"So let me get this straight." I paced while I talked, unable to sit still with my mother and Nick sitting in front of me. "You left me with a sadist or alone for sixteen years because you were trying to protect me?"
"A sadist…?" She shook her head, ignoring it. "If I could've stayed with you I promise I would have-"
"That's not good enough!" I stopped to lower my voice, running a hand through my hair. "What happened to you that we had to think you were dead?"
"Your father is involved with some very bad people," she told me hesitantly.
"Don't talk to me like I'm five, I'm not a little kid… Looks like we both missed that part." She looked up at me miserably from the couch. I refused to take pity on her.
"I'm sorry-"
"Don't," I stopped her. "Just… tell me what happened."
"Darren owed a lot of money to a lot of people," she explained reluctantly. "When we couldn't pay any of it back, they started threatening us - all of us." Whoever these people are, I couldn't help but think that they couldn't be much worse than my father. "I made a deal with them. They could make me disappear if they left you and your brother alone. The thing is, I couldn't go back. I looked for you after your father was arrested but child services got there first." She stopped and I took the opportunity to ask another question.
"So where does he come in?" I gestured to Nick and crossed my arms.
"I work in gang activity for the police department," he explained, sitting forward. "Beth worked with me before dealing with the men your father was indebted to."
"How long?" I said.
"A year."
A year, he says. A year and he couldn't stop it. Nick continued.
"When she 'disappeared' she came to stay with me. She made me promise to keep an eye on you to make sure you boys were alright. I was sure you were fine until Griffin…" I could tell he blamed himself for not finding out sooner. "After that I lost you in the system."
"After she left, he snapped," I spoke to Nick but looked at Beth. "You wouldn't have known, he was smart enough to restrict it to where no one could see the aftermath. School was nearly as bad. Still would be if not for Azuriah…" I trailed off, mentally shaking myself.
"I'm sorry…" Beth repeated. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a concerned Cali appear at the stairs. I ignored her.
"Yeah, I bet you are, but where does sorry get us?" I challenged.
"I know that, but look at you now." She tried to sound hopeful. "You survived, you're okay-"
"I'm okay?" I repeated incredulously, my patience snapping. "You have no idea what I've had to go through without you! Not ten minutes ago I finally got rid of amnesia from when someone at school put me in the hospital! I was in a coma for two weeks!" Beth opened her mouth but I wasn't finished yet - I didn't bother lowering my voice. "I still have scars from nine years ago if you need proof. I've been to the emergency room seven times and none of them were accidents - four of which before I turned seven! So go on, tell me again how 'okay' I am."
Beth stared at me for a few moments and Cali came over to me, sliding her hand into mine and giving it a reassuring squeeze, looking worried. Beth stood and stepped towards me.
"Rowyn-" She reached out with one hand to the side of my face and I jerked away as if she had struck me. She had no idea that that was only an exaggeration of my normal reaction, and I had no plans to tell her.
"Don't touch me," I told her quietly. "I can't leave, Azuriah would kill me, but I do have a condition.
"Anything," she agreed readily, letting her arm drop down to her side.
"Good, because you're going to have to drive."
We ended up at the animal shelter, her having followed my directions, and I ignored her predictable questions. I went directly to the front desk and asked about Nimbus.
"Name?"
"Rowyn Copeland." The woman at the desk flipped through the records. "She was dropped off by Christopher Young?"
"Ah, here she is. He mentioned you'd be picking her up. Her supplies are with her." The woman led us into another room, past several kennels before opening one of them, letting Rowyn inside. Nimbus poked her head out from under a blanket.
"Hey, girl." I dropped down to the ground and she ran clumsily out, climbing into my lap. I scratched behind her ears and she crawled up onto my shoulder when I leaned back and lost her footing, falling into my hood. I stood and took her out, cradling her and looking at Beth and Nick.
"This is Nimbus," I said before they could interrupt. "She's my one condition."
Beth sighed quietly. "Let's get her things packed up, we can stop at the pet store on the way home."
A few hours later we were back at the house and I set up Nimbus's supplies in my room. There was a dresser as well as a small closet. I knew I wouldn't use the closet so that's where I kept her litter box, insisting I could take care of her by myself.
Now it was just past 5:30pm and I had Azuriah on speaker so I could play with Nimbus while I talked to him.
"I take it you talked to your mom, then?" he asked.
"Yeah. Didn't go too well."
"I'm not surprised. What'd she say?"
"I'll fill you in on all that later. As for it not going well, that was mostly my fault."
"You think you should apologize?"
"If I'm feeling sorry, I'll let you know. So far I have no regrets. Actually, check this out." I put down Nimbus's toy and snapped my fingers a few times. She came over and I put her by the phone on the bed.
"Rowyn?" Azuriah's voice came from the receiver while Nimbus was pawing at it curiously. She jumped and made a noise that was close to a meow. She was still too small to really succeed in that sense though.
Azuriah heard her and laughed. "You got Nimbus back!"
"I used her as my 'one condition' so they really didn't have much of a choice."
"Hey, I have to go. Echo and River are up to God-knows-what in my room so I should probably be keeping an eye on them," he explained. I could hear the smile in his voice. "See you at school tomorrow?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"You have to go to school," he insisted. I sighed.
"I know. See you tomorrow."
"See you." There was a click and he was gone. I picked up the phone to turn the speaker off and hang up, tossing it aside. I sighed quietly again and crossed my legs, rubbing my eyes tiredly. I jumped at Cali's voice, looking up to see her at the door.
"He cares about you a lot, you know that right?"
"Jesus…" I muttered, voice flecked with annoyance.
"Nope, just me. Did I scare you?"
"Yeah, kind of. Why were you listening?" I wondered how much she heard but none of it was really important so I decided not to ask.
"I didn't want to interrupt. I wanted to see if you were okay- you've been in here since you got back from picking up the little cretin."
"Her name is Nimbus," I corrected instead of answering her implied question.
"I don't really care - I hate cats." Cali still stood in the doorway. I set Nimbus on the bed after she tried to climb into my lap. I knew Cali wouldn't come in on her own since she didn't know the layout of my room, so I got up and led her over.
"You can't possibly hate Nimbus." We sat on my bed and I called Nimbus over by clicking my fingers. She tried to climb into my lap again, purring, and I picked her up. She was smaller than my hand. I put her in Cali's lap.
"Hey, Creature…" she greeted cautiously, holding one hand out towards her cautiously. Nimbus nudged it with her head, trying to get Cali to pet her.
"She's so small," Cali remarked in surprise, petting her carefully.
"Well yeah, she's just a kitten."
We sat and talked for a while before Beth called us down for dinner. By that time we were laying back my bed with Nimbus purring happily between us. Cali called it '"swapping war stories" while we talked about our pasts which wasn't exactly inaccurate.
I couldn't help but think that being there with all of them would be better than I expected. In fact, it seemed like a pretty good alternative to school the next morning. I had only gone a few times since getting out of the hospital but already my tolerance was running out. I wasn't sure how much longer I could ignore everyone for.
I went anyway. I didn't remember it being this bad.
But then, I hadn't exactly been myself before now. Since coming back, I had lost my ability of walking the halls unnoticed. Invisible. The school seemed a hundred times hotter with the stares that followed me, a hundred times louder with the whispered remarks as I passed.
By lunch I had taken to putting my hood up between classes in the hopes that no one would recognize me. I spent lunch in the library and found some new books to read since Sherlock Holmes was getting old. I ended up checking out Oliver Twist and A Tale of Two Cities, heading back to my locker with my hood up. It was hard to be unnoticed when people know where your locker is. Even if they don't see you, they find some way to get to you.
My locker had been defaced again.
I stared fixatedly at my padlock so I would focus on the combination instead of the words on the door or the people staring at me as they passed.
Faggot
Amnesiac
Those ones were reminders more than they were insults. Making sure I knew my place, and that the entire school knew it too. I opened my locker. In the chaos of high school passing time, I almost didn't notice the note drift to the floor. I didn't want to open it. I wanted to ignore it, pretend it wasn't there and walk away.
I picked it up.
He should've let you die.
My hands begin to shake and I curl them into fists to make it stop, crumpling up the paper before I could think to shove it into my pocket. I slammed my locker door shut and took the fastest route possible to the only safe place I knew in this school. I was fairly certain none of the people who would do this kind of thing even knew their way to the library, let alone to me.
I spent the rest of the school day on the floor of the corner of the library furthest from the entrance, surrounding myself with the entire works of Shakespearean plays (which, save for a small handful, I had already read) to distract me. At some point, I didn't have a clock within my view to see when, Shakespeare started to give me a headache and I threw down All's Well That Ends Well in favor of pulling my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around my legs and resting my forehead on my kneecaps, disappearing into my mind. It could have been anywhere from minutes to hours before I heard a familiar voice ask the librarian if I was here, pulling me out of my reverie. I kept my head down, half of me hoping Azuriah wouldn't look all the way back here and the other half of me praying he would. A set of footsteps stopped in front of me.
"Saw your locker," he announced quietly, getting right to the point. I didn't look up when he sat down next to me.
"You okay?" I shrugged at his question.
Azuriah was quiet for a minute before continuing, his voice hushed due to the location. "Something else is going on here. What's wrong?"
I looked up, keeping my gaze straightforward instead of at him and keeping my legs pulled to my chest as I leaned back a bit against the wall. I fished the crumpled paper out of my pocket and handed it to him. I rested my head against the wall with a definitive thud while he read it, eyes blurring. They don't even know me, why the hell would they want me dead?
"Rowyn…" he stopped himself and was silent a moment before standing up, holding a hand out to me. I looked up at him skeptically, not in the mood to play games.
"Where are you going?" I asked him, voice sounding about as resigned as I felt.
"We're getting out of here. They don't take attendance during study hall anyway, no one will even notice." I hesitated and he added, "I never did get around to taking you anywhere for your birthday."
I took his hand. He helped me to my feet and led me down the hall. We were nearly in the lobby when we were stopped by a voice behind us.
"Where do you two think you're going?" Of course. Because we couldn't go anywhere without something like this happening. Azuriah turned around, stepping instinctively in front of me, though I sidestepped him and stood next to him instead.
"What do you want, Jonathan?" Azuriah asked impatiently. Apparently he wasn't in the mood for this either.
"Mr. Jefferson asked if someone would go see if you two were alright. Naturally I volunteered."
"Naturally," Azuriah repeated, narrowing his eyes. Jonathan came sauntering over to us in his usual confident stride, stopping a few feet from Azuriah but looking at me.
"You know what this is, don't you?" He continued before I could answer. "He's using you."
"You're insane," Azuriah retorted quickly, glaring at Jonathan, who kept talking as if Azuriah hadn't spoken.
"You and him? It's all just image. No one at this school knows who you are, Rowyn. They know you're an amnesiac. They know your sexuality. That's it, and that's all thanks to whoever keeps marking up your locker."
"As if you don't know who it is," Azuriah scoffed while I could do little myself. After what had happened I was already in a state of "maybe they're right" and was more focused on ignoring that than replying.
"All of this," Jonathan gestured vaguely to the two of us. "It boosts his reputation. He doesn't actually care about you." Azuriah tensed, his eyes shooting daggers at Jonathan. "You're the perfect accessory, nothing more."
"Shut up!" Azuriah snapped shakily while I just stared.
"Why should I?" Jonathan taunted, crossing his arms triumphantly at Azuriah's outburst. I turned my attention to my friend, trying to read his expressions.
"You're wrong," Azuriah supplied simply. Even I had to admit it was a weak argument.
"Prove it." Jonathan was getting cocky, which pissed me off but I was too distracted to take much notice of it.
Azuriah faltered. I could see he had thought of something but was fighting his own internal battle for or against it. He looked at me and I must not have hidden my uncertainty in time. His internal struggle was over; something must've made up his mind.
He kissed me.
My eyes widened in surprise and I heard Jonathan's angry footsteps retreat down the hall a moment later, but I'm hardly paying attention. Since regaining my memories it's like there's been a glass wall between them and me, preventing them from actually belonging to me, separating my present from my past though I could see and remember everything.
In that moment, the glass shattered around me.
Every emotion associated with every moment I remembered flooded my mind at once, drawing a quiet gasp from my lips. Azuriah started to pull away, concerned, but there was no way I was going to let him get away so easily only to apologize and brush it off like it was nothing. I laced my fingers together behind his neck, pulling him down as I leaned forward. Azuriah stepped back, trying to steady himself.
"R-Rowyn," he said meekly, the half-hearted protest muffled by my mouth as his back hit the lockers…
The lockers.
'Jesus, Rowyn, what're you doing?' I questioned myself. We were in school. The main office was just around the corner; if a teacher walked by we'd both be screwed. I lingered a moment longer before pulling away, looking down sheepishly.
"Does this mean…?" Azuriah started after an awkward few moments. I nodded and risked a look up at him, realizing what I must have put him through.
"I'm sorry…"
"No no no, don't do that, you have nothing to be sorry for!" he rushed to assure me and I couldn't help the amused smile that played at my lips. "Nothing that happened was your fault, okay?"
I nodded with a small laugh. "Okay."
"We were going somewhere, remember?" He took my hand and led me eagerly out the door.
"Where are you taking me anyway?"
"My favorite place in town, but it's a surprise," he said with a grin as we made our way down the sidewalk, slowing down once we were a good distance from the school. About 20 minutes later when we were downtown, he stopped at a corner café and I looked up at the sign.
"God, that is so unoriginal," I laughed, reading the name of the café.
"How so?" Azuriah inquired, leading me inside.
"Café de la Musique is literally just 'Café of Music,'" I pointed out. Looking around I saw it was exactly what it advertised. A music themed French restaurant. There was traditional Parisian music playing over the intercom and the menu was bilingual, French and English. I looked over to the counter and couldn't help but stare.
"Rowyn?" Azuriah asked, looking at me curiously. "What's wrong?"
Taller, older, and hair styled completely different though kept short (dyed black with electric blue tips, spiked up), it still wasn't hard to recognize her when all of my memories were fighting for dominance in my mind. And of course my hair was a dead giveaway, so she must've recognized me too. The woman behind the counter turned to greet us but stopped when she saw me. A well worn apron over a black t-shirt that had been ripped several times and was now held together with safety pins and chains, plus an "Owner" nametag pinned to her chest, dark blue-jeans and combat boots, her clothing style had remained the same all these years. She broke our inadvertent staring contest when her gaze drifted to my right hand clasped in Azuriah's left. My face flushed and I dropped his hand as nonchalantly as I could. She practically skipped over to us with an amused smile, enveloping me in her arms as soon as she reached us. For once, I didn't protest, returning her embrace whole-heartedly.
"Rowyn," she said simply, her voice full of sunshine.
"Alice," I happily returned with a smile.
"Your mother will be over the moon. Hold on, let me look at you," she pulled back, holding me at arm's length with her hands on my shoulders.
"She was," I told her, incapable of stifling my own excited grin. Besides Griffin and until Azuriah, she was really the only friend I had ever actually had.
"You've seen her?" she asks, shocked.
"Accidentally, if you believe it. She was going to foster my friend Cali and I tagged along."
"Look at you, making friends." She beamed at me, ruffling my hair as I ducked my head, her smile contagious.
"Very funny." I turned to Azuriah. "How did I not know this place was here?"
"I assume the same way you didn't know your mother was just on the other side of the school," he remarks thoughtfully before smiling at me. "You don't get out much."
I opened my mouth to protest indignantly before rethinking and simply commenting, "True enough."
"So how do you guys know each other?" he asked, completely out of the loop.
"I guess it's about time I filled in the blanks," I remarked. "Come on, let's find somewhere to sit. May as well tell you the story while the memories are still in the forefront of my mind."
"Wait, what?" Alice now questioned, confused as well.
"Oh yeah, you probably didn't hear about that. I had amnesia for a while."
"At the risk of being repetitive: Wait, what?"
"Come on, let's find somewhere to sit," I suggested, my smile lessoning but not disappearing as it normally would. "If I'm going to fill you both in on everything, this may take a while."
Alice nodded and headed into the dining area, calling to one of the employees as she passed asking him to cover for her for a while. A couple of hours and twice as many stories later, we ended on my exit of the government system (aka the Foster Care Center).
"You shouldn't have gone into that in the first place, did you know that?" Alice asked, leaning back against the booth.
"What do you mean?" I asked curiously, the booth having enough room for me to sit next to Azuriah and still cross my legs.
"You weren't actually at the trials since you were so young, but I fought for custody over you all those years ago."
"Really?" I asked, looking at her with surprise. She nodded.
"Mhm. The trial lasted for three days due to the continuous flow of new evidence, but the court ruled that since I wasn't actually related to you and they had no proof that you knew or wanted to go with me at all, they put you into foster care."
"I could've told them, you should've brought me into it. I was old enough to voice an opinion."
"You were also traumatized after watching what you did," she pointed out, fiddling with her long-empty coffee mug. "Still, maybe things would've turned out better if I had won the trial."
"It's not your fault," I told her, sounding as if it were obvious. Which it was.
"Yeah but I also know a lot of the people who fostered you." She cut me off when I was about to ask how, waving a hand dismissively. "We get all sorts around here and word spreads fast when you're connected. That said I'm about 112% sure I could've raised you better than those douche canoes."
Azuriah smiled and repeated her cheerfully. "Douche canoes?"
"I don't even know, but it's better than asshat," she replied, returning his smile.
After catching everybody up, on my life and hers (majored in business, minored in the culinary arts and French, etc.) Alice had to get back to work but made me promise I'd stop by more often. She even offered me a job, which I eventually elected to take since I needed the money if I really wanted to take care of Nimbus on my own. Azuriah and I stayed a while longer, and before leaving I convinced Alice to change the name of her restaurant because "Really? Café of music?"
Chaque Chose Vaut son Prix.
Everything is worth its price.