Too Good To Be True?

Chapter 14 Ⅱ

48 days.

15 hours.

And 21 minutes.

That's how long it had been since my accident.

Was I making progress with my memories? Sure. I could now remember when I lost my first tooth, or that time I scraped my knee riding my bike home from school. I remembered being on stage at Minecon, giving a speech to a sea of fans. I finally remembered Meg after hearing her and Cam sing the duet they'd sung at my birthday party together and I was so glad to have her back in my life. Cam, Meg, Mindy and I spent lots of time together now, just like before the accident. But while I was glad to be getting my memories back, there was a common theme I couldn't help but notice.

None of these memories had David in them.

I wasn't the only one who noticed it, either. Everyone was still trying to push me towards him and while I still got a horribly uneasy feeling whenever I thought about him, I couldn't help but wonder what my brain was keeping from me.

Who. Was. David?

If I asked any of my friends or family they all said the two of us had been inseparable, that he was the picture of a gentleman. So why could I not recall a single thing except for the times he wasn't there?

I stared at the YouTube homepage sitting open on my laptop, working up the courage to type in the name I'd tried valiantly to avoid up to this point. My brain tried to put up a fight, but frankly, I was exhausted. I was tired of keeping up these walls, of being afraid to open the gates to this apparently huge part of my life. I was done standing in my own way.

So, I let my fingers glide over the keyboard, typing in a ridiculous name which led me to an equally ridiculous face. I rolled my eyes at the cheesy video thumbnails, all the stupid faces he made to try and amuse his audience. While I hated to admit it, I admired how he was so willing to make a fool out of himself just to try and make people happy. I felt the same about my fans, though. I wanted to do whatever I could to put a smile on their faces, even if it meant doing something a little silly.

After procrastinating for just long enough to remind myself why I was doing this, I clicked on a video called "Crazy Craft." I decided on it because it didn't have facecam and I recognized Ash's Minecraft skin on the thumbnail. I had been talking to him a bit, due to Amy's encouragement, but he was always on my case about David. He was never in my face about it, but he was constantly trying to slip him into conversation.

The other skin in the thumbnail of this "Crazy Craft" seemed vaguely familiar and once I heard his voice, I realized it was Joe, Bethany's boyfriend. Or was he her fiancé? I couldn't remember off the top of my head, but he had sat in on a couple of my calls with her and he was a pretty nice guy. A little childish, but nice all the same.

When David's voice started screaming his stupid intro my ears begged me to rip the headphones off and smash them into tiny pieces, but with gritted teeth I forced myself to keep watching. I tried my best to just focus on Ash and "Stampy" but as time went along, my ears started to adjust to David's voice and I allowed myself to listen more attentively, surprised when I found myself chuckling at some of his jokes.

Okay, so maybe he's not so bad... I thought, my walls of hostility weakening for just a moment. But just because this "Squid" character he plays seems nice enough doesn't necessarily reflect who he really is, right?

I slumped in my chair with a sigh, unsure which side of my brain to listen to. My hand was fidgeting with a pen it had found sitting on my desk and my eyes glanced over to a pack of sticky notes laying nearby. I slid them towards me and half-heartedly wrote Pros/Cons at the top of one of the brightly colored squares.

Cons: When he touches me my skin feels like it's melting off; I can't remember ever doing anything with him though there are plenty of pictures and videos to prove it; he got me into the accident in the first place; when I saw him when I woke up at the hospital I could have mistaken him for Sweeney Todd's identical twin.

I shook my head and crossed out the last one, knowing that he had just been exhausted and that this was just me being petty.

Pros: Everyone keeps telling me he's a nice guy; there are plenty of pictures and videos of us together and if I hated him those probably wouldn't exist; his channel and videos seem to support everyone's claims about him; he stayed with me the whole time I was unconscious in the hospital, even when my parents left to rest, and he seemed relieved when I woke up; I can't shake this feeling in my gut that even though I have my friends and family, someone is missing in my life...

"Three against five..." I muttered, tapping the end of the pen against my chin. Not to mention the cons really weren't much to go on in the first place, seeing as he was found not guilty for the accident and the other two were things my body was telling me which couldn't very well be trusted in this state anyway.

My gaze skittered over to my phone which I currently had muted to avoid the non-stop notifications from Cam and Mindy arguing in the group chat and I picked it up, rolling my eyes when I skimmed their conversation about watermelons versus strawberries. My thumb hovered over the photos app, something I'd been afraid to dig too far into for fear of finding sappy pictures of David and I. I almost worked up the courage to click on it, but instead I tapped the phone icon.

Voice first, face later, I decided, feeling guilty that I couldn't even bring myself to look at a picture of him but glad that I was finally ready to take a step towards getting to know him.

I scrolled through my contacts, always surprised by how many I had, how many people I knew before the crash. It always made me sad, knowing that no matter how much progress I thought I was making, there were still all these people who knew me but I had absolutely no memory of. I pushed the thought aside and stopped at the Ds, staring at his name glowing up at me. The time difference suddenly occurred to me and I looked at the clock, deciding it would still be early enough in England to expect an answer.

Before I could talk myself out of it, my finger was on the call button and the phone was to my ear, the ringing endlessly echoing in my head.