Warnings: None
NOTES: For my international readers (and perhaps for my non-Southern readers in the USA), a Dairy Queen is a fast food restaurant. They are famous for three things: great ice cream cakes, not-so-great food and amazing "Blizzards," which are big cups of soft-serve custard swirled with add-ins like fruit, bits of candy, and other flavorings. Seasonal Blizzard flavors are available for a limited time and are made with specialty ingredients. Blizzards are horrible for you and (as most horrible-for-you things are) ABSOLUTELY FUCKING DELICIOUS. A big part of my childhood, Blizzards. Love them so much.
Also, I've heard that "drive-through" eating isn't as common outside the US? Basically you can pull up alongside a restaurant and order off a menu through a speaker, then pull up to a window to get your packaged-up food on the go from inside your car. Since COVID started, drive-through restaurants have been super handy, minimizing contact between eater and eatery. They're especially common among fast-food chains like McDonalds and similar, where food can be made very quickly.
For posterity, this chapter was posted on October 4, 2020.
Lucky Child
Chapter 115:
"Homeward Bound (Part 2)"
Retrograde amnesia—a loss of memory-access to events that occurred or information that was learned in the past, often caused by an injury or the onset of a disease. It tends to negatively affect episodic, autobiographical, and declarative memory, while keeping procedural memory intact without increasing difficulty for learning new information.
In layman's terms, I couldn't remember anything for shit.
"Likely caused by an impact during the accident, of course," said the consulting neurologist after looking over my paperwork and administering a few cognitive assessment tests in his well-appointed office. He was the friendly sort, all smiles and glittering hazel eyes as he glanced at my forehead. "That's quite a goose-egg."
I wasn't sure how accurate that assessment was, of course, though the throbbing pain on my hairline above my right eye suggested the doctor was correct. No telling how bad the bump actually looked, though. I'd been avoiding mirrors since waking up in the hospital with Tom at my side. The first time I'd felt well enough to stagger to the bathroom, the sight of my grey eyes, light brown hair and pallid skin had sent a shock straight down to my toes—and not the pleasant kind of shock, either. My big forehead and square jaw and deep-set eyes looked somehow alien. Surprising, almost. Even though I knew the face belonged to me, something deep in my gut said its shape was not actually mine at all, trading a stare with a stranger whose bloodshot eyes burned the color of a storm-strewn sky.
I hadn't dared meet my own eyes in a mirror again.
The fact that I couldn't remember shit about the accident didn't help matters; my memory began with Denise's wedding and then cut to waking up in the hospital, Tom holding my hand and stroking my hair in an effort to bring comfort. Thinking back on whatever had put me in the hospital resulted in a sensation of skipping, almost—a record bearing a deep scratch, wedding bleeding into the hospital over and over again until the act of remembering made my head hurt.
Not that I should even try to remember whatever lay between the wedding and the hospital, of course. The nurse told us not to push me too hard to remember things. The neurologist with his kind smile said the same. Still, as we sat across from the doctor at his huge wooden desk, Tom gripped my hand and shot me a sidelong look. A guilty one. He waited for the doctor to finish explaining the details of my goose egg-induced condition, then drew in a deep, bracing breath.
"So," he said. "Is there anything we can do to help her start remembering things, or…?"
The neurologist just laughed. "Give it time," he said. "Time heals all wounds."
I shifted in my chair, a lump rising in my throat. "That's—"
I stopped talking, not sure why I'd even started in the first place. Tom turned to me with a frown, brow knit, mouth a line of thin concern.
"Babe?" he said, voice soft. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." I tried to smile. "Never mind."
I must have hidden my true feelings very well, because neither Tom nor the doctor pressed for more. They just continued to talk about my recovery process and all the things Tom needed to watch out for in the days ahead. That left me to wonder—where had I heard that cliché before? I'd heard it recently, too, that time heals all wounds. But where? Try though I might, I couldn't be certain. No memories of the phrase availed themselves, even though I knew deep in my bones that someone had said those words to me very recently indeed. It was like the lyrics to a song I'd heard just once but could not quite recall, lines poised on the tip of my tongue as they danced just out of reach.
The feeling didn't upset me as much as it should have, though. I'd been feeling it ever since I'd woken up in the hospital. I suppose I'd gotten used to it, that perception of not quite remembering something, a void you could neither see nor fill. It felt like a pitfall I might fall into at any second, or maybe a ghost lurking around the corner, but it vanished every time I reached out to grab its shoulder and see its face.
Disquieted. That was the word. I felt disquieted. But I couldn't say why, which only made me feel worse.
"Post-traumatic stress," the doctor said in gentle tones.
I flinched, shifting in my chair. "I'm sorry?"
"The look on your face," he said. "That feeling like you can't calm down?"
Again, the disquiet rose. "It's like I don't fit my own skin anymore," I said—echoing words I was certain I'd heard before. But where? "A toothache I just can't soothe."
"How poetic." The doctor's smile offered little comfort. "What you're feeling is post-traumatic stress. It's a—"
"A trauma response."
Surprise widened his eyes. "Yes. Exactly." He reached for the pen and pad on his desk. "We can prescribe a medication to combat the anxiety, if you'd like that."
"Sure," I said, not sure what else to say.
Tom leaned forward in his chair. "But about her memories—"
"Just time," said the doctor with a firm shake of his head. "Let her lead. Don't push."
"Right." Tom pretended to look sly. "So don't tell her she bakes me a cake every day. Gotcha."
"Tom," I groaned, unable to keep the smile off my face.
"And that she walks the dog every morning and I always get to sleep in." Tom gave the doctor an exaggerated, open-mouthed wink. "Riiiight."
I covered my laughing face with my hands. "Oh my god."
The doctor was laughing, too. "Well, if there's anything I can say about this, it's that Tom here will make the recovery process a lot of fun." He tore a sheet off his notepad and handed the script to Tom. To me he said, "You're in good hands. Just relax and try not to worry."
"Easier said than done," I muttered.
"Yeah. Relaxing has never really been her specialty." Tom grinned and held up the prescription. "Good thing we've got meds!"
Laughter, as always, came so easily when I was with Tom, as natural as breathing and as warm as springtime sun. A relieved smile followed his bright declaration when he saw me laughing, a sure sign his jokes served as an attempt to lighten the mood… not that he needed to try to achieve that. A glance at his face alone brought me a modicum of peace, putting to rest some of the on edge murmurs that vibrated in my chest. Call me a sentimental fool, but seeing Tom brought a feeling of warmth into the room. He smiled every time our eyes met, and even though this was all so scary and strange, he made it better.
Just looking at him made it all better.
He held my hand for the rest of the day, through all of my final exams and check-ups with the doctors and nurses who'd tended to me after my accident the evening prior. He held my hand as we picked up my medication and talked to my insurance providers about my care and the state of my car. He held my hand as I got dressed in my civilian clothes and creaked my sore body into a wheelchair to be rolled outdoors, never once leaving my side until we exited the hospital and moved into the wet heat of a south-Texas spring. From his pocket he removed a medical mask, tugging it over his mouth and nose as he lifted a hand to point. Along the curb near a valet kiosk waited a bevy of cars, engines idling like sleeping lions as valets circled them. They also wore masks, oddly enough, just like Tom.
Tom tapped my shoulder. "My truck is—"
"The black one." The F-250 near the front of the pack had caught my eye immediately, everything from the chip in the fender to the slightly askew gas cap instantly familiar. "The Ford?"
"I knew you'd remember." Tom beamed and kissed my cheek, mask whispering against my skin. "You've missed a lot, but don't worry, babe. It'll come back to you soon."
Once again, something about his words felt… off. But why?
I didn't have time to wonder. Tom and a masked nurse loaded me into the car shortly afterward, a painful affair that jostled my arm inside its cast and sling. The nurse whisked the wheelchair away indoors as soon as I got settled in the truck cab, Tom rounding the vehicle to put my things (my purse and some clothes, mostly) into the back seat. The interior of the truck felt familiar, too. A collection of Sonic straws in their red wrappers sat in the cupholders alongside a bottle of hand sanitizer—and another blue medical mask. Huh. Strange. The nurse and the valets all wore them, but I had assumed it was so they didn't breathe germs onto patients with compromised immune systems. Why did Tom have a spare in his truck, of all places? Or perhaps a valet had left one behind accidentally…
The truck rocked a bit as Tom climbed in, shooting me a reassuring smile as he put the truck in drive and maneuvered it away from the curb. We navigated the hospital's winding driveways and parking lots in silence, eventually merging onto the freeway amid dozens of other cars and trucks. Light music played over the truck's speakers, nostalgic punk rock from the early 2000s that Tom and I both loved.
Punk rock. I loved punk rock. Always had, always would.
But why did I want to listen to metal, all of a sudden?
A song I couldn't place a name to, a beat my feet couldn't quite tap onto the truck's dark floorboards, echoed in my head like someone shouting in the distance. Restlessly I shifted in my seat, mind wandering back to the doctor's office, the hospital bed, the blackness that lurked before…
"You OK, babe?"
I startled, head jerking off the window. "Hmm?"
"Are you OK?" He looked at me and then the road and back again, smile hesitant. "You're quiet."
"Just… in my own head, I guess." My breath left a fog on the window; with gentle fingers I drew a star in the mist, roads and cars flickering through the transparent gaps in the dense condensation. "I think I had a weird dream."
"A dream?" Tom asked.
"While I was..." (Asleep didn't quite make sense.) "… unconscious. In surgery, or whatever."
"What was it about?"
"I don't know." And this was true. "I can't remember."
Tom took a hand off the steering wheel so he could rest it on my knee. "Do you remember anything?" he asked softly, thumb tracing soft circles.
"I think—I think it was a nice dream." This I knew was true, deep in my bones and the depths of my soul. "I think I was happy." An unnamable fact drifted to me through the ether, definite but somehow nebulous, too. "I looked like someone else, but I was still me. For the most part, anyway. There was something that I had to do… a whole lot of things I had to do… but some of them were…"
I trailed off, struggling. Tom's hand stilled.
"Some of them were what?" he asked.
"I don't know." A helpless shrug, a defeated smile. "It was only a dream, anyway."
"Yeah," he agree, squeezing my knee. "And you're home now. That's what matters."
There was something in the way he said that—a relieved lilt I couldn't quite put my finger on—that made me frown as we continued driving south down IH 45. The feeling persisted as we merged onto the 610 loop then onto IH 10, but it faded when we passed familiar roads and signs bearing names I'd known since childhood. Here I sat up a little straighter, cradling my fractured right arm, watching as we passed the Edwards Marquee and the enormous IKEA a few exits down. Was he taking me to my parents' house? They lived just a few exits down this freeway—but Tom passed that exit without hesitation. So he was taking me to my apartment, then. The one by the mall and the medical center, where I lived with my roommate… Luce. Yeah, that was her name. Gorgeous brown hair and kind blue eyes, always smiling. My writing buddy since we'd met after we both moved back to town when we graduated college—graduated in the same year, no less, because our birthdays were just a few weeks apart. Luce. How had I forgotten good ol' Luce?
But Tom drove past that exit, too. He kept driving down IH 10 in a straight line, the mega-wide road with its myriad lanes passing swiftly beneath the tires of his truck.
"Hey, sorry," I said as we neared the Beltway, "but where are we…?"
Tom smiled. "We're going home."
I swallowed. "And where is…?"
The smile vanished. "Oh, shit." He mopped a hand over his face, apology writ in every last line of his handsome features. "You thought I was kidnapping you, didn't you?" He laughed and shot me a cartoonishly devious grin, one he paired with an absurd cackle. "Surprise! I'm harvesting your kidneys!"
"That's my line," I said. Through the window behind him in the driver's side door, a familiar building passed. I pointed at it on reflex, unable to keep a smile off my face. "You know, we had that conversation right over there."
In the corner of the intersection where IH10 and the Beltway crossed sat a huge shopping center, complete with a theater and hulking parking garage. Tom laughed at the sight of the garage in particular, shaking his head as he turned back to the road to drive.
"That's right. Our first date," he said.
"After dinner, you walked me to my car in that garage, but you had parked on the other side of the shopping complex in another garage," I said, slipping into the familiar story without a second thought.
"And you felt bad I'd have to walk so far to get to my truck, so you said you'd drive me there," Tom said, slipping into the retelling just as easily. "But then you made that wrong turn out of the parking garage and we wound up in an alley. And I joked that you were taking me into a dark alley to mug me—"
"Not mug," I interjected. "I said I was going to steal your kidneys!"
"And then I'd wake up in an ice bath across the border!"
"And take up the path of revenge as you track me down to get your comeuppance!" We lapsed into twin sets of giggles, my head lolling back against my seat. "Damn. I still can't believe you went on a second date with me after that."
"That was how I knew I wanted to go on a second date with you," Tom insisted, and his smile grew wider still. "Kidding." Bright blue eyes softened. "I knew halfway through the appetizers that we'd end up together." His hand found mine and squeezed, fingers gentle. "And I was right, of course. Just look at us now."
He spoke with sincerity resplendent, affection gleaming from each bright eye, smile radiant amid the ginger streaks in his thick beard. I studied his face in profile for a few minutes, watching his body sway over the rise and fall of the smooth highway. His smile, his warm words, his gentle hands all seemed so certain—but something nagged at me, unsettled.
"So," I said. "About where we're going…"
"Shit. I never told you." He grimaced, comical apology twisting his lips. "I swear I'm not kidnapping you. We're just going home to our house out in the suburbs, that's all."
"Hold up. The suburbs?"
Tom laughed. "That's the face you made when we first started looking for houses out there, too." Laughing under his breath, Tom told me, "Y'know, this is kind of exciting. It's like you're getting to see your house again for the first time."
A house. A house. I had a house? Wonders never ceased. "Is it nice?" I asked, a little aghast that I couldn't remember buying such a thing.
"It better be," said Tom, "because I cleaned it top to bottom last night for you."
That wasn't quite what I meant, but Tom seemed satisfied with his joke, so I didn't press the issue. I just looked out the window some more, trying to puzzle everything into an order that made sense. So I wasn't living with Luce anymore. I lived with Tom… an odd thought. We'd been super serious from the moment we started dating, practically, but living together? When had that happened? Buying a house together was a huge step in our relationship, but I couldn't even recall—
Tom pointed ahead of us down the road as we turned onto Highway 6. "You wanna stop for a Blizzard?"
"Oh. Sure," I said as a sign for Dairy Queen rose into view above a gas station, a hardware store, and other shops lining the busy road. Recalling something Tom and I had talked about a hundred times, I said, "Maybe they'll have the brownie batter one, finally."
But Tom just chuckled. "Brownie batter. You haven't brought that up in a while."
"I haven't?"
"No." He hesitated, probably recalling the same things I did—namely that the Brownie Batter Blizzard had always been my favorite, but they took it off the menu when I was a teenager, never to return. It came as a shock, therefore, when Tom said: "They brought it back a few months ago, but—"
"Oh my god, they did!?" I asked, elation thrilling up my spine.
"Wait, wait, let me finish before you get excited, Mrs. Amnesia!" Tom protested. "They brought it back, but it wasn't very good anymore because they added chocolate shards you thought tasted like coffee." When my face fell at this news, he rushed to add, "Now your new favorite is the Snickerdoodle Cookie Dough Blizzard, and you've told me it's better than the Brownie Batter Blizzard ever was."
But I couldn't quite believe him. "What the heck?" I said, staring in horror at the looming Dairy Queen sign. "I mean, what the hell?"
"I said your new favorite—"
"I heard what you said, I'm just—" I flapped a hand at the approaching diner, at a loss for words. "Snickerdoodle… did Dairy Queen get fancy?"
"That's what you said when we first started coming here a few years ago!" Tom said, beaming in excitement at this apparent show of consistency. "You tried the Frosted Animal Cookie Blizzard and said—"
"THEY HAVE A FROSTED ANIMAL COOKIE BLIZZARD!?" I shrieked, and Tom started laughing his head off.
It's difficult to describe how much something as simple as a fast food ice cream treat can mean to a person, but Blizzards really did mean something to me. Those cups of soft-serve custard swirled with bits of candy bars and chunks of fruit were the treat my family stopped to eat every single time we traversed the state to visit family, reserved for special occasions and the occasional road trip. I felt almost like a kid again as Tom pulled his truck into the drive-through and stopped in front of the menu, leaning back in his seat so I could take a good look at the glossy chart of food and ice cream Dairy Queen now offered. Frosted animal cookie, snickerdoodle cookie dough, strawberry-filled cheesecake… the flavors were far more elaborate than I remembered, though classic favorites like plain Oreo and banana still remained, and I couldn't help but marvel at every last new flavor.
Tom watched me with a grin. "You're like a kid on Christmas," he said after we ordered (a snickerdoodle for me, a chocolate chunk cheesecake for him). "You can't stop smiling!"
"No, I definitely cannot," I agreed as we pulled forward toward the pick-up window—but my smile faded when Tom snagged his blue medical mask out of the cup holder, passing it to me as he pulled another mask across his face. I stared at the mask in his hand in silence for a minute, but when he continued to hold it out, I gingerly accepted the thing.
But I wouldn't let this oddity go unchallenged. "What's this for?" I asked, letting it dangle off a fingertip by the ear loop.
Tom did a double-take. "Oh shit. You don't remember the pandemic."
"The what?"
"I'll tell you later." He wasn't smiling anymore. "Just put it on for now, OK?"
I did as he asked, using just my left hand to loop the thing around my ears, right arm held tightly in place by sling and cast. It took a lot of willpower not to scratch at the fabric against my cheeks, but I refrained as Tom rolled down his window and pulled up to the pick-up window. Confused, I noted that a Plexiglas panel had been placed over the top half of the window, shielding the woman inside as Tom handed over his credit card. The woman inside wore a mask, too. It was branded with the Dairy Queen logo (weird flex regarding product placement, Dairy Queen, but OK), and she wore bright blue medical gloves on her thin hands. A sign said they did not accept cash due to a currency shortage (a what shortage?), and that no dine-in options were currently available. When we pulled away from the drive-through lane and into a nearby parking spot to eat our Blizzards, I twisted in my seat to look at the front of the restaurant, where three signs hung in the front windows.
DRIVE-THRU ONLY
NO DINE-IN
OPEN NOW
Behind them, the inside of the restaurant was dark, chairs overturned and stacked upon tables like rows of skeletal sentinels.
"So…" Tom unwrapped a plastic spoon and jammed it into my Blizzard, handing it over with a regretful smile. "How much do you remember about 2020?"
I frowned. "Like 20/20 vision?"
"No. The year." When I did not react, he said: "The year two-thousand-and-twenty, A.D."
"It's 2020," I said.
"Yeah," said Tom.
My heart thudded against my ribs. "But I thought…"
"What's wrong?" Tom set his Blizzard in the cup holder, reaching for mine as my hands began to shake. "I thought I heard the nurse ask you…?"
A nurse had given me a few assessment tests once I was awake enough to take them. They were mostly just quizzes regarding general information anybody would know, like the name of the president (Obama, for now, since his dubious successor hadn't been sworn in) and the date (which I couldn't name). It had clearly been a test of memory, one I assumed I'd completed well enough since the nurse hadn't corrected anything I'd said.
She'd asked me for the year more than once, though. Each time, I'd said it was 2016, and she had not corrected me. But that wasn't the only reason I didn't think it was 2020.
"I thought it was 2016," I said, turning to Tom with a snap.
His eyes widened. "Wow. OK. No wonder you didn't remember our house."
"So you're saying it's 2020?" I pressed. "But that can't be true!"
"Why not?" Tom asked.
"Because you said I got in the accident when I was on my way back from Denise's wedding," I said, looking him dead in the eye, "and she got married in 2016."
Because that was what he'd said, right? As I'd swum from the darkness and into the light of the hospital, he'd whispered what had happened in my ear. He'd said I got into a wreck coming home from Denise's wedding—but as I stared into his eyes, daring him to contradict me, he shook his head. A mournful grimace crossed his lips, blue eyes filling with the softest sorrow imaginable.
"I'm so sorry," Tom said, "but babe… I didn't say that."
Stubbornly, I shook my head. "You did, though."
"No, I didn't."
"But…" Doubt crept in, treacherous and dark. "But you did."
"I'm sorry," Tom repeated with an apologetic shake of head, "but I didn't say that. I wouldn't have said it, because it's not true."
The certainty in my chest deflated, a balloon pricked by a stinging needle. "Oh," I said, word little more than a wheeze in my suddenly right chest. "Oh. OK."
"Denise and Frank have been married since then, though," he said, holding my hand with an encouraging smile. "You're right about that. They've been married since 2016. You didn't forget that at all."
"OK."
His heart broke behind his eyes; Tom wrapped an arm around my shoulders, scooting toward me across his truck's bench seat. "Oh, babe—"
But I held up my hands, shrinking back against the passenger door. "No, no. Don't. Just…" I fought for every word, swallowing down the lump in my neck so hard, it hurt. "I'm just… confused. That's all."
Tom's smile grew even more heartbroken. Embarrassment lit a flame in my face; I felt stupid, like a child ignorant to the world, and the look of pity on Tom's face only made that feeling worse. Forcing myself to smile, I grabbed the reins of the conversation and yanked, hard, changing the subject as I snatched my Blizzard from the cup holder.
"Anyway. Back to 2020." I stabbed my spoon into my ice cream (with a touch more force than necessary) as I did some frantic math. "Jesus Christ, am I already 30?"
Tom looked like the cat who swallowed a canary. "Well..."
"Oh my god, I'm old." I groaned. "No wonder 2020 sucks."
Tom did something a little weird, then: He started laughing. Great big gulps of air and peals of laughter, ones that bent him over at the waist until his head touched the steering wheel. I half feared he'd crush his Blizzard in his hand, but soon his guffaws retreated into mere chuckles. He spooned up some Blizzard and ate it, laughing around the mouthful as though the treat itself tasted of humor. I tried to ask him what the hell was so damn funny, but soon he started laughing again, much too loudly for me to get a word in edgewise. Eventually he calmed down enough to wipe his eyes and take a deep breath.
"So, babe," he said in that mock-serious tone he used when he was about to say something particularly outrageous. "Do you remember how right after the 2016 election, you thought things were gonna be… well. That things were gonna be bad?"
My eyes narrowed. "Ye-es?"
"Well… whatever you imagined, the reality is worse." He held up a hand when I tried to talk. "Like. Way worse." He held up a hand again. "No no no no no. Even worse than what you're thinking right now." He raised his hand one more time, cutting me off. "No no no, babe. Even worse than that."
He told me everything, then—everything about the president's caging of children at the border, the kids that went missing from those cages, the horrific treatment of press, the gas-lighting of our nation, egregious police brutality and the protests that followed, disasters both at home and abroad, rampant racism, the president's fascist propaganda and refusal to condemn white supremacy, wildfires that leveled entire countries, the goddamn pandemic. By the time he finished with what he could remember (because there was more, he dubiously promised, so much more), I had panic-eaten my Blizzard and crushed the cup in my fist, nauseated despite the Blizzard's utterly delicious flavor. 2020, by all accounts, was a terrible year during which the horrors of previous years had snowballed into a terrible avalanche, and now we were seeing the horrible results.
"Oh god," I moaned into my hand. "I'm gonna be sick. This is terrible." Wry humor pulled my mouth into a grimace. "Kinda happy about my amnesia, though. It sounds like I'm blocking out trauma."
"I want some amnesia too, honestly," said Tom, only half kidding. "Feel like sharing?"
"No. All for me." I chuckled without humor. "Looks like I'm a lucky girl."
"Luckiest child alive, basically. I'm jealous, not gonna lie. It's been…" He paused for words. Couldn't find them. Opted for a joke instead. "Well, I'm a cis-het, able-bodied white man, so it's basically been fine for me, but it hasn't been fine for anyone else, and that's the part that sucks."
As always when he poked fun at his own privilege, I couldn't help but laugh. "I'm glad you at least have the self-awareness to see it."
"You're more to blame than me for that. You and Talon—" He paused. "Oh. Talon is—"
Recognition stirred at the sound of the name; I blurted, "One of your online buddies."
"That's right." Tom grinned, putting the car in drive so he could pull away from the Dairy Queen. "He's really into politics, so between the two of you, I hear everything most cis-het white guys tend to ignore."
Even though I couldn't remember it, the fact that I'd kept up with politics during the last four years (god, that time frame was hard to get used to) brought a smile to my face. "Good to know," I said, watching the cars drive by as we merged back onto Highway 6. "I'm glad."
"Yeah…" Tom's cheek twitched. "Talon was the one who told me about the murder hornets first, actually."
Slowly, I turned to face him. "The what?" I said, voice barely louder than a whisper.
"The murder hornets," said Tom in a sing-song voice. "The hornets that murder!"
"Now I know you're pulling my leg."
"Actually…"
"What? No. No!"
Tom let go of the wheel so he could do jazz-hands. "Surprise!"
"NO!"
He was not, in fact, lying about the murder-hornets. I hated that he wasn't lying about the goddamn murder hornets, but he showed me an article that proved they were, in fact, quite real (and perhaps familiar-looking, but maybe I'd just seen them in a college course or something). We chatted about them and some of the other 2020 oddities as the highway took us deep into the suburbs, where we eventually exited onto a tree-lined road. He made me guess about some truly incredible events as the road wound its lazy way past a huge park and a lovely cemetery, slowing when a pack of kids on bicycles emerged from a shady cul-de-sac.
A true picture of the American suburbs, this place. Hard to imagine that my city-dwelling ass wanted to live in it.
As conversation faded into contented silence, I watched the houses rush past and wondered what the hell my own home looked like. I knew what my dream home looked like, but at this point in my life, I couldn't afford it. So what had I settled on? Probably two-stories, at least. A nice yard so we could get a dog, most likely. Brick? Stone? Plaster? Nice windows and plenty of pretty tress? I had so many questions about it. Like did it have a garage, and was the place carpeted (yuck!), and what color was my front door—?
Red.
The answer came to me at once.
My front door was red.
And when we pulled up in front of a cute two-story home built with pink brick and shaded by a trio of tall pine trees, I saw that I was right. The front door had been painted the color of a ripe apple. It stood out against the home's white trim and pale brick, narrow windows on the door's either side sparkling in the light of the afternoon sun.
I'd been right about the front door.
But how?
Was this a memory returning, or…?
I said nothing as Tom pulled into the driveway. I let him grab my stuff out of the backseat and open my door for me, walking slowly as he rounded the corner of the garage and headed for the front door. A large hibiscus bush at the corner of the garage blocked my view of said porch, but just as I heard the front door creak open, Tom let out a mighty yell—and then a tiny figure darted around the bush, leaping at me with a yelp and a yip.
"Hey Nori!" I knelt at once, laughing as he tried to climb me in his haste to lick my face. "Hey boy!"
But wait—how had I known that name?
No time to wonder. Feet slapped the sidewalk; Tom appeared from around the hibiscus bush, red-faced and frantic. He slumped and placed his hands on his knees when he saw Nori, eyes rolling back in relief.
"Thank god," he said. "I was so worried."
"About Nori getting out?" I said, rubbing the dog's ears. "He's such a weasel."
But Tom only laughed. "Babe, I don't know if you remember, but Nori is obsessed with you," he said, half joking and half serious. "If you didn't remember him, I was pretty sure he'd fall over and die."
"He's a mama's boy, huh?" I cooed, scratching that spot on Nori's shoulder that I somehow (somehow) knew he loved. His brown eyes screwed up in happiness, tail wagging a mile a minute at the sound of my baby-talk. "Yes? Yes, you are? Good boy, my little Nori-bear."
Dog secured, Tom gathered Nori up to carry him inside. Nori stared at me over Tom's shoulder, grinning ear to ear—but even his happy husky face couldn't quell the uneasy feeling that had begun to bubble in my breast. The dog's name had come to me so fast. Like with so many other things, I was left to wonder how. Was my memory returning already? But no, I didn't really remember the dog. I just… knew his name. Somehow. Which made very little sense to me.
Tom called for me, then.
I shook myself and headed indoors.
The house smelled like clean laundry and vanilla—a combination of scents from I loved, and ones I did not doubt I had engineered inside this home. From the front door I beheld a modest floorplan of rooms connected by open doorways and arched eaves, a white tile floor giving the impression of cleanliness and space. To my right sat the dining room, a large purple art print on the wall depicting a purple nebula and glimmering, whirling stars. Gauzy white curtains framed the windows, through which streamed sunshine and warmth. Ahead lay a living room with a fireplace, a dove grey couch positioned in front of the dim hearth. More framed galaxies adorned the walls, their colors offset by cool metallic accents on frames, knickknacks and the white and silver coffee table.
It was a pretty enough house. Not my dream home, but it would do. Still, as Tom ventured further into the home and out of sight, I floundered by the front door, not sure what to do or where to go. Tom returned soon enough, however, expression growing concerned as Nori reared up and placed his paws on my belly, neck craning in a request for pets.
"You OK?" Tom asked.
I shared into Nori's loving eyes, hesitating. "Just…"
"… do you need a tour?" Tom's voice was gentle, suggestion as kind as he could make it. As usual, he tried to brighten the mood with a joke, placing a faux-arrogant hand on his chest. "Because I can be a tour guide for you if you want. Not to be that guy, but my tours are legendary."
"Um." Deciding this was probably best, I gestured for him to lead the way. "Sure. Yeah. Gimme a tour of—of my own house."
I didn't mean to say that last bit. I didn't mean for my voice to crack on the final word. I didn't mean for my eyes to well with tears. But out of frustration and confusion, all of these things happened, and try though I might, I could not keep emotion at bay. I stared at Nori and petted his ears, doing my best to keep the lump in my throat from breaking.
But Tom saw it all for what it was. "Oh, babe," he said—and before I could think to protest, he put his arms around me.
It felt good, to be held. He smelled like deodorant and clean soap, fabric softener and Tom. I leaned into his shoulder as he tucked me under his chin, hand rubbing a soothing circle across my shoulder blades. I'd forgotten how tall he was, how he could envelop me in a hug despite my height, make me feel delicate… though it's not like I was actually that tall in this life.
Wait. No, that wasn't right. I was tall. I was 5'9, barefoot.
Where had that thought come from, anyway?
I wasn't sure. I did my best not to look confused when I finally let go. He waited for me to let go before loosening his grip, offering me the most encouraging of smiles when I sniffled and shook my head, forcing a smile of my own.
"Well, then," I said. "Give me the tour."
Tom leapt into action, guiding me through the living room (where a shelf proudly displayed our favorite books) and the dining room (where a suit of armor we'd named Sylvando, after a character from a game we liked, stood guard) and at last the kitchen (where curated cooking implements in blue and grey gave an impression of cool, sleek cleanliness). A laundry room and a powder room sat near the entrance to the garage, and out back, a shady porch lazed before a sizeable backyard. Toys scattered across the grass gave away to whom the yard truly belonged. The couch in the living room looked like it belonged to Nori, too, as it sported a healthy dusting of silvery dog hair. I didn't recognize much of anything in the house aside from the record player on a stand in the corner and a few art pieces here and there. Quite the surreal feeling, hearing Tom tell me about our search for the couch and where I'd found the galaxy prints on the walls. I remembered none of the anecdotes he shared, wandering on restless feet into the kitchen as he told me about the wreath made of faux succulents that hung above the fireplace (I'd made it, apparently).
A vase of sunflowers, my favorite, sat on the breakfast table alongside a Tupperware container of cupcakes. "These are pretty," I said when he finished talking, fingering one bright petal. "And those look yummy."
"Christa sent the flowers over," Tom said. "And the cupcakes are from Luce."
"Aww! That was sweet of them." It was good to hear the name of an old friend, Christa, and I thanked my lucky stars that Luce was still in my life. Now just to figure out how to get in touch with them—speaking of which. Turning to Tom, I asked, "My parents?"
"I talked to them already; knew your mom would just stress you out, so I took care of it." He stood near the fireplace, lounging with an elbow on the mantle, lazy smile on his lips. "They'll come visit if you want that. But you'll probably need to call them and let them know you're alive, first."
"They thought I might…?" I winced. "Was the accident really that bad?"
"No, of course not," Tom said at once. He rolled his eyes, an exaggerated gesture. "You know how parents are, though." Despite the humor, his eyes had darkened, staring past me and over my shoulder. Before I could ask, he jerked a thumb at a door behind him, the one sitting at the foot of a set of dim stairs. "Want to see the bedroom?"
It was a nice bedroom, if a bit cramped. I'd apparently decided to decorate in darker tones, blacks and navy blues complementing more framed galaxy prints on the walls. Once again Tom told me this decor had all been my brainchild, but… something about it just didn't sit right.
And it wasn't just the bedroom that made me feel that way. It was all of it, every scrap of information I'd just absorbed. We had a dog? A house? A shared bedroom? None of that struck a chord in me. Sure, Tom was incredibly important and the person I thought I'd one day settle down with, but we hadn't quite gotten to that part yet, now had we? We hadn't gotten to the point of adopting a dog together, of buying a house, of moving in together in the suburbs, of all places. We were still just starting out. We were still just dreaming of a dog. We were still just fantasizing about a house, planning what we wanted in the event of a zombie invasion.
Tom and I, we were still beginning.
And yet, deep in my bones, I could sense that everything he said… well, it was all true. I knew Nori's name and where he liked to be scratched. I knew the names of Tom's online friends. I knew the color of my front door before I saw it. How could I know these things unless they were all true, buried beneath amnesia and trauma and the shock of my accident's aftermath?
My fingers drifted toward my right arm, bound up in its cast. At the elbow my fingertips encountered a hard, unnatural lump, a surgical pin distending the skin there. Scar tissue ringed the pin, familiar as Morse code. It grounded me in the moment, bringing peace in its wake.
All of this… this was right.
… wasn't it?
Tom showed me the closet, next. It was huge, extending the entire length of space beneath the staircase (or so the sloping ceiling at the far end led me to believe). I didn't recognize many of the clothes on the hangers, but… perhaps it was just a trick of the mind, but as I touched the bolts of cloth and dainty stitches, I thought maybe—just maybe—they were familiar to me. But it was hard to say.
The items hanging from a hook on the back of the closet door, however, were a mystery. They were quite obviously convention tags, square badges hanging from colorful lanyards depicting smiling anime and comic book characters, but I didn't recognize any of the characters. And I most certainly didn't recognize the names of the conventions printed on the placards. As I thumbed through the tangle of lanyards, I looked at Tom and frowned.
"How many conventions do we go to these days?" I asked.
"I don't go to many, but you go all the time," he said. "Except for this year, though. Thanks, COVID."
I didn't smile at the joke. I was too busy reading the tags. "This one's from New York," I said, holding it up. Then I grabbed another. "And this one's LA. Georgia? Washington DC? Why do I go to so many cons out of state?"
Tom hesitated, but soon he relented and told me the truth. "You work for an anime licensor," he confessed, as if sharing a dark secret. "You go to conventions and work at a booth, and you even give talks at panels about the company."
I stared at him. "That's my job?"
"Yup."
"That's…" Words failed. "That's wild."
He smothered a laugh. "Wait till you see upstairs."
"Why? I said, suspicion mounting.
"It's not bad," Tom said, "it's just..."
Words failed him, too. "Oh god," I said, not liking his silence in the least.
But Tom just grinned. "You'll love it, I promise."
And with that, there was nowhere to go but upstairs. Unlike the downstairs, the narrow staircase (lined on each side by flat expanses of plain wall) wasn't decorated. I followed Tom up the steps with my heart in my mouth, wondering just what the heck this boring staircase was leading me toward—and as we turned the corner into a large room, I stopped dead. Nori darted ahead of us, leaping onto a couch in the room's center, oblivious to my state of shock and wagging his tail with abandon. Clearly, he wasn't bothered in the least by this room—one that had me with my jaw on the floor.
"Holy…" I said, unable to finish the thought.
"Yeah." Tom leaned against the bit of wall at the top of the stairs, grinning as he looked over the room. "It's something, all right."
The walls up there were covered—absolutely festooned—in anime. From full-size posters and prints to small art cards, fan-art and official art alike lined the space from nearly ceiling to floor. Where there wasn't art there were shelves (bookcases and glass display cases and floating shelves) bedecked in figurines, toys, and other memorabilia. An alcove along one wall was filled with nothing but those Funko Pop things, each figure displayed in front of their box like collector's items (not that I knew if they qualified as such). Wandering around the couch sitting in front of a TV and into the Technicolor maelstrom of merchandise, my feet carried me to the glass case in the corner, where a few LED lights cast bright illumination over a set of colorful figurines.
Yu Yu Hakusho figurines, to be exact.
I stared at those figurines for a long time. Kurama holding a rose whip, Youko Kurama beside him with claws outstretched. Yusuke wearing his green uniform like a cape as Puu sat atop his head. Kuwabara in his Dark Tournament whites, hefting the Spirit Sword. Hiei summoning the Dragon of Darkness Flame, bandages swirling around his arm. There was even a Genkai figurine, the pink-haired fighter crouched in a fighting stance. And a few smaller figurines I remembered buying in college, scoring them off a vendor at a convention in Illinois, surrounded—
Tom appeared at my elbow. "You've been collecting for years now," he said. "It's a lot, but… hey, hey." He put a hand on my back, thumb whispering across my nape. "Are you all right?"
I wasn't sure what he meant until he touched my face. His fingers came away wet. I stared at them in silence until it clicked: I was crying, twin tracks of moisture slipping down my cheeks. Not that I understood why they'd formed there in the first place. I just blotted the tears on my sleeve, staring at the darkened fabric in nonplussed detachment.
"You must've really missed them, huh?" Tom said, trying to fill the silence. "Your boys?"
My brow furrowed. "My boys…"
"Yeah," he said, reaching down to pat Nori (who had at some point trotted over in quiet feet). "Me and Nori... and the boys of Yu Yu Hakusho, of course."
He said that last part as an afterthought, staring at the case of figurines. I didn't reply. I just looked at him, silent, before turning again to explore the room's brightly colored walls.
As Tom had stated, most of the merchandise was related to Yu Yu Hakusho, but other shows broke up the images of Yusuke and his friends at regular intervals. Cowboy Bebop and Sailor Moon, mostly, along with some Pokémon here and there. I meandered about the room to look at it all, trailing fingertips along a music box that played "Smile Bomb" and a set of the Sailor Moon transformation brooches. While some of the merch looked vintage, with tattered edges and the occasion scuff, much of it appeared new indeed. Oddest of all, some of the Yu Yu Hakusho artwork—the official stuff with copyright at the bottom—appeared… modern. Sleek. Not at all like some of the grainy images I'd been forced to accrue when I started collecting in earnest in college.
One set of posters in particular caught my eye. They depicted the main four boys in formal Japanese attire, illustrations and colors crisp and clean. Not at all like the official art that I remembered. Drawn like iron to a magnet, I reached out to touch one of the posters. Stopped just before my fingers brushed the class that covered it. Let my hand fall limp at my side once more.
Something—something about this was wrong.
The longer I looked at the posters, the more and more wrong it seemed. I couldn't put my finger on why, though. All I could do was stare at the posters, feeling progressively more unsettled with every passing moment. Was it their smiling faces that gave me such pause? Was it the colors, their stances, their clothes? Again, the sensation of wrongness felt like something on the tip of my tongue, just beyond my grasp but maddeningly close. But what was it? What about this made me feel so strange, a feeling that deepened as long as I looked at the posters? It was like they were—
"Babe?" Tom's hand lit upon my back again. "Are you OK?"
I couldn't answer him. Not for lack of trying, though. I just couldn't find the words to tell him the faces felt… flat. Familiar, but flat, and not just because they were printed on thin paper. They were… unrealistic. Only, they were too realistic. Not at all lifelike, and yet, too lifelike at the same time. Parsing that contradiction proved impossible. It was all I could do just to stare at the posters, meeting their gazes one by one.
Dead behind the eyes. That was it. They were dead behind the eyes, existing on just this side of realism to the point where they became entirely unrealistic. Lifeless and flat and…
"Do you know what the uncanny valley is?" I blurted.
"Yeah. I do." (Of course he knew; he was a gamer, after all). "Why?"
I took a deep breath. To explain. To tell him what was wrong.
Tears pricked my eyes again.
"Never mind." I whirled away, blinking the emotion back where Tom couldn't see. "Show me the rest of the house?"
Tom did, probably just to make me happy. He shot me concerned glances whenever he thought I wasn't looking and between stops on the tour. First he escorted me his game room at the end of a short hallway. The mosaic of video game posters on the wall were familiar; he'd hung the same thing in his bachelor pad back when we first met, only he said in this house, I'd put them together with better attention paid to the color composition (a fact I knew somehow before he even said it). Two more rooms constituted the rest of the upstairs, but they were empty. One would become my office eventually, Tom told me, but we hadn't found the right desk yet. I'd wanted to finish decorating the downstairs and our bedroom, first. We'd decorate it when we'd saved a bit more cash.
When we left that room, I didn't linger in the upstairs common area. I booked it back down the stairs, not daring to give the Yu Yu Hakusho posters a second glance. Tom and Nori followed me into the kitchen, where Tom gestured at the refrigerator and offered up a big smile.
"So what now?" he asked. "Are you hungry? I could make something."
"I think I'd like to lie down." My head had begun to pound, heat rising in my temples. "Just for a little while."
Tom saw the fatigue on my face and nodded. "Yeah. A nap might be good," he said—and then he grinned. "Or you could work on Elsie. I think you were supposed to update this weekend, right?"
I frowned. "Elsie?"
"Elsie." He waited a beat, and when I didn't react, he spoke again. "Lucky Child?"
I shook my head, not understanding.
"Ah. Got it," said Tom. Tone helpful and chipper, he explained, "It's your story—the Yu Yu Hakusho fanfic you've been writing for the past four years. It's called Lucky Child, but we tend to call it Elsie for short."
It clicked that he was saying an acronym, not a name. "Oh. Right. Elsie. LC." Pinching the bridge of my nose, I muttered, "That makes way more sense."
Tom tutted, walking over to slip an arm around my shoulders. "Yeah, I think you'd better lie down. Want me to bring you a snack, or maybe a drink?"
"Sure."
With Tom's help, I changed out of my shirt and into pajamas, careful of my broken arm in its new cast. ("How much abuse can your right arm even take?" he joked. "What, the accident couldn't do you a favor and beat up your left? What an asshole.") It felt like being fussed over by a mother hen, the way he tucked me into bed and brought me my purse, telling a joke at every turn, fishing out and connecting my phone to the charger at my bedside. He promised to come back fast before kissing my forehead and dragging Nori (who wanted pets and was not shy about my newly broken arm when asking for them) out of the room by the collar. In his absence, I did my best to get comfortable—but when my phone gave a little buzz on the table, I reached for it and sat back up.
I didn't recognize my phone's lock screen. Heck, I didn't even recognize the phone. It was bigger than my old one, with buttons set in different places around its large touchscreen. The lock screen depicted a tiny spaceship soaring away into infinity with a burst of rainbow color—cute, but inscrutable. Yet the device opened to my standard password, which made me feel a bit better… until I saw the wallpaper within.
It was a drawing, a picture of a girl with short, punky brown hair and brown eyes holding a glowing sparkler in front of a dark forest, moon shining in the starry sky above. I didn't recognize the character in question, nor did I recognize the signature at the bottom of the piece: the letters K and P under a crown. But it was quite pretty, so perhaps I'd just chosen it for the aesthetic. No way to be sure, really. Trying not to think about the unfamiliar images, I clicked on my web browser (had to hunt for the icon a bit), hoping I was already signed into my email account.
The browser opened to a fresh page. At the top sat a Google search bar. Below that sat a few links to current news articles, and below that a few tiles of bookmarked sites availed themselves. I scanned these out of habit (apparently I still had habits), eyes roving across a link to something called Ko-fi (whatever that was), a shopping site I didn't recognize, and…
Yu Yu Hakusho – Archive (FFnet)
My thumb twitched, and in an instant, the Yu Yu Hakusho archive on FFnet filled the browser top to bottom.
I recognized it at once, of course. I'd spent hundreds of hours on this site perusing fic after fic, reading at all hours and until the sun broke over the horizon the following day. I'd spent years writing and updating my stories on this website, and with a rush of nostalgia I scrolled through the archive's front page. Stories skipped past like stones thrown over a lake, some of them familiar, some of them not, but each one intriguing in their own right.
Anyone Like You
Feels Like Home
Into Nightfall
Lucky Child
Upon reading that name, my vision froze.
It took me a long time to break free of that spell—from the siren-like hold of those words, grip as unyielding as dry concrete. But soon I managed to look at something other than their curving letters, absorbing the date of its last update.
September 20, 2020
Just two weeks prior, to be exact.
The fact that I couldn't remember a story I wrote as recently as two weeks ago placed ice inside my chest. Tearing my eyes from the date, I skimmed the summary in a frantic rush.
"When a Yu Yu Hakusho fan dies and is reincarnated in Keiko's body, she's faced with a difficult decision: Should she stay true to her former self, or should she follow Keiko's script? Not-Quite-Keiko must choose between honoring the anime or forging a destiny of her own making—but can she afford to be herself when one wrong move could rewrite history? [SI!Keiko]"
Franticness morphed into irritation in an instant. So a self-insert fic, then. Odd. I hadn't read one of those in a while, much less written one. Taking the place of Keiko seemed like a very silly premise, too. Very out-there, to put it mildly. And if it were me, I'd change the wording of the summary; the rhetorical questions felt repetitive, and the syntax itself could use some—
Wait. If it were me?
But it was me, wasn't it? It was me who wrote this. I wrote it. Or that's what Tom said, at least…
Too bad I remembered none of it at all.
Well. I supposed I could read the damn thing, see if it jogged a memory…
But what if, a small voice inside me whimpered, I didn't like what I found?
Not sure what else to do, I opted for the tried and true practice of reading the reviews.
Classic tactic, I mused as I opened the review page. If the reviews seemed good, hopefully that promised good things about the story itself. What better way to steel myself than to get a hint at the story's reception? Pleased by my tactics, I skipped to a random chapter in the review drop-down menu. The first one that caught my eye had been written by someone named "Kaiya Azure."
"Sneaky," they'd written. "Though I wonder if Sailor V might have a way of helping Botan heal up a bit more. In any case, it looks like Kagome just helped Kurama jog his memory."
I stared at the review for a few seconds. Processed what I had just read. Recalled the name of the protagonist of Inuyasha.
Then, out loud: "I crossed over how many goddamn anime?!"
There was no time to think about what kind of disaster this fic could turn out to be, so I skipped to another chapter and read a random comment, this one from "xenocanaan" on chapter 59 (wait, how many chapters were in this thing?!):
"I want to sincerely thank you for writing this wonderful chapter!" they'd written. "Especially the last scene, I've been having a lot of trouble with my anxiety and depression this week for multiple reasons, and reading that actually got me laughing. I can completely see something like that happening in the anime, particularly Yusuke's reactions. Having this to look forward to every weekend actually helps me stay a little more positive, so thank you."
I stared at that one for a long time—longer than I'd like to admit. My hand traveled to my mouth, covering it as I stared at the comment in abject disbelief. Amazement. Denial, too.
"Did I… Did I really write this story?" I whispered.
It was hard to take credit for something I had no memory of creating. Feeling like an intruder, I skipped to another random chapter—this time chapter 27, where a review by "Lady-Nevermore 13" caught my eye.
"Just wanted to say how much I really love your fanfic as well as the unique and cool concept of not quite-keiko; I haven't gotten this invested in a yyh fanfic in a really long while, and what's more, it's also helped get me through some tough times in my personal life as well. So yeah, just wanted to say thank you for writing such an intriguing and compelling story (your take on some of my fave yyh characters is simply fascinating and I love it). You're an amazing writer, and I will def. be looking forward toward seeing how your story will continue to unfold, cheers!"
Like I'd been bitten by a snake, I threw the phone across the bed and buried my face in a pillow to scream. It was an entirely unbidden reaction—and a familiar one, too. Any time I'd gotten a nice, personal review in the past (and this time I'd read three of them), I'd done the same thing: an immediate phone-chuck followed by hysterical yodeling. Only this time I rolled onto my cast and had to stifle a different sort of scream, one born both of pain and of supreme and utter embarrassment.
Because—me? I wrote the story that got that comment? That was so damn nice, and so unexpected. Just—me!? I wrote something people said such nice things about? Surely not. Surely there was some mistake. Surely this wasn't my story. I didn't remember writing it at all! I didn't deserve words like that, such votes on confidence that made me devolve into a pile of burning goo. There was no way those words were for something I made. They couldn't be. They just couldn't. Maybe they were a fluke, then? Were others as kind? Had I managed to pick some of the best ones at random?
I was too afraid to find out. Scrambling for my phone, I unlocked the dim screen and moved to exit the page—but as I did, I noticed that at the top, two little orange words signaled that I was currently signed into the website.
Those two little words were a hyperlinked username: Star Charter.
Gooseflesh rose along my arms.
Star Charter.
I knew that name.
But how?
Before I could wonder at length or examine the apprehension fizzing in my chest, the door creaked open; Nori darted into the room as soon as a crack appeared, leaping onto the bed so he could attack my face with licks. I shoved my phone under my pillow with one hand and then tried to fend him off, giggling as he did his damndest to lick my eyeballs.
A moment later, Tom came in holding a tray. "Hey, hon?" he said as he crossed the room, eyes locked on the tray. "I brought you some soup."
My brow shot up. "I'm not sick. Just broken."
"I know, but what else do you make when your girlfriend gets hit by a truck?" he shot back, grinning all the while. "Plus we stocked up on 'soup for our family' a few weeks ago…"
My eyes narrowed when he giggled. "Why are you laughing? What's so funny?"
"I'll explain later." He set the tray on top of the nightstand, out of Nori's reach (though not out of sight; Nori stared at the bowl like he hadn't eaten in a month, eyes huge and begging). Tom left the room and returned again a minute later, carrying something under his arm. "Thought you might want this. It's—"
"My tablet," I said as soon as he held the object out. Wrapped in a battered and peeling fake-leather case, the weight of it felt familiar as hell in my hands—mostly because I remembered the tablet perfectly. It had been my main writing tool since college, barely capable of running anything more substantial than a word processer, but hardy enough to take on a plane without too much worry. Stroking its tattered cover, I said, "I can't believe this is still working. I've had it for, what? Ten years?"
"Just about," said Tom with his good-natured cheer. "It's on its last legs, though. Will barely hold a charge and keeps shorting out, so save early and save often, capiche?" From the way his eyes glittered, I think he was quoting me with that last bit; it certainly sounded like something I'd say. "I keep saying I need to make you a desktop, but we need to save up some money first. Maybe for Christmas… anyway." He pressed another kiss to my forehead. "I'll leave you be for now, but yell if you need anything, OK?"
"OK."
"I love you."
"I love you, too."
He beamed, giving me another kiss. Assuring me that he'd be just outside again, he picked up Nori and headed for the door, pausing at the last second to turn around and look my way. His lips curled into a smile as soon as our eyes met, warmth creeping in to lighten pale, rich blue to the color of the sky at dawn.
"Hey, babe," he said, and then he stopped.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
Tom hesitated.
Then: "Nothing." Another smile, this one even warmer than the first. "I'm just so glad you're home."
He shut the door behind him, after that, leaving me alone.
When I heard them get settled in Tom's game room across the house after a noisy trek up the stairs, I reached under my pillow and retrieved my phone. The reflection of my face showed in the glass before I unlocked it, fingers moving swiftly as I sought to avoid my own gaze.
Star Charter, the name at the top of the fanfiction archive read.
My thumb moved—then stopped.
One moment passed. Then two. Then ten.
Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself, tapped the name, and navigated to my menu of written stories. Hesitated for a second more. Clicked a certain link.
Slowly, word by word, sentence by excruciating sentence… began to read.
"My name is Yukimura Keiko," began the story called Lucky Child, "but that has not always been my name."
NOTES
*jazz hands* It's meeeetaaaaa!
I just had a hellacious series of weeks involving (drumroll) more broken plumbing. Had no water in my home for a week and am out thousands of dollar. Happy birthday to me; welcome to adulthood! It's terrible and awful so please be nice to me in the comment section; I can only take so much right now. (*sobs*)
Big thanks to all those who commented on chapter 114. It was the longest chapter of this story yetand took me a lot of time, effort and planning to write. I'm extra grateful for all of you who left a review. Will probably set hard limits on chapter lengths after this so I don't break my back writing a nearly 20,000-word monster again, though. Will probably cap chapters around 10k words from this point onward.
I was originally going to resolve this whole mini-arc in this chapter, but I decided to split it into two parts instead so I can start writing shorter chapters. Sorry to drag out the suspense, but it had to be done due to the reasons listed above. The most meta bits of all will happen in the next chapter.
And now for bad news (bad news for y'all, that is; for me it's good news, really). I'll be going on hiatus in November to participate in NaNoWriMo. That means the next chapter (chapter 116 on October 18) will be the last chapter of LC I will post until December. After 116 goes live on October 18, Lucky Child updates will resume with chapter 117 on December 6, 2020.
I do have some good news for all of us to share: I will also be doing a daily writing prompt challenge all throughout October. Please go follow "Scribbled in Secret" on my profile for a 31-chapter collection of drabbles that centers on the revelation of NQK's reincarnation secret. A new drabble will come out every day this month. The list of prompts I'm using can be found on my Tumblr page.
You'll want to check out the second chapter of "Scribbled in Secret," BTW. It is from Kurama's POV and shows how the boys reacted to NQK's collapse at the end of chapter 114.
I wanted it to be a surprise when I pulled past reviews for use in this chapter (and I did actually pick them at random, for the record), but if I used yours and you'd rather me not, I will HAPPILY remove them. Whatever makes you feel comfy! Many thanks to those whose reviews I pulled. You da best. You made me throw my phone; thank you for that.
Also, the stories listed in the above chapter are the ones currently on the front page; wanted the meta bits of this to be as accurate as possible.
Big thanks to Wikipedia for the definition of retrograde amnesia.
The art mentioned as the background of my phone is by kattenprinsen over on Tumblr (and yes, it's the background on my phone LOL). IT IS SO PRETTY and is of NQK, as you might have guessed. I will reblog it so you can check it out and show KP some love. THANK YOU KP!
Many thanks to those who came out to support chapter 114. I was incredibly nervous about the content, to be perfectly honest. Not everyone will like this arc, but I personally think it's my favorite thing to have happened so far in LC, and that means your words were especially meaningful to me. This foray into meta is dedicated to you, those very special, meta-loving readers who came out to show 114 some much-needed love: RE Zera, EdenMae, Hobo Narwhal, ladyofchaos, xenocanaan, cezarina, Convoluted Compassion, kindsoul1991, Sorlian, Raelia's Chronicles, REEbook123, LadyEllesmere, Kaiya Azure, C S Stars, vodka-and-tea, Kirie Mitsuru, Call Brig On Over, A, Forthwith16, KhaleesiRenee, cestlavie, tammywammy9, Lightning Ash, Meno Melissa, IronDBZ, rueedge, lovedigitalhope, Himemiko, Biku-sernsei-sez-meow, buzzk97, Archaeological, Sofia334 and various guests.
