Chapter 3: Remembering
"I haven't heard form her yet. You think everything's okay?"
Emily knew that voice, she knew it, she just couldn't see the face. All she could see was the ground and the sky as she swung on the swing set. The most that she could tell about her surroundings was that it was fall, because the leaves were changing colors and that she was on a playground.
"I don't know," Emily answered. "Maybe she's just sick."
"Probably. You know how dirty that old shed is."
"Maybe she just skipped," Emily replied.
"For two weeks?"
Emily slightly jumped as she woke from her dream. The room was still dark, she observed, so it was still the middle of the night.
The last thing that she wanted to do was to wake Bob, but she had to go and do something else. Anything. Read, watch television, maybe even clean a little. The dream hadn't scared her, in a sense, but it had disturbed her, and she had no idea why. In a way, that bothered her even more than the dream itself.
Carefully, she sat up and turned on the light. She glanced over to make sure that she hadn't woken Bob. She didn't. Good.
She made her way to the door and stopped a moment and turned back, watching him sleep a brief moment. He looked a lot more calm than he did earlier, something that comforted her.
The door closed behind her and she headed over to the kitchen to make some tea. It was going to be a long night, she could already see that. On her way over though, she froze at the sight of the picture.
There was something about it this time that caught her attention. Without even thinking about it, she started walking around the couch and over to the coffee table. She sat down on the couch and gingerly picked up the old picture. Her eyes went straight to Jeremy. There was something that Bob wasn't telling her, and it was just now, really starting to bother her. Not just because there was something that she didn't know, but because she felt that she really needed to know.
She turned the picture over, reading over the names. Erin Collins, Jeremy Peters, Greg Perry, Ruth Reynolds, Julia Cotton, Mary Higgins, and Henry Kline. That was seven people out of her class of thirty that she could remember.
The more that she thought about these people, the more that she was remembering. The time when Henry told her and Erin to stay away from Jeremy's house because he believed that Jeremy was truly demented. She remembered how naive Julia could be at times. How Greg had a crush on Julia and how he would pick on Jeremy sometimes. Ruth liked Henry so she would always make sure to keep on Jeremy's good side.
"Emily?"
Emily jumped as she turned to look to Bob, who was standing in the doorway to the bedroom.
"What are you doing up?" he implored. The second that he noticed the photo though, he was able to put the pieces together.
Emily sighed as she shrugged. "I don't really know," she admitted, setting the picture back down on the table. There was something, but what was she going to tell him? That she had a dream about swinging and talking to a somewhat familiar voice that could possibly just belong to one of her students? That she was looking at a picture because she was slightly disturbed and thought that staring at faces would help? That she was thinking there was more to remembering who had a crush on who in grade school?
Really, the more that she thought about it to herself, she had nothing at all. Maybe some random dreams and memories, but then again, how could she be sure that these were real memories? Sometimes things were just made up in your mind, convincing you that you actually did remember something, when it never happened.
Bob was tired, and he did want to go back to bed, but he was more worried about Emily. "Is there uh, is there something wrong?" he inquired, as he walked over and joined her on the couch.
"I'm afraid I don't know that one either Bob," she answered, glancing back to the picture. "I can remember useless little things from years ago, but I can't figure out why it bothers me so much," she explained.
"Did the picture bring this up?" Bob implored.
"I think so," Emily responded. That had to be it. That photo was grabbing her attention every time she was just in the same room with it. "I had this dream, it can't mean anything, but I think I was a little girl again, and I was talking to this other little kid. We were on a playground and I guess someone was missing," she told him, still trying to figure it out herself.
Bob nodded. Now, he was worried. The last thing he wanted was for Emily to be losing sleep and hurting herself over a patient, especially one that wasn't even his. "Do you uh, have uh notebook that you could use?" he questioned.
"Yeah," Emily answered. She got up and headed over to the desk where she kept a couple extra notebooks and such.
"Good," Bob responded. "Now, now every time that you remember something that relates to that picture right there, I want you to write it down. If there's something bothering you, but you don't know what, it's probably something you blocked out," he explained. "I suggest you write down your dreams in there too," he added.
This way, she could try and pieces together and figure out what it was that was bothering her. He had tried this on a couple of his own patients before and it had worked.
"Okay," Emily replied, sitting back down next to him. She took a second and went over the cover of the notebook as she thought about what she wanted to ask him earlier. Should she really ask who it was that he saw today? Would he even give her an answer?
"Bob?" she carefully began, looking up to him with desperate eyes. "Who was it that you saw today? I know it was someone in this picture and I need to know who it was," she pleaded.
Bob nodded in understanding. "I saw Erin Collins today," he answered, although he knew that he really shouldn't have. He couldn't just let Emily sit there and wonder about it though, letting it get to her.
"Oh," she whispered, her eyes going back down to the picture on the table. "I see."
It was weird, she couldn't remember anything about this girl after the fifth or sixth grade. She knew that they were best friends for a while. Maybe they got in a fight and stopped talking? Either that, or she might have moved, she is in Chicago now. She could have moved here when she was younger. Still though, she thought that she would remember writing to her or something. Most people don't just instantly cut themselves off from their best friend and ignore their entire existence for no reason.
"Does that make you think of something?" Bob implored. He knew that she was thinking of something, but he couldn't tell whether or not is was something that was troubling her yet. She just looked distant.
"I can't remember anything about her from after the fifth grade," she admitted, keeping her eyes down on the photo. She then looked up to Bob. "You would think that being best friends, that I would at least remember something about her later on," she stated.
"Maybe, maybe she moved away or something," Bob suggested. From what he had heard today, she probably did move away just to get away from Jeremy.
"Maybe," Emily absently replied. She set the notebook down on the table and headed back into the den. A moment later, she returned back out into the living room with a yearbook.
"What, what are you doing?" Bob asked, watching as she opened the book and started flipping through the pages.
"I'm checking to see if Erin was in high school with me," Emily answered. "If she's not, I'll feel a little better about not remembering her so much."
Emily stopped on a page and started running her finger through the names where Collins should be. "She's not in here," Emily stated. "The names go from Robbin Clark to Eddie Daimond."
"Well then, I guess that explains why you don't remember her, she just wasn't there," Bob said. "You think you can go back to bed now?"
"Hold on a second," she said, studying the page and then looking over to the picture. "Julia Cotton isn't in here either," she noted.
Bob sighed. "Look, Emily, I know that you're trying to figure something out here, but I really don't think it's a good idea for you to be obsessing over who did and didn't go to high school with you. You're gonna get yourself all worked up and then tomorrow you're going to have a long day at school and all of this will mean basically nothing." One major concern for him was that he didn't want her looking into things that aren't even important and creating fake memories.
Emily sighed and sat back on the couch. "I guess you're right," she replied. She reached over and took the notebook. "I'm just gonna write a little before I go back to bed."
"All right," Bob responded as he stood up and yawned. "I'll see you in a few minutes then," he said and then headed into the bedroom.
Emily sat there on the couch and curled up in the corner as she grabbed the book and pen off the table.
- Erin Collins, Jeremy Peters, Julia Cotton, Mary Higgins, Greg Perry, Henry Kline, and Ruth Reynolds.
- Used to be best friends with Erin Collins
- Henry Kline was over cautious and the smartest in the class
- Ruth liked Henry a lot
- Erin wanted to explore Jeremy's house
- Greg used to pick on Jeremy
- Greg and Julia liked each other
- Dream about talking to a kid on the swing set about someone missing
- Ruth and Henry both warned us to stay away from Jeremy
- Jeremy was very quiet and most of us were creeped out by him
Emily sat back and reread the list. It didn't seem like much yet, but it was a lot more than she had remembered a couple of days ago. It had been so long since she had even thought about these people and what happened that year.