Help Me Remember (COMPLETED)

Chapter 41

Missing Zachary? Me too. I wanted to keep this a secret but meh too excited. He appears on Chapter 42.

Quick thoughts though. Do you notice how at the start of the story, there's not much internal thoughts put on page? And gradually, gradually, I started to detail her thoughts as Scarlett regains bits of her memory like she thinks more deeply as information comes to her because she finally has puzzle pieces to try to fit together?

No? Just me then? Okay, I guess😅

Scissor

I didn't have a plan. I wasn't even sure something like this could be planned out.

My mind was a big gaping hole. I just stood there in the open air that I could not even decipher to be chilly or too warm. All I could feel was my insides knotted and that nagging question in my head.

But here I was.

I looked up at the dilapidated roofing of the beat-up graffiti-ed "apartment" where Sarah had been living in since freshman year.

I didn't need to look around anymore. I knew what I'd see.

This place— this neighborhood was somewhere that never would know the word safety. There was always that eerie gloom, houses that were dangerously falling apart, the unkempt state of the front yards, the broken windows. Some noises blended inhumanly. From one door, the sound of full-blast racy music and whoops of laughter and its neighbor the sounds of raised voices—a man after which a woman... and that wailing of a hungry infant before the shattering of glass. It was even difficult to pinpoint where was where.

And it hit me again. How differently she and I lived our lives. There were those meager few times that I came here to see her. She'd rush out of the building, slamming the door before I could peek inside and drag me away from the place. To be specific, I'd never gone inside her apartment—inside her room.

The flustered question of what I was doing here, the reddening of her cheeks were enough to realize Sarah was embarrassed about her living arrangements. But I would never mention it to avoid embarrassing her even more so.

I lived off my father's fortune and the first few months I'd tried living on my own before Chris, my father's secretary, came was actual hell on my part. I'd admired Sarah's tenacity and will to survive and I never failed to tell her I wish I was like her.

I remember the bitter expression one time, the sigh before she turned to me and said, "I wish we could trade places too. I really do."

At the time, I didn't put much thought into her words. But not today.

There were those little insidious whispers at the back of my head telling of a sinister meaning to such a statement. And I simply could not shake it.

The sound of footsteps on the gravel path made me look.

Lo, there she was. My best friend.

When I turned to her, Sarah jumped, startled to see me. But it wasn't the usual you-scared-me-I-wasn't-expecting-you-there kind. It was scared. Sarah had gone pale, her eyes widening with fright before she seemed to catch herself. Sarah was almost six-feet tall, but something about the body language immediately ticked me of her wanting to make herself smaller. A hand on her chest, she stepped forward, suddenly beaming brightly.

"Scarlett! What are you doing here? I wasn't expecting you today," there was so much forced lightness in her tone it was heavy to my ears. But there she was, my best friend. She was smiling as she always did, her backpack slung on one shoulder and acting as normal as she could.