Agent Gray, Red with Love

The RedCrackle Caper

  Something was amiss. This new guy, Graham, and his two friends, Julia and Carmen were claiming that they knew him. By all means, maybe he did at one point. Alas, he couldn't remember. Stupid amnesia.

  But what was really strange was how they were interacting with Sheena. He'd seen some stuff over his twenty or so years of life, ranging from stuck-up street racers, to archaeologists afraid of cliffs when they were studying the ancient Native Tribes of the Grand Canyon. He considered himself well-enough at reading body language and facial expressions. Especially when one of the members of the arriving party was practically his clone, but with brown eyes, longer/wavier brown hair, and slightly sharper cheek bones. "Graham," or whoever he was, was doing the same thing he did whenever he was extremely focused— and not for a good reason. His brows were furrowed and his lips were curled tightly together. The lady in red, Carmen, seemed to be silently radiating annoyance but also some sort of worry, as her stance was stiff and her eyelids had fallen over her eyes so that they were narrowed. Julia looked pale and her eyes were like a deer's in headlights, large and in shock. Sheena was smiling but it was unnatural, and she was tugging on his arm like she wanted to leave. Did she know them?

  He cleared his throat. "Hem-hem. Well! It was so great meeting you, uh, thanks for coming," he smiled, "I got some other people to talk to. It was a pleasure meeting you."

  "Yes, just, amazing!" Sheena giggled. Okay, she was in a mood. But what for?

  As they were walking away, he whispered, "Look, sorry about the not remembering how we met thing—"

  "No, no, that's not what I was upset about," she said darkly.

  Shadow raised an eyebrow, and brushed her off his arm. "What, do you know them or something?" 

  Sheena looked at him as if she wasn't totally sure how to respond. Then suddenly, her face of uncertainty morphed into one of absolute dread. She started to tear up and hic. "We... we went to school together. And oh, it was just terrible!" She wailed.

  "Uh..." he knew it was sort of shallow, but Shadow really didn't want to cause a scene. He glanced around, thankfully no one was watching. This was supposed to be a happy event to thank donors and sponsors for their contributions to ancient Korean research, and he didn't want to be foiled by whatever beef was between his girlfriend, and the trio. To be honest, he hadn't even wanted to take Sheena initially. But she'd nagged him to no end, and so he eventually gave in. Still, she was his girlfriend and she'd helped her though his recovery so...

"Really? How so?" He asked.

  She sniffed. "We started out as friends, the boy and that girl in red. But then one day they replaced me with that other girl and never spoke to me again. Never gave a reason why."

  "I didn't know you went to college in France," Shadow said, remembering that the girl named Julia had said he was an exchange student at her school.

  "Uh... yeah! Two years!" She said.

  "How long ago was this?" He asked.

  "College," she answered.

  A little juvenile, but okay. "Ouch, I'm sorry that happened to you, Sheena."

  "That's not all," she added.

  "Oh?" He asked trying to stay engaged in the conversation, but finding himself exceedingly bored. To be honest he had no clue how he had ever gotten in a relationship with her. He kept on blaming the amnesia, but there were still things that didn't click. They didn't have much in common, and most of their conversations were pretty surface-level and uninteresting, stuff like the weather or sports. He didn't know where she worked though she apparently met him in South Korea. But she had been with him through his hospital stay, so he felt sort of obligated to try and stick it out.