HOLES
To my infinite pleasure, her cheerfulness extended into the next morning, even through my interrogation. La battled my incessant questions with a smile and game repartee - she even filled in detail when I asked or offered up side stories when they applied. All the little revelations blossomed like a forest in a Bob Ross painting. There's no way those textures are going to work, Bob - oh, just kidding.
Questions like "What's your favorite color," and "who is your favorite comic book hero," got easy answers: Gray today, but tomorrow it will probably be something else, and Wolverine. These were answered automatically and without consideration.
Other questions were asked specifically to satiate my curiosity about things I only knew from spending time in her company when she hadn't been aware of my presence. I would have to come clean about that eventually - a conversation I was not looking forward to. My first inquiry was about that old dog-eared copy of Jane Austen she'd fallen asleep reading during her lonesome picnic in the backyard.
"What are you reading right now?"
"A complete works of Jane Austen," she answered with a smile. "I'm in Mansfield Park at the moment."
"Not science fiction?"
"It was my aunt's book," she supplied. "The copy I'm reading was left to me when she passed away. Being back in her house - the cottage - I guess I was feeling nostalgic."
"Were the two of you close?"
La bobbed her head in a motion that I took to mean "hit or miss."
"She was a brilliant and powerful woman," she allowed. "And very hard to love sometimes, but she took care of me, my mom, and my sister when we needed help. She took care of a lot of women who fell on her doorstep in times of need. I guess she is more of an idol."
"You want to be just like her when you grow up?" I surmised with a smile.
"I could do a hell of a lot worse."
We didn't share any classes on Thursdays, so I had to use the short minutes during our walks from one building to another to work through the list in my head. Her answers continuously led me off-topic, so I started asking whatever occurred to me in our brief moments together. It was only at lunch that I was able to sit in front of her to ask anything properly. She played along with good humor for the entirety of the hour.
"What is the weirdest thing that's ever happened to you?" I asked as we sat down at the same table we'd used the day before. My siblings sat at their usual table behind me, and though I listened for their muttering, seemed perfectly content to leave us alone. La's usual table was similarly resigned to the loss of their friend. We only received the occasional glare from Fungus and Jessica.
La looked at me pointedly for a second. I looked behind me and back, blankly. Was I missing something? She lifted her eyebrows when I remained nonplussed.
"What?" I asked. She motioned at me elaborately. "Me?" I asked, dumbly.
"Yes, Emmett," she said with a snort. "You are definitely the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me."
"Ohhh…." I realized. "Right, yeah, that makes sense."
Her giggle continued as she set out her usual set of lunchtime snacks.
"If you were stuck on a desert island with five people, who would they be, and why?" I shot at her while she was distracted.
"In real life or fictional?" she asked without hesitation.
"Either," I shrugged.
"Well, I have a feeling you might be the only person I would need," she tapped her lip. "But barring someone that is both six-five and potentially indestructible, probably... Steve Irwin, Ina Garten, Minerva McGonagall, Tim Curry, and…" she paused and took a snapping bite out of a carrot.
"Mmm!" She exclaimed and swallowed. "The Doctor, obviously."
"Not Captain Kirk?"
"Lord, no!" She chortled. "He'd be too busy trying to sleep with anything that moved to be useful."
I chuckled but moved on to the next in my list of questions.
"What's your first memory?" A breeze blew in from the eastern side of the pavilion and lifted the corner of La's napkin. She quickly put a hand on it to stop it from blowing away as she considered my question.
"Uhh…" her face scrunched up in thought. "I don't know…"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," she shredded a piece of cheese without eating it. "I don't remember a lot of things."
"What, at all?" I asked in a rush. I realized too late how rude it must have sounded, but La didn't seem to notice. I tried to wrap my head around it, but couldn't. Personally, my human memories were far away and dim at absolute best, but even I had memories of my parents from when I was a young child. Though unclear, there was even the odd, foggy memory of childhood friends and games. To not know which was the first would make sense, but to not have any at all?
"Well, I don't mean to say that I have a neurological disorder or anything, but sometimes I just lose my thought, and I wonder, you know?"
"Can't say I do," I demurred quietly.
"For instance," she made a broad gesture with her hands. "I have one memory of fighting with my sister when we were living in California, but I don't actually know if it's a memory, or a familiar story my mom has told me so often I have a clear picture of it."
"Human memory tends to be comparatively fuzzy," I allowed. "That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with your brain."
"Right," she said hastily and nodded acknowledgment. "Only, sometimes I think back about something I know I've done or a person I met, and I can't remember anything about it. Like a picture with a hole burned in it."
"Can you give me an example?" Again, I thought about the bruises to her cranium that I witnessed in the hospital. Trauma, either physical or mental, could cause that kind of memory loss. It seemed I may have been on the right path.
"Uh," she began to pack up her food, snapping lids on containers and tucking them away into her bag unceremoniously. "Yeah, I guess."
She didn't speak for a moment, concentrating on the motions of her hands. Something told me any more input or nudging on my part would hurt rather than help. Already, I could see the effort she was exerting to keep from clamming up. I watched impatiently as she put the rest of her lunch away then carefully swept away any residual crumbs. She concentrated on wiping at an old stain that had clearly been there long before we'd sat down.
"I only moved here in January." It was a strange, and rather abrupt beginning but I nodded my encouragement for her to continue. "Well, I drove here from Atlanta, and I took a longer route than a person strictly needs to."
"That sounds nice." Solo road trips were my favorite kinds of road trips.
She gave the scrunch-nosed smile I loved so much but spoke with hesitant melancholy. "It was, mostly, from what I remember."
"I see," I breathed. I got the distinct impression that it wasn't a road trip, but a means to an end, an inadvertent bonus to a much larger goal - getting away from something, or someone. La was hiding. She stopped wiping at the table and shredded the napkin she'd been using into confetti.
"Yeah," she seemed to know where my thoughts were headed by my expression because she nodded confirmation. "I took a break in Vegas for a couple of nights."
I cocked my head sideways. La? In Las Vegas? I might be way off my mark, but it didn't seem like the type of town that would particularly call to her. It would, however, be the perfect kind of town to go to if a person wanted to get lost.
"...And I met a…" she avoided my gaze by looking up at the top of the pavilion where the poles met in the middle to hold the roof up. There were little pockets of water pooling in the indents between the cross sections, threatening to burst and dump their contents. She glared at them without seeing and took her time to choose her next word carefully. "Person."
I bit my tongue, torn between the hilarity of her meager attempt to describe a one-night stand politely and the somber nature of our subject matter.
"I can't remember what he looks like at all," she shrugged with her hands. "Sometimes it worries me."
"Hmm." I had to acknowledge that was a pretty significant thing to be unable to remember. I considered her before continuing, hoping I would find the words that would both assuage her fears, and keep from admitting how much I knew about her injuries. It didn't seem like the right time to admit I was in the room during her x-ray.
What La described could easily be related to her head injuries. I would have to ask Carlisle for specifics, though, as brains weren't my preferred brand of science. If it was related, as I thought it might be, the memory loss would be normal, though it didn't answer any questions about what happened to her - why she was hiding.
"I don't think there is anything wrong with you," I said. "But if you want to be sure, I bet Carlisle would be more than willing to talk it over with you."
"Thanks," she picked up a second napkin and promptly shredded it to pieces, then scooped all the tiny fragments into a pile together. "I may just take you up on that."
So many things about that conversation begged more questions than I'd started with. Learning about her felt like a delicate dance where the more I learned the less I knew. If I thought for a second La would answer me should I ask her out right, I could have been done with this whole situation. Instead, I continued my sideways interrogation and gleaned what I could from her answers.
As we left campus, she filled me in on her plans for the next day; chores and dinner with her uncle, Kevin. It would be a good opportunity to spend some safe hours alone with her. Knowing her uncle was on the way would be a natural deterrent to murder, hopefully. Aside from the whole murder thing being its own deterrent.
I walked her up to her stoop, not ready to leave her presence, and spent far too long gazing down at all the little features in her face that I loved the most. Her high prominent cheekbones, and delicately curving jaw, or the natural inquisitiveness in her eyes under a strong straight brow. She watched me closely, keeping as still as possible, as I struggled with a decision. Do I give in and touch her? Would it be worth it?
My eyes danced down the line of her cheekbone again, cut at such a severe angle they gave her the appearance of permanent fierceness that contrasted almost deliberately against the innate warmth she shared with everyone she met. I wanted to feel that warmth if only for a second.
Gleefully, I gave in and slipped my hand along her face, tracing her jaw with the tips of my fingers until my palm cupped her cheek. She kept herself still, there was only a slight involuntary tremble as I reveled in the sensation. Her flesh was lava against my hand, a whole sea of incendiary waves. I snatched my hand back and fled toward the car before I could go any further.
"I'll see you tomorrow," I called, and flung myself into the driver's seat, slamming the door shut behind me. She was still on her stoop when I flew around the corner.
The family were all scattered about the house, dedicated to their own private pursuits when I returned home. I went straight to the second floor and jogged down the hall until I came to the last door on the left.
Just like the last time I had intruded upon his space Edward was seated on the sole chair in the room, bent over a notebook. Today, he was listening to something a little more modern, but still within the realm of classical music. One foot was tucked underneath himself, leaving the other to rest in the plush rug. He was barefoot so that he could feel the texture of the rug beneath his foot.
It was a very human gesture, and quite unexpected from Edward. Once again I wondered what was keeping him up here alone, writing in a notebook with a fountain pen.
"Hey, bud!" I called in. He looked up from his work to give me a dead glare.
"Bud?" he asked archly and carefully set his pen and book aside. I stayed inside the door frame and peered around his room. It was almost monochromatic in his preference for bronze and copper hues. Even the rug was tawny.
"I was wondering if you were able to pick anything up from La this afternoon at lunch?" There was no point in beating around the bush as he was so very aware of the reason for my visit.
"No," he switched feet languidly but didn't take his eyes off me.
"No, you didn't pick anything up? Or no, you won't tell me even if you did?"
"You know very well which," he supplied unapologetically.
"Okay!" I agreed enthusiastically. "I'll just have that Phatz record back."
He had already hung it on the wall above his record player. Pride of place! I hadn't been aware he was such a fan. Of course, that was the point. It could have been any record, but this particular Phatz Domino one was a great thing to hold over my head due to the circumstances of its retrieval.
"I don't think so," he growled. "We made a deal for that."
"Yep," I agreed. And so far, you haven't told me a damn thing. I took one step toward the record as if I meant to lift it off the display shelf. That was all it took.
"Fine," Edward said quickly. "Again, there is very little I can tell you that she hasn't already communicated in some way."
I waved my hand at him. I'm mostly worried about her memory loss.
"That was an interesting development," he agreed. "There are definitely holes in her memory."
"What did it look like?"
"Basically like she said," he explained. "The memory she spoke of specifically was really quite interesting. She remembers every detail of her hotel room, she remembers the smells associated with the hotel, and that the man that joined her had a fondness for the color green."
"But there's no memory of what he looked like?"
"He appeared as an almost specter in her mind," he shook his head. "A general size and shape, but no details."
That is really weird. "Have you ever heard of anything like that before?"
"Yes," he allowed, but headed off my next question before I could ask it. "But I couldn't tell you what might have caused it."
But, it's possible what caused it was deliberate.
"Talk to Carlisle." Edward returned his attention to his notebook. "He will have a more educated opinion on this as he is the one that examined her."
Carlisle, as per usual, was ensconced behind his massive desk in the study. The printer was whirring quietly behind him, but he kept his eyes trained on a sleek laptop in front of him. It was raining deliberately outside. Water pattered against the windows to the tune of a lullaby. Just like last time I had entered the study, the lights were dimmed so low the whole room could have been lit by candles.
The book Edward had been reading the day before still rested on the edge of the desk where he'd left it. I grabbed it up and slumped into a chair to wait for Carlisle's attention. The tome gave an audible creak and sigh when I opened the cover and released the scents of dust and mildew. There was no title on the cover so I flipped through a couple of pages to find an indication of what it could be.
The Anatomy of Humane Bodies, by William Cowper, 1698.
Why on earth was Edward reading an ancient physiology book? We had better literature for that these days, not to mention, you know - Google. Jesus Christ, was it an original? Knowing Carlisle, it had probably been purchased fresh off the shelf of some vendor or other in London the same year it was released. The spine made another creaking noise as I gently shut the cover and set it aside. I cringed at the sound and looked guiltily at Carlisle. He was watching me, of course.
"What can I do for you, son?"
"I had a question about La," I said gruffly. "But I can come back if it's not a good time."
"Not at all," Carlisle snapped his laptop shut immediately and leaned back in his chair. "How can I help?"
I briefly told him about La's memory loss, adding Edward's description of the visual. His face remained blank while I spoke, and he took a long time to consider his words before answering.
"There is no way to know for sure without asking her, son," he said hesitantly.
"And you don't think I should do that," I inferred.
"I think," he exhaled a long low breath and leaned forward in his chair to speak earnestly. "You have shown yourself to be kind, patient, gentle, and caring."
I couldn't help the skeptical look I shot him. Where was he going with this?
"Taking your time with her was the best decision you could have made considering the circumstances. I am proud of the way you have controlled yourself every day since she fell into your lap. Continuing to allow La to come to you as she's ready would be in the best interest of all of us, no matter what your brothers may tell you."
He was speaking between the lines, and I didn't like what I was gathering. "You think I should mind my business."
Carlisle lifted his hands above his head and made a small, dipping nod. "Will her history, whatever that may be, change anything at all about the choices you've made?"
"No, I guess it won't," I hummed.
"Will it change any future choices you may be faced with?"
"No." It was the mystery of the whole thing that kept me looking for answers! On the flip side of that, if it were me I wouldn't want someone digging around in my history. La's past wasn't my business until she made it my business. "So, you don't think it was a mistake to tell her the truth?"
"I think you've already chosen your path, my son. It was only a matter of time. I wish you had told me, though."
Oops, "I know, I'm sorry about that," I picked up the book again for something to do with my hands. It was a human habit I fell into when I was being chastised by my father. The book groaned in protest. I hastily set it down again. "I guess I haven't been around much the last few days."
"You have not," Carlisle agreed solemnly. "But I expect you've been busy."
"Busy picking apart a puzzle," that I have no hope of answering any time soon. I huffed childishly, but a thought occurred to me. "Are there any wolves in La Push, anymore?"
"Not as far as I'm aware." His attention zeroed in at the change in subject matter. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, I didn't actually have to tell La anything. She figured it out on her own." Carlisle's reaction was about what I expected it to be - mixture of surprise and resignation. I agreed with the sentiment. "She mentioned questioning a kid on the reservation. Apparently he 'reminded' her of some old stories."
Carlisle gave a low whistle. "You think La is Quileute."
"Unsure, but I think it's a possibility."
"Can you find out beyond doubt?" he asked frankly, then added under his breath, "That would complicate matters."
"Does it, though? If there are no more wolves?" I answered the second and nodded to his question.
"The treaty still stands whether the wolves are there to enforce it or not. If we bite any human at all, the treaty breaks," he said, musing.
"And then what?"
"Well, ideally we won't have to find out."
"That seems a little dramatic, they're wolves, not the Volturi," I scoffed.
"As a matter of fact, the Volturi have outlawed children of the moon through vast parts of Italy," he said, settling into his teacher's voice. "To this day any were-person within Volturi reach is hunted and killed. Why do you think that is?"
"I don't have any idea."
"They're afraid of them." He let that sink in.
What kind of a wolf could scare the Volturi? "Then what am I supposed to do?"
"As of right now, we don't know if there are any Protectors left. There haven't been in nearly three generations. Further, we don't know if La is indigenous at all, let alone specifically Quiluete."
"And if there are wolves? If she is Quiluete?"
"If that bridge exists, we'll strategize the crossing when we need to. For now, concentrate on what you need."
We sat quietly, listening to the sound of the rain against the glass and the printer continuing its hum.
"You know, Emmett," Carlisle's tone continued to carry the gravity of our discussion but there was a mischievousness playing around his eyes. "Your mother misses you, and she's just as curious about this woman as the rest of us are. When will you be bringing her to meet us?"
I let out a surprised bark of a laugh. "I guess I deserve that. You're going to love her."
"I have no doubts about that," he smiled.
"Thanks for the chat, Pops." I stood, then remembered to add, "I told La to go see if you if she gets worried about her memory loss."
"She's welcome any time." I knew he didn't just mean at the hospital.