forgetting me

15

Franklin Park
July 1st, 2002

William held onto Lainie until she pushed away.

"How did you find me?" she asked.

"It's our tree, Lai," William answered. "The one you hid by at Fourth of July last year. When I heard that you ran away yesterday morning, I knew I'd find you here."

Lainie smiled, happy he'd remembered.

"Where are we staying?" she asked, standing up. William pulled her back onto the ground beside him.

"We? There is no we. You're going back to mommy and daddy, and I'm going on my way. I'm a grown man. I can live on my own."

"Living on your own and disappearing are different," Lainie pointed out. She hugged William again. "Besides, I don't want to go home. I want to go with you."

William shook his head. "Diana would flip if she knew I had you. I'm sending you back home."

"We're both missing, Will," she started.

"Detective Staman is not an idiot, Lainie," William told her. "He knows what he's doing, which is why I need to know what I'm doing, too. No one can know where I'm living."

"But mommy and daddy are after me. They're trying to tell me my thoughts aren't real. They're trying to change the way I think."

William struggled for an answer. He didn't have a good one, because Lainie had a brain wired very similarly to William's. He understood that what she had just said was not always true, but he honestly didn't understand why it wasn't true.

"Maybe. But is that such a bad thing?" he finally asked her. Years ago, he would have said yes. But now, he wasn't so sure.

Lainie was silent for a long while.

"Why did you run away?" she asked, shifting their conversation.

William had his reasons, but he wasn't sure he wanted to tell Lainie. They trusted each other, though. But telling her would only give him a reason to let her stay with him.

Still, he found himself answering.

"Because I need to be fixed, and I don't trust anyone in Boston to help me. I need to do it alone."

"Why? What's broken?" Lainie questioned.

William smiled weakly and pointed to his head. Lainie stared at him.

"But you think real good!" she protested.

"That's not what I mean, silly," he whispered. "My brain is overcoming a sickness. Like the flu."

"And you need to be alone to get better?"

William nodded and hugged Lainie again. "I need to be away from anything that reminds me of why my head was sick."

Lainie glanced up at him and gave him a shy smile. "I don't care if you're sick. I love you anyway."

William exhaled, smiling slightly.

"I love you, too, Lai."