lining of my eyes one after the other and land right on his youthful face.

"That was taken a week before his murder," Bonnie says softly, looking at the photo with sad eyes. "We found it in his bedroom."

"He loved you more than any brother could ever love his sister."

"You weren't related," Richard tells me what I already guessed, "but you might as well have been. Bonnie and I are your godparents after all."

"Is that why you're taking care of me? Because you promised my parents you would when you witnessed my birth?"

"That's partly why," Bonnie admits. "But promising our son we would take care of you is also partly why. He often joked it would be his dying wish that you carried on living if he ever died. But we're mainly taking care of you because ever since you took your first steps and said your first word, you've been like a daughter to us."

"Just as Sebastian was like a son to your parents before they died," Richard adds.

I glance back down the photo of the sixteen year old boy and girl standing side by side with the sides of their heads touching.

I may not remember much about him, but my heart remembers loving him more than he could ever love me. Almost like muscle memory.

Maybe that's why his loss hurts so much. I have to relive the news of his death and have this gaping hole open up in my heart for the first time twice--once when I heard he was taken away from me and again after losing my memory of him.

I'm about to give the photo frame back to Richard when two details catch my eye. The first is that Sebastian is wearing my locket around his neck--I must've loved him a lot to have trusted him with something that is so valuable to me--and the second is that if I look closely, there's an image of a sunflower on the inside of my wrist.
The sunflower flower looks like it was hastily drawn on by a child, but I still want to compare it to the sunflower on my door.

I mean, it can't be a coincidence that fragments of my memories returned to me both times that I saw a drawing of a sunflower.

Wait... what if the drawings I dream about almost every night--the drawings I have yet to see--are drawings of sunflowers?

What if drawings of sunflowers are what can get me answers about my past?

What if they can unlock my memories?

"Can I keep this?" I ask Richard.

He nods. "We have plenty of pictures of our son. You can keep that one. Hopefully it triggers a memory."

"Hopefully," I agree.

I don't know why I can't just tell them about my dreams and the odd flashbacks I've been getting, especially after Richard and Bonnie have been nothing but nice to me, but ever since I woke up, I've been doubting the motives of everyone around me. My trust issues are worsening each day that I'm without my memories.

"We have more pictures of you and Seb throughout the years if you want to take a look at those too," he adds.

Their kindness just makes me feel even worse about not wanting to trust them completely, but I just smile and say, "That would be great. Thanks."

"Don't mention it," he says with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Bonnie glances up at the clock on the wall. "If you two don't hurry, Ramona's going to be late on her first day of school."

Richard sighs. "I'll go take a shower then. See you down here in twenty minutes?" he adds at me over his shoulder.

I nod at him as I clutch the photo frame tightly to my chest.

As soon as he's out of the kitchen, Bonnie starts putting what's left of our chocolate chip cookie raid into a container.

"I'm sure Officer Sanchez and Officer Goff wouldn't mind investigating what happened to Sebastian," I find myself saying. "The don't seem like incompetent police officers."

Bonnie flashes me a sad smile. "And I would appreciate the offer if ever they did decide to find out what happened to my son. But I've given up on the police, Ramona."

"But you allowed them to see me in hospital the other day."

"I trust them with your case because you trust them, sweetie. Because we need to trust them in order to find out what happened to you all those months ago. But I don't trust them with my son's case."

"That's sad to hear. I would go crazy if I didn't have closure for the death of my parents.
"
"You don't have to give up believing in the power of the law just because I have, Ramona. Richard and I couldn't get the answers I wanted, but maybe you can."