Nocte (The Nocte Trilogy #1)(61)
Author: Courtney Cole

But I have to. I have to see it. 

Reaching down, I turn the knob.

The door creaks open, revealing what my heart knew I’d find.

An empty room.

The bed is still there, neatly made.  Finn’s posters are still on the wall, of Quid Quo Pro and the Cure.  His black converses sit next to the door, like he’s going to wear them again, but he’s not.  His dirty laundry is still in his hamper.  His books line the shelves.  His favorite pillow waits for him, his CDs, his phone.  All of it.

But he’s not coming back.

Dare’s hand is on my back, comforting me. I can’t feel anything.

I step inside and sit on the bed, listening for my brother.

There’s not a sound.

I hug my knees, as wave after wave of memory comes back.

My reality hasn’t been real.

“Finn died with my mom,” I say aloud, the pain wracking my heart, my bones, my soul.  I see the images in my head, flitting together to form scenes. 

I watch him getting into his red car.  The car we never shared because we each had our own.

“He was going to a concert, Quid Pro Quo.  He started down the mountain and was on his way when I called mom.  Mom crossed the centerline on her way up the mountain.  She was hurrying because she was late and she hit him head-on as she came around a curve.”

I can’t take the pain.

It blinds me, deafens me, turns everything into a roar.

I can’t hear.  I can’t see.

“She was going too fast,” I continue lifelessly, my memories unrolling like a movie in my head.  “She was distracted because she was talking to me on the phone.  I killed my mom and my brother.  Finn.  God.”

My head drops into my hands.

The pain is more than I ever thought it would be, more than I ever thought I could bear.  Flashes of Finn rip through my mind… of when we were small.  Of when we played in the ocean.  Of Finn calling to me when we played hide and seek, of Finn calling to me when he was scared.  And of that night, when he poked his head into the salon before he left…the last time I’d seen him alive. 

See you later, Cal.  Are you sure you don’t want to go?

“I didn’t go with him,” I whisper, the words cutting a path along my throat.  “He was going with a friend from his Group and I didn’t go with him.  Because I wanted… I wanted…you.”  

I knew Dare back then.

I’ve known him for months and months.  This can’t be happening.  What is happening?  Am I crazy?  Have I lost it?

Dare holds me tight, letting me cry, trying desperately to shield me from my pain.

He can’t.

He can’t shield me from the pain anymore.

“I wanted to stay at the funeral home so that you could come meet me so we could be alone.”

My heart pounds, as I see glimpses of Dare in my head.  His smile, his face, his hands. I stare at his hands now, the silver ring.

“I gave that to you for Valentine’s Day,” I remember.

He nods.

“You…me…we’ve been together for a while.  We were… that night… I let my brother go to the concert alone because I wanted to be alone with you.”

God, I’m a monster.

God, I’m crazy.

I look at him.  “What’s been happening to me?”

I feel dazed, confused, lost.

Dare swallows. “Your mind has been trying to protect itself. You’ve experienced an overwhelming loss.  You felt like you were at fault when you weren’t.  It was more than you could bear.  The day after they died, you woke up and thought Finn was still here, in fact, there were times that you thought you were Finn. The doctors said you needed to come out of it on your own, that to try and bring you into reality would hurt you.”

“So everyone went along with it,” I realize in horror.  “I’m crazy.  I’m crazy and never even knew it.”

Dare’s dark eyes connect with mine. “No, you’re not,” he says firmly, resolutely.  “You had a mental break because your reality was too hard to bear.  They called it PTSD and Disassociative Memory Loss. You’re not crazy.”

“That’s why you couldn’t be with me,” I realize slowly, putting the pieces together.  “Because I’m a lunatic and I didn’t remember you. How in the world could I forget such a big piece of my life? I don’t know why you stayed with me.  I’m so crazy.”

I’m crying again, or still, because maybe I never stopped, and Dare holds me tight against his chest.

“I love you, Calla.  You forgot me because you felt too guilty to remember.  Because you thought it was your fault.  Because you thought you didn’t deserve to have something good.”

“Maybe I don’t,” I cry hotly, squeezing my eyes closed, but when I do, all I see is my brother’s face.

“You do,” Dare says firmly. I open my eyes and look at him.  “You love me, Calla. And I love you.”

I remember the first time he said those words to me, months ago, but the memories are hard to see.  They’re foggy and distant, like I’m trying to pull them to me through murky water.  

“I can’t remember everything,” I say in frustration.  “My memories around you are… there aren’t many.”

Dare nods.  “The doctors said they’ll come back in stages.  At first, I… tried to stay away, but it was too hard, and you weren’t making any progress. We decided that I’d re-enter your life as a stranger to see if it’d jog your memory at all.”

I feel so foolish….so crazy.

“You staged meeting me again for the first time?  At the hospital?”

Dare stares at me, his eyes carefully expressionless.  “Yeah.”

“That’s why it felt like I knew you,” I realize slowly. “That’s why you felt familiar, why I felt pulled to you from the very beginning.”  The déjà vu, the dreams.

“You have no idea how hard it’s been,” he tells me.  “To pretend that I didn’t know you.”

I gulp, because I can only imagine, and because all of it, the whole elaborate thing, was my fault.  Then something else occurs to me, something horrifying.

“The pecans,” I breathe, my eyes wide and appalled. “Finn didn’t feed them to me.  I fed them to myself.  The hospital… I wasn’t there to visit Finn… I was there for me.  They were watching me… to see if I’d try and hurt myself again.”