WE ARE US Read online

  WE ARE US

  Tara Leigh

  Copyright © 2020 Tara Leigh

  First Edition

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior permission of the publisher. Please protect this art form by not pirating.

  Tara Leigh

  www.taraleighbooks.com

  Cover Design: Regina Wamba, Mae I Design

  Editing: Lexi Smail, BookSmart

  Copyediting: Marla Esposito, Proofing Style

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Names, characters, places, and plots are a product of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-7328010-9-7

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-7328010-8-0

  Created with Vellum

  To those who are unable to forget what they cannot actually remember.

  The hurt and horror might never go away. But leave the shame for the one who mistook your silence for consent. An inability to say no is never the same as saying yes.

  Prologue

  Sounds break through my insulated cocoon of unconsciousness. Harsh sounds. Ugly sounds. Buzzing. Beeping. Humming.

  The fingers of my left hand twitch with the impulse to swat at… something. An alarm clock? The television remote? But although my wedding rings slide around my finger, my arm doesn’t move. Almost as if the platinum bands have turned into lead, weighing me down.

  Panic whispers at the edge of my mind, though there is no corresponding pulse of adrenaline through my veins, forcing me into action. My limbs are heavy and uncooperative.

  Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop.

  Despite my silent pleas, the unwelcome orchestra continues its assault. Buzz. Beep. Hum.

  It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this awful, this lethargic. Filled with an all-encompassing exhaustion that has seeped into the marrow of my bones.

  Survivor’s guilt, apparently. Sleeping the day away is preferable to facing what happened, what I’ve done. The dawn of a new day isn’t a fresh start, a new beginning.

  It is a violation. A betrayal.

  Make it stop.

  Finally, I manage to clutch at my covers, dragging them over my head. Egyptian cotton, a thread count so high it could be spun of silk. Surely it will muffle the noise.

  But something is wrong. The fabric is rough beneath my fingertips. It doesn’t smell of the lavender and verbena packets tucked into the shelves of the linen closet. And there is a sterilized stench to the air I didn’t notice before.

  The whisper of panic becomes more of a murmur, then a shout. This isn’t my bed.

  The beeping noises pick up, racing now. My breaths quicken, my lungs throbbing from the sharp bite of bleach with each shallow inhale.

  Hospital. I am in a hospital. The buzzing and beeping and humming. Those are machines.

  What happened? Think, think.

  My mind is frustratingly blank even as my skin prickles with memories of another time. Another confused awakening. Another frantic search for memories. Did he… No. He wouldn’t dare. Not again. Not ever again.

  I will my eyes open. Needing to see. Needing other sensory inputs before I get lost inside my brain. Trapped within the shadowy net of my own past.

  My corneas sting in protest as I squint against the harsh daylight streaming through the open window, my pupils slowly retracting until the room comes into focus. Various machines stand sentry against pale mint walls, their screens lit by flashes of color—jagged lines and blinking dots. Red and white and neon green.

  I turn my head, looking for the door, or a chair where my husband is probably sleeping. A sharp pain explodes in my temple at the small movement, taking me off guard. I gasp, my vision going dark at the edges. Not only does my head hurt, my back is on fire.

  “Look who’s awake.” A woman in scrubs the same color as the walls peers at me. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail, curly wisps escaping like weeds. A stethoscope swings from her neck as she wraps warm fingers around my wrist. “Are you in pain?”

  I consider nodding, then think better of it. My mouth opens on a squeak. “Head. Back.” My throat hurts, too. “Legs,” I add.

  She nods. “That’s normal for the injuries you’ve sustained.”

  Normal?

  “Are you thirsty?”

  This time I don’t nod, or speak. I just open my mouth. She disappears from my vision briefly and I hear the sound of water being poured into a plastic cup. Then she’s back, moving my bed into a more upright position with the press of a button, guiding a straw between my parched lips. I clamp down on it, sucking greedily. Too soon, there is only a gurgling sound as the straw catches the last few droplets at the bottom.

  She takes away the cup. “I know, I’m sorry. You can have more later. Not just yet, though.”

  “Hello, hello.” Another woman enters my room. Clutching a clipboard, she is wearing a white lab coat over a navy blue dress.

  I swallow, croak a greeting.

  “I’m Dr. Carlson. Do you know why you’re here?”

  Tears prick my eyelids. No.

  She isn’t fazed. “How about your name? Can you tell me your name?”

  A wave of relief washes over me. That I know. “Poppy.”

  “How about the name of the president and the city where you were born?”

  I answer both questions and she beams. “Excellent.”

  “More water?” I ask, hoping I’ve earned a reward.

  “Sure, sure.” She looks over at the nurse, who obligingly refills the cup, though not nearly as full as I would have liked. Two pulls of the straw and it is gone.

  “My… My husband?” My voice is coming back, although it sounds as if it belongs to a ninety-year-old man with advanced emphysema.

  The two women share a glance I don’t understand, and the nurse lays her hand on my arm. “No need to worry about anyone else but yourself right now, sweetie.”

  The affectionate term is as offensive to me as the cheap, scratchy sheets. I stopped being anyone’s sweetie, or sweet at all, nine months ago.

  I’m distracted by a sharp pain in my foot. “Ow!”

  “Sorry,” the doctor says, a smile belying her apology as she holds up a pin. “You passed with flying colors.”

  I pull my feet away. “Why am I here?”

  “You had an accident. Do you remember?”

  “No.” I run a tongue across my dry lips. “Am I— What happened?”

  “When you were brought in, we had to give you some pretty heavy doses of antibiotics, painkillers, and, of course, fluids. Additionally, we’ve kept you sedated for the past forty-eight hours to monitor the swelling in your brain which was, thankfully, relatively minor.”

  “Forty-eight hours,” I repeat. “I’ve been sleeping for two days?”

  “Not exactly sleeping. Medically sedated. But all of these factors—high doses of strong medications, bruising and swelling of your brain, lacerations to your scalp, back, and legs—these things tend to reduce your ability to store memories of the causal event.”

  Brain bruising and swelling. Lacerations. A causal event.

  What event?

  Anxiety threads beneath my nerve endings, pushing them up crookedly like roots distorting a flagstone walkway. She continues, as if I’m not already struggling to absorb her explanation. “In some cases, memory loss can go back further, impacting the days or weeks preceding the event. Those memories are most likely stored in your mind, although recalling them can be difficult.”

  I glance beyond her, looking for a movie camera and
a director’s slate board. Am I being pranked? Thrust into a bad soap opera?

  “Are you—? I don’t—” My head isn’t just pounding, it is spinning. I can’t keep a straight thought.

  “Why don’t you tell us the last thing you do remember, okay? We can go from there.”

  The last thing I remember…

  I stare unseeingly through the window, images floating up from the darkened recesses of my mind.

  A silken smudge of horizon, sea meeting sky, no land in sight.

  Ships. At least a dozen of them. Then one in particular, with glossy teak decks. Its hull gleaming bright white, mast arrogantly pointing toward an azure blue sky.

  The flashes of memory appear and disappear like a shark’s fin cutting through the ocean. Furtive and ominous. I turn my confused gaze back to the doctor. “I—”

  “Poppy!” My sister screeches to a halt at my bedside, her concerned hazel eyes taking in the tubes and wires, the doctor and nurse and my bandaged head and body, all at once. “Did you— When did you wake up?”

  Dr. Carlson scowls at her. “Just now. I know you’ve been anxiously waiting, but if you—”

  “Sadie,” I interrupt. “What’s going on?”

  She presses her lips together, scrutinizing my face. “Don’t say anything else. Not until after we talk.” She shoots the doctor and nurse a warning glare. “Privately.”

  A scream would rip through my throat like a fistful of razor blades, but I can feel it building. If someone doesn’t tell me something… I suck in a deep breath, ignoring the ache in my lungs.

  One of the machines gives an angry buzz. “Calm down, Mrs. Stockton.”

  Sadie’s arm creeps around the back of my neck, drawing me into a gentle embrace. “Just relax. I’ll explain everything.”

  Bright spots appear at the periphery of my vision, and there is another angry buzz. Can’t they just unplug the damn machines already? In her ear, I whisper, “What happened? Why am I here?”

  Sadie pulls back, a strange expression on her face. “You don’t remember?”

  “No.” My heart pounds against my lungs, trying to escape. “Tell me.”

  Dr. Carlson clears her throat, scribbling something on the papers affixed to her clipboard. “There is an FBI Agent waiting outside. He’s asked to speak with you as soon as you’re awake.”

  “Absolutely not,” my sister answers immediately.

  “FBI agent?” My whisper is barely audible against the blare of the machines.

  “Yes. Given the circumstances, he’s quite insistent.” She pulls a card out of her pocket and reads from it. “Special Agent Gavin Cross. He said you know him.”

  Gavin. My cracked lips form the shape of a name I so rarely allow myself to think, let alone say aloud.

  Sadie merely scoffs. “And you believed him?”

  As the machines continue their frantic alarm, I turn pleading eyes on the nurse. Gavin. Get Gavin. But she doesn’t look at me as she injects a needle into my IV bag.

  A drugged numbness charges through my bloodstream, Sadie’s voice becoming distant. “No one is going to accuse my sister of murder until…”

  The warm embrace of sleep rolls over me and I surrender to dreams of a stolen past. A beautiful, broken boy. An enchanted forest. And a love that evaporated like mist in the morning sun.

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Sackett, Connecticut

  Fall, Eighth Grade

  I slip into the woods unnoticed, pine needles scratching at my cheeks and catching in my hair as I duck between branches. The bright, nearly cloudless afternoon sky recedes as the tree-lined perimeter settles into place behind me, interlocking like an evergreen zipper. I am immediately swallowed up by the forest, enveloped within the hushed quiet of this natural sanctuary.

  The ground underfoot is still springy, covered by a thin layer of maple and oak leaves that doesn’t yet crunch beneath my feet like it will in a few weeks. As I make my way deeper into the woodlands, erratic streaks of sunshine dart through the shuddering canopy overhead like bolts of lightning, breaking up the dense shadows.

  It’s been two months since I moved to Sackett, Connecticut with my mother and sister, and the nature preserve behind our house is the only good thing about this entire town. There aren’t any other kids in the neighborhood to play with. None that have shown an interest in me, anyway. I’m still the new girl.

  I’ve spent hours wandering these woods, studying the trees and plants and especially the birds, when I can get a good look at them. The wide sprawl of maples, their bark dripping with untapped sap, perfumes the air with a sweet musk. White oaks, as broad and tall and straight as soldiers, tower over their shorter, more eccentric looking cousins, the red and chestnut oaks. And beneath the broad, rounded crowns of the yellow birch tree’s drooping branches, determined roots climb over rotting stumps and logs, making the trunk appear as if it is standing on legs.

  There is life in this forest. A peaceful energy that soaks deeper into my skin every afternoon, as if this is a place where good things happen.

  They’re not happening anywhere else, that’s for sure.

  My younger sister, Sadie, doesn’t ever come with me. I’ve asked her a few times, but she’s content to pass her afternoons lost in the pages of books. That’s her safe place, I guess. And my mother… well, she just seems lost. Once I hear the clink of a wine bottle on the edge of her chipped coffee mug, I know she won’t notice I’ve gone.

  I’m admiring a particularly stubborn sweet pepperbush, pale pink petals still clinging to its stems, when the harsh crack of a snapping twig has me spinning around, every muscle in my body on alert, poised between fight or flight. I’ve heard there are bears in these woods. Deer and coyotes and bobcats, too.

  But it’s not an animal that’s come up behind me.

  It’s a boy. A boy I’ve never seen before, although he looks about my age. He’s dressed like I am, in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. But if mine are secondhand, his are third or fourth. His hair is unruly, a motley mix of blond and bronze and copper that springs from his scalp in all directions. Even so, it doesn’t quite cover the bruise on his cheek.

  But it’s his eyes I find most interesting of all. They are a vivid blue, surrounded by a thick fringe of lashes that look like they’ve been painted by an artist’s hand, each one long and perfectly curved. The expression in them is wary, guarded.

  Curiosity unspools inside of me, like a roll of twine I’ve lost hold of. I lick my lips, hoping they will form words. Any words.

  I’m not naturally outgoing, which is unfortunate when you start a new school in eighth grade. My life would be a hell of a lot easier if I could go up to other kids and just start talking.

  The court-mandated therapists I’ve been dragged to over the years have all said different versions of the same thing. Imagine the girl you want to be, and then be her.

  As if life is a performance, and I can choose the role I’ll play.

  So far, I haven’t managed to work up the nerve to audition. Which is probably why I’m in the woods right now, silently staring at a boy who looks every bit as uncertain and suspicious as I am.

  I could turn away. Give a half-hearted wave and dart down a trail until I’m alone again, with only the trees and wildlife for company. But for some strange, fluttery, completely inexplicable reason—I don’t want to do that. The desire to reach out, to impress him, to know him, is as undeniable as the scent of fertile soil, musky sap, and crisp autumn air filling my lungs with each breath.

  Finally, I force myself to speak. “There’s a raspberry bush a little further down this trail. It’s where I’m going, if you want to come with me.” Pivoting on my heel, my heart races, and my head fills with self-recrimination. What makes you think he’ll want to be your friend?

  A stream murmurs nearby but it’s my own breath and the rapid whoosh of my pulse that sounds loudest inside my ears.

  A fallen tree, it’s decomposing bark spongy and damp, acts a
s a bridge over a shallow ravine. I’m halfway across it, my arms outstretched for balance, when I feel the vibration of footfalls behind me.

  The surge of relief, of excitement, nearly makes me fall into the water. The few times I’ve gathered up the nerve to ask a classmate or someone on the school bus if they wanted to play, I’d been blown off.

  I quicken my steps, jumping onto solid ground, and after a few minutes, we come to a small clearing marked by an outcropping of enormous rocks and a single bush. Yesterday, it was a raspberry bush. Today, the leaves are picked clean, barren of any fruit. “There were berries,” I say, feeling stupid for not knowing someone, or some animal, would have gotten to them.

  He shrugs, one hand pushing his hair out of his face. “I don’t like raspberries, anyway.”

  Embarrassment gives way to confusion. “Then why did you come with me?”

  Another shrug. “Nothing better to do.”

  His matter-of-fact delivery shouldn’t hurt my feelings—I don’t even know him—but it does.

  At my wince, he shoves his hands in his pockets and kicks at a cluster of fallen acorns on the ground. “Hey, that’s not— That’s not what I meant.”

  Ducking my head to hide the redness creeping up my cheeks, I scramble toward the largest rock in the clearing and duck behind it, pulling out the metal shovel I’ve hidden beneath a layer of dirt and leaves. I can feel the boy’s eyes on my shoulder blades as I dig, his scrutiny penetrating the thin fabric of my shirt. “What are you doing?”

  I don’t answer until metal strikes metal, then I set the shovel aside and wipe off the remaining dirt covering a box I hid here a few weeks ago. I lift the lid and pull out a deck of cards. “Sometimes I play Solitaire…”

  But maybe today I won’t have to.

  I dare a glance at his face as he peers at the cards. I can’t tell if he’s interested—but he doesn’t look uninterested, either. “Do you know how to play Gin Rummy?”