I'll Be Holding on to You

filling in the blanks

Two days later we were in the same predicament with Freddy's memory challenge. 

So, us being us, Moey and I were sitting outside of Freddy's house at dusk, gathering our courage. 

As the least emotionally intense of the group, we were often the ones to be spokespersons for the others. Freddy needed to know some important stuff, and some of it was the kind of chapter-left-untold stuff that we would never dream of talking about around Cam or even Evie unless they brought it up. 

Freak could handle it but would way rather not, and the aftermath wouldn't be any fun for her or anyone around her.

Which left us.

"This sh-sh-should be f-f-fun," Mo tried to say, then blew out air in disgust, already frustrated with his stutter. He had just gotten to the point where he could talk 90% stutter-free. Stress worsened it, as did PTSD.

I put down the pile of pictures I held and turned to him, put both hands on his face and put his forehead to mine. I tried to radiate calm. Rain poured down the windows, making it dark early. "Look in my eyes, dude," I said, taking a deep breath which he automatically mirrored. "Talk to me. It's just me."

He took another deep breath and I let go and picked up the pictures again. "This sucks," he said slowly and carefully.

"Yessir," I agreed readily. I opened the door, holding the brown sugar pecan cookies that had materialized since the previous day. "But we'll be alright. Let's do dis."

Freddy's mom let us in and fussed over us before allowing us to head upstairs. She did not know why we had come, or she never would have allowed it. 

I imagined all the nights she'd prayed for the damage from that long-ago day to be undone and here it had finally come true, in a way. She would be furious if she knew we were breaking that false innocence.

But he'd asked and we never paid much mind to our parents. There was so much they could never understand.

Our big friend was up and dressed at his computer desk, a smaller bandage on his temple. His face broke into a huge smile when he saw us. I never failed to be amazed at his ability to bounce back and remain disgustingly optimistic. Homeboy gets pistol whipped, concussed, and suffers aggravated memory loss, but he's still smiling. So Freddy.

"Hey, you guys," he said joyfully. "Come on in, pick a spot, guess you know where you like to sit. Isn't this weird? But I bet I'm gonna remember it all today."

We knew technically amnesia could not be cured by playing known music or telling memories or looking at photos, but we were all hoping on some level that it would prove to be untrue. In the meantime we would fill him in on our history, the poor bastard.

I hoped he wasn't too attached to that smile.

"I know you have more jerky, which I can now actually eat without drama from Freak," I told him, climbing up on the bed. Mo did the same.

"I do!" He opened a desk drawer and tossed me a bag. Peppered. Yum.

"Thanks. Okay, so we brought some pictures. And some stories. If you really want to know." I had to give him one last out. In his place I wasn't sure what I would have chosen. Of course, how could anyone know what they would do in that position.

He came to sit with us on the bed, the magnet inside of him drawn to the magnets inside of us, whatever his temporal lobes may be doing. Our souls knew each other. That made me feel better to remember.

I got up and turned off all the lights but the desk one, and put on some of our music. I climbed back onto the bed and stretched out on my stomach, holding the pictures. They both sat cross legged. I glanced at Mo and he lifted his chin to indicate I should begin.

I took a deep breath and did. "Once upon a time there was a group of insanely smart kids that had been kicked out of public school because they were too much, and it bored them to death. They were eleven years old and met in a TAG program."

He tilted his head. "Talented and gifted?"

I nodded. "We met Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and our teacher was a retired scientist. There were seven of us, and we all loved that group." I handed him a picture, with just a swallow to betray the lump in my throat.

Freddy studied it while Mo and I exchanged a glum look. He tore open some more beef jerky and I snagged a piece, sitting up and crossing my own legs. Then I pulled out my vape pen.

"I don't know her," Freddy said finally, still looking at the picture. But something inside him knew her, because the look on his face said so. Something did.

"Th-that's Hadley." Moey accepted the pen and hit it, then passed it.

Freddy looked up at us questioningly.

"So you can see all seven of us there," I continued, ignoring his look for the moment. All in good time. Or terrible time. "Three of us were labeled profoundly gifted, which of course means the smartest of the smart. That would be Cam, Evie, and Hadley. The rest of us weren't exactly average." I smirked because the rest of us were the next level down, exceptionally gifted. Still way above the norm, and in fact we were technically in the top two percent of the world, intelligence-wise. 

"Then came the day in mid October when Cam's crazy dad showed up." I took the pen from Freddy, who had hit it and passed it automatically and was watching me in anticipation of What Happened Next.

But it was Moey who took up the thread. "He d-didn't know where th-th-they l-lived," he explained, his fist clenched because of the stutter.

I pointed at him, and patted his fist so he relaxed it. "Pertinent information." I drank some fizzy water I'd brought. "No, he didn't know where they lived, because as I mentioned, he's crazy. And Cam's mom had a restraining order. But he knew where Cam went to the program, so all he had to do was wait that day for them to arrive."

"Shit," Freddy said, thinking he knew where it was going.

I made a face. "Cam and his mom were late, as usual, and he just followed them in."

We'd all been in a row of chairs, Mrs. Udell about to show us an experiment on the folding table in front of us in the small room. Because I have an eidetic memory, which means I can recall many things and see them in mental pictures and videos, I can literally remember it like it was yesterday. 

Evie had sat on my left, a slip of a girl without her future stage makeup; Erika on my other side and Mo on hers. Hadley, in a Sailor Moon beanie. Freddy, rosy cheeked, his red hair shorter. 

Physically we hadn't even been teenagers, though on many other levels we had already been wiser and more mature than most adults. 

We'd all looked up when Cam came in, welcomed him as usual, waited while Mrs. Udell talked to his mom.

Then his dad had appeared, and the shooting began.

I told it as I saw it. "He had a gun. He shot the room up. He shot Mrs. Udell."

"Our t-t-teacher," Mo said, squeezing my hand.

With the first shot we'd all dropped, instinct taking over. I'd crawled toward Mrs. Udell, the Trusted Adult. Cam's dad had been screaming in a voice that I didn't know could come from a grown man, probably something that included words, but my brain had shut it out. 

I'd focused on our teacher and had almost reached her when her head exploded. 

I'd backpedaled with chunks of her brain and skull splattered in a fine bloody spray across my own face. The report from the gun shocked me still further backwards and I'd fallen over Evie. 

We'd scrambled for the rear of the room, away from the evil that was Cam's dad in the doorway.

"Fuck," Freddy said, stunned. "How can I not remember that?"

That was the big question, wasn't it.