"What'll it be for you gentlemen this morning?" The cushions of the booth they'd slid into were torn from the sun which beat down when it filtered through the dirty window beside them in the daytime. The inside of Blake Pines Breakfast was sort of ugly and disorganized. Edward saw tinsel still along some of the counters from Christmas of last year. Halloween cut outs were pressed onto the windows, a skeleton here, a hissing black cat there. The neon OPEN sign was just above their window, and it shone brightly, annoying, the N blinking out of sync. Edward's head pounded behind his eyes. He imagined both he and Adam looked the type of drug addicts, or shady conspirators who frequented cafes in the early hours of the morning. The waitress looked between him, then Adam. Her auburn hair was tied into a messy bun.
"Uh," His voice couldn't quite make it past a certain octave. He felt like he was whispering, near inaudible. The waitress leaned an inch forward, her little book in her hand. "J-just, two coffees, I guess, please," The woman nodded and padded off, paying no interest in either of their strangeness.
He thought, almost humorously, of his years spent working as a waiter, and all of the irritating things that people did in restaurants. He sucked in a deep breath, dragged his hands over his face.
Across from him, Adam was staring at the table. He glanced up at him. Adam's eyes were dark, though not so bugged out as he knew his own must be. Jesus. What do those people think we did? They'd left the apartment only a short time ago, but Edward imagined the police had likely shown up by then. He'd heard the sirens not ten minutes ago. Do they think we killed Elle?
"... Are we no longer going to your mother's?" Adam asked quietly. His hands were clasped tightly in his lap. Their brief time in the rain had soaked his shoulders and the top of his head so his white hair had taken on a slightly greyer look. White because of all the times that've passed? All those memories you say you don't remember? Is that what happened there?
"I don't know," Edward shook his head, "I-I mean I, I do. We're going, I already told her we'd be there I just..." His hands were still over his face, his elbows on the table. He caught sight of Adam watching him worriedly between his fingers. Like some anxious puppy. "I need a moment. Just to. To sit. And. And think."
The waitress returned with a coffee pot and two plain white mugs. She filled them up, left a little pile of creamers, and told them if they were ready to order, to flag her down. Edward only nodded. The rain had dampened the cast he'd been given, too, but some plastic covering around it kept him from worrying. Edward rubbed at it briefly before he gripped one of the mugs.
"How are you feeling..?" Adam asked after she'd left. It felt strange, him asking Edward. Just a day ago wasn't he trying to make him comfortable in his own home, as if he were going to keep him there? Showing him how to play solitaire on the floor of his living room? Cutting his hair on his bathroom floor? Adam seemed so different to him now in a number of ways. A bubbly, smiling teenager juxtaposed against a quiet, frightened young man. Their eyes shone just the same. Jesus, what happened? What have I gotten into?
"I-I feel like," He said, slowly, "I am splitting in half," The coffee mug was warm between his hands, which shook. They hadn't stopped shaking since he'd woken up in bed, Adam beside him, since the blood in Elle's bedroom. All he could imagine was himself lying still. Would he blow out his brains or find a pill bottle somewhere, too? He remembered hearing the thud of the woman's body falling from the Heartful's tenth floor, that awful echoing sound it had made, and then the screaming. He hadn't seen the body, but he had seen the streak of blood on the front of the glass entrance. Like something out of a horror movie. He hadn't quite believed that that had been her blood. Seeing the gore on the bedspread had been- "I think-... I feel like I'm going crazy, and Elle was the only one, I think, I've known, who might have gotten it, understood what I was saying. And she's dead now. And I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do, or what's going to happen to me..."
"Can I know what she said to you..?" Adam asked. Edward hadn't forgotten they'd known each other once. Seemed to have almost been best friends for a time. She wasn't in high school with us, to my knowledge. He wished he had taken the yearbook with him to see it again, but he supposed that didn't matter now. The backpack was left behind. At least he'd kept the money in his jacket pocket.
"Was she always sorta off?" Edward asked.
Adam shrugged. "She was a teenager."
Edward nodded, watching him carefully. He supposed that she might not have begun acting the way she did until Adam's disappearance and subsequent diagnosis of DVS. When had that been? He wished he knew now. Had she merged, also? It sure seemed like she had, if she had remembered what she seemed to have. She just happened to get diagnosed. How long have I had it, too? He thought of the morning he'd seen a boy whom he'd later would recognize as himself in the middle of the road. Two days ago felt like two years.
"She- she didn't want to be near you," He said, perhaps almost to himself.
"... I don't know what would have made her want that," Adam said slowly, hurt in his voice. Edward suddenly looked down.
"I'm sorry, I can't- I can't imagine what you're thinking, too,"
"I don't know what I'm thinking." He said. "I don't know how to piece this together any better than you do."
"S-sure, but," Edward leaned forward, "I- I woke up. As if I had had like, this two month long dream of just- just memories, of things I never did, of interactions I never had but they were visceral, I could feel all of it, it was all there. High school and- and a dance, and-" He stopped himself. He could remember it all in crystal clarity. Kissing Adam in his bedroom. Behind the stage in Jefferson. He could remember the bright pain when his father had punched him in the face, the blood smearing the hallway wall. He did not know how to mention these things without seeming stranger than he knew he already did to Adam. "Elle, she- she said the same thing. Memories and- stuff like that.... Are you sure none of this rings any bells?"
Adam's arms had come onto the table to take the coffee, and he fiddled silently with a packet of sugar from a little caddy off to the side. "It... Rings something,"
"What, then?" Edward asked. Adam winced, and glanced around them. The cafe was silent, as it likely often was at 4 AM. There were only four other patrons Edward had noticed, and three of them were obvious coworkers on a break. Adam's gaze went back to the table, studying the coffee deeply.
"Uhm... Yenly always said, I was paying. For something." His eyes lifted up to meet Edward's. "He never said what. O-once, he, um-... Well several times, he tried killing me. I mean, I think that was his whole- his whole goal, I could never truly believe he was sending me off for someone else because I just, you know. Knew that he wanted me dead and he didn't plan on ever letting me go, alive, so. I was told, that my, ah, death- would end all of this-" He smiled, very weakly, and held out his hands. "Whatever that was, you know? And I managed to survive those attempts- the one's he could not follow through with. He, u-um, was not someone who wanted to kill a child, it seemed s-so, he. He couldn't. But he made it very clear that that was his end goal. And that that was what I," He put his hand against his chest, "A monster, or anti-Christ, as he so delicately put it, deserved...And I don't know what it is I've done, or what it is that's happening, why Heartful would know anything about me, or why you would recall me, or why Elle would recall me, or Yenly, or that Aaron man, or anyone. I-I don't understand it anymore than you do..." He trailed off, his whispering voice having cracked into something so soft Edward could hardly hear it. His gaze wouldn't meet his now but he saw how he kept it so low. There were napkins off to the side but Edward didn't want to call attention to the line which Adam straddled of either breaking down here or holding on for a moment longer.
"I'm sorry." Edward said after a time had passed. "I'm-"
"Are you angry with me?" He asked, softly, "B-because i-if I had known you were talking to Elle, and that she would- she would have- I wouldn't have left, I was just-"
"I don't think it would have mattered if you had come in or not," Edward said quickly. "I think she was already planning on-... Doing that. So no. No, I'm not angry with you. I'm not angry you can't- remember- I'm not angry at you, not at all, I just. Please, try to understand-"
"I do."
Edward nodded, but spoke on, "I think that if I can't find someone who remembers also, or get you to recall something, I just might- freak out or something."
Adam watched him. His frown was deep set as he shook his head. "I can't remember ever having known you, outside of three... Four days ago. I'm sorry,"
Edward had clasped his hands together, and looked aside. His head hadn't stopped aching and he blamed that on stress, lack of proper sleep, yet he didn't think it would go away. Was this a symptom? Headaches? Outside, the rain had not let up. The cars that passed could be faintly heard through the glass, the sharp hiss of tires on the road. He saw, barely, the street name on the little green sign above the lights on the intersection just beside them. Klein and Jefferson. Jefferson. Edward leaned up, suddenly. East of here, just some blocks down, he knew there would be a strip mall, a gas station, a small Chinese restaurant, and then-
"What is it?" Adam asked, glancing out the window as well.
"You went to Mulberry, yeah?" Edward asked suddenly.
"Yes,"
"What highschool were you gonna go to?"
"Um," Adam thought a moment. "I don't... Remember the name. It was some Catholic school. My dad was Catholic." As he spoke, Edward pushed the mug aside, dug through his pocket and fished out a five. He left it on the table and stood. Adam blinked up at him. "Where-"
"Come on, I wanna try something," Edward turned towards the door, and Adam followed after him hurriedly, out into the rain, and to the car again.