Mandy explained to him a couple of days later why he had to keep his mouth shut, why he shouldn't tell anyone that he didn't remember, why he should pretend.
She said that if he told the hospital he couldn't remember, they would have kept him there and not only did she think that he was better off at home – because Milkovichs didn't do therapy – but they also couldn't afford the hospital bills if he stayed there any longer. She also told him not to tell anyone else because the person she knew as her brother wouldn't like anyone to see that weakness; but also, people would ask him what had happened and why he couldn't remember and he would have to come out. She said she'd rather have a brother who couldn't remember than a dead brother.
It made sense to him, sort of, but more than that, he just didn't want to do anything to upset Mandy. She was nice to him, she looked after him, taught him about himself, she deserved him to do this for her. As far as he was concerned anyway.
Sometimes he didn't know whether she preferred him or the old him; but he thought that more than anything she was just glad she had someone there. Because he couldn't remember anything, Mandy made it her mission to fill up his head with as many memories as possible.
They got drunk on a baseball field that for some reason made Mickey think of sex and Mandy passed out so he had to carry her back home.
They snuck into the movies and had a popcorn fight until they got kicked out.
They had a horror movie marathon and Mandy hid behind a pillow for most of it, Mickey just jumped rather a lot and couldn't work out why sometimes he wanted to laugh.
They tried to make a cake for some random reason but in the end just ate the mixture because they knew it would taste better than the cake ever could.
She also woke him up at one in the morning once to have a shots competition because she was bored; Mandy threw up first, Mickey threw up five shots later.
They had a water fight whilst it was snowing and both of them had the flu for the next week.
She taught him to shoplift and showed him all of the places he'd used to like to go, which to be honest were random and out of the way, places you'd go to get high without anybody noticing. She also did coke with him and laughed at him when he got into a fight with the couch cushions for no reason whatsoever.
They had Thanksgiving with just the two of them, Mickey got some chicken fillet things and lied to Mandy telling her they were turkey. Mandy made too much mash potato and later on when they got high, it turned into a food fight with the left over mash. It took them two days to clean all of it up, because they kept finding it in random places.
He decided to tidy up the house a little and they lined all of the empty cans up underneath the El and shot at them with two of the many guns in the house. Mickey couldn't work out how he could remember how to shoot a gun, but not things about growing up with Mandy.
Mandy taught him how to act in public so that nobody would guess that he wouldn't remember and it felt like he was putting a mask on every time he walked out of the house. Mandy had said it was okay if he ignored people he didn't know, or if he didn't use their names or just looked at them strangely, because everybody in this neighbourhood thought he was a dick. He didn't know how he was supposed to feel about that, it made him a little sad to think that everyone hated him. In the end, it didn't really matter because nobody seemed to want to talk to him anyway.
She laughed at him for enrolling in community college, but in the end she did the same thing and he made sure to laugh at her right back. He studied something to do with engineering, but in the end knew he'd just carry on working at the construction site he'd landed a job at. Mandy did a course in hair and beauty or some shit.
She bullied him into letting her pierce his ear on night and he was drunk and more than a little bit high, so he let her. He thought it looked stupid, just a little black stud in his left earlobe, but he left it there because Mandy seemed pretty damn pleased with herself every time she saw it. He couldn't work out if that was because she'd successfully pierced his ear or because she'd managed to bully him into letting her do it.
They spent a lot of time when they were working, or at community college, either drinking, smoking or playing video games. It made Mickey feel like an eternal teenager or something, but it was fun so he didn't complain. He thought it was weird because he didn't really like the idea of getting high all the time, but he did it because it was practically instinctive to do so.
Mandy was always telling him he freaked her out when it was just the two of them and he forgot to be a dick. He'd asked her to pass him the salt one night they'd been too lazy to cook and had gotten fish and chips. She'd corrected him saying, "You're supposed to say, 'oy bitch, salt, now'."
He couldn't imagine himself saying that, so he'd just shrugged and put salt on his chips in silence.
They'd cleaned out the house properly one day because they lost the Xbox controller and Mandy was screaming at him to find it and they had found it, but before that they'd found a mouse. Mandy had screamed some more and Mickey had laughed and picked it up because it was weirdly docile. He'd chased her around the house with it for a while and she'd put him in a headlock and he didn't know why it was instinct to twist her nipple, but it was. IN the end, he'd managed to convince Mandy to hold the mouse, she'd named it Bert and they'd stolen a cage from this random pet shop down the road and now they had a pet mouse that Mandy said she'd never thought would happen ever. She told him they'd never had a pet before. He thought that made their lives sound kind of sad, but he kept that to himself.
She cried sometimes when she got the post and he'd come into her room even though she'd told him to piss off and had hugged her. He found out that she had a friend in the army who she missed a lot. She said it was her best friend and had mumbled something out about a boyfriend so he supposed that they'd been a couple at one point. He didn't know why the thought of the army made him feel, but it did.
One of the things that he did not that freaked Mandy the fuck out, was that he liked to read. He didn't tell her it was because he liked to fill his brain up with information so that he didn't have to think about the empty space that was his memories. It felt like there was a black hole in his mind, he wanted to fill it by any means necessary. So he read.
He was in the library when someone actually spoke to him, a frown on their face.
"Mickey, what the hell are you doing here?"
He didn't know the person standing in front of him, but he pretended they did. He put that mask on that for a second he'd forgotten he had to wear. "Getting a book, what the fuck does it look like?" he asked, making himself scowl, partly because the words tasted strange on his tongue, the harshness of it alien.
The guy in front of him snorted, "Yeah, but can you actually read?"
"Fuck off," he muttered because he didn't know what else to say. He didn't know who he disliked more at that moment, the guy in front of him, or the guy that this stranger thought he was.
The guy rolled his eyes, "Come on, you have to admit it's weird."
Mickey just stared at him, because he didn't have to admit to anything and they both knew it. "Mick, are you fucking done yet?" Mandy appeared beside them, her expression bored as she leant against the bookcase playing with the hem of her too small skirt.
"I told you not to come," he said, rolling his eyes at her.
She didn't seem to be listening to him anymore. "Hey Lip," she said and her smile was definitely flirty.
The name didn't ring any bells in his head. "I'm going to book this out," he said and Mandy just waved him off, already completely engrossed in this new guy, Lip or whatever. Five minutes later, they were still flirting.
"You coming or staying?" he asked her.
"You going to buy me a McDonalds?" she countered, chewing her bottom lip and looking at him with wide pleading eyes.
He stared at her for a minute, "Are you going to steal my chips again?"
"Probably."
He shrugged, he'd been expecting that answer, "Kay then."
Mandy grinned and bounced forwards to peck the guy Lip on the cheek before bumping against Mickey as they moved towards the library door. The librarian told her to be quiet when she tripped up slightly and squealed, she swore at the librarian in response and Mickey thought it was highly likely that he wasn't going to be let back in again.
