First or Last?
Mara
Iunpacked my bag in the saddest motel in the world. It looked like someone spackled the 80’s over the 70’s and did a half-assed job. It looked like a place someone hunkered down to die. Whoever thought this particular shade of yellow and orange matched must have been high during the designprocess.
My mind strayed to Murphy and his unanswer as I rocked the wood drawer so it would slide back in place. The piece of furniture had been warped before I’d even been born, so I shoved it as far as it would and turned around to survey the rest of the room. Even the air feltsad.
Or could this be before Mara in her—my hometown? I’d developed the bad habit of calling the before Mara her. She didn’t feel like me. Or rather I didn’t know her—me. That had been the point of this trip, right? The doctors told me not to get my hopes up. They didn’t know hope and I hadn’t been anywhere near each other inyears.
And back around to Murphy. It surprised me how my heart kicked up when I spotted him. I hadn’t even known it was him for sure because most of the images he sent me in email were more anatomical than faces. And five years can changepeople.
When he’d attacked the door and started cursing, it had felt like jumper cables to the sternum. My brain didn’t know him, but my body suredid.
His answer to my question was something he and I would swing around on. One way or another, the answer lived in this town. If Murphy wouldn’t tell me, then someone elsewould.
When I woke up in the hospital, they told me all they could from my enlistment documents. Then email and journals filled in some of the blanks. One gaping hole remained, one surrounding my mother’s death, which my journal told me had been my fault. The old Mara thought so at least. I needed to find out the truth to that question as much as I wanted to seeMurphy.
Most of my questions and answers lived here and would tell me more about myself than I could find in some scribbles onpaper.
The emails we shared. My blood heated simply thinking about them. Some of them were sweet and innocent. Jokes and games. Others were intimate and scorching hot. The man could write a sexual fantasy to rival bestselling romancewriters.
I checked the clock on the wall and then my cell phone. He’d asked me to meet him later. The clock read 48 minutes slower than the actual time. What OCD I’d learned I possessed couldn’t let it stay there incorrect and taunting me. I climbed up on the rickety dresser and adjusted the dial on the back to the correct time and rehung it on the nail. I evenly aligned it in the white circle outline created by age and dirt on the rest of thewall.
I began to climb back down, and a wave of vertigo punched me between the eyes. It had been months since I blacked out. Of course, it would start again now. The world spun around me like a carnival ride, and I fell torso on the bed, legs on the floor. Then I slid down onto the carpet in aheap.
I awoke to pounding and darkness, both in my head and at the motel room door, accompanied by unintelligible shouting. I scrambled up and lunged for the knob, turning it as I made it fullyupright.
Murphy stood there, shivering and huffing warm heat into the air. He didn’t wear a coat despite the deep winter chill. “It’s about damn time. You were supposed to meet me an hour ago. I gotworried.”
Staring up at him like this felt...familiar. But only the shadow of recognition. Like watching something unfold behind a backlit curtain at the theater. “I uh...fell asleep.” It wasn’t a totallie.
His eyes narrowed, and he entered the room, forcing me to back up. Then he slammed the door and flipped the light switch. “That’s bullshit. One of your pupils is blown, and your bed hasn’t been touched.” He didn’t yell, but his tone broached no argument. It turned me on to see this side of him. Like I could finally merge the Murphy I remembered as a teenager to this Murphy, myMurphy.
I turned around so he couldn’t see my face or the stupid smile plastered there. “Fine, Sherlock. I fell off the dresser and blacked out. I’mokay.”
He grabbed my upper arms and spun me around to face him. Then he started inspecting my head softly, despite the way he ground his teeth together. “Everything feels fine,” he said after a minute and releasedme.
“Thanks for the update, Doc,” Igrumbled.
I stared up into his eyes which dropped to my lips. He wet his, and for a second, I thought he might kiss me. A heartbeat passed, and then he stepped away, pushing me in the opposite direction at the sametime.
“Why were you on the dresser anyway. Shouldn’t you be taking iteasy?”
I snorted. “I was injured years ago. I’m as recovered as I’ll ever be. I’m a little beyond some ibuprofen andrest.”
“Oh, I didn’tthink...”
“Something I’m noticing is a pattern withyou.”
He blinked and took another step back. Something passed across his face and then cleared to indifference. A perfectly neutral look men wore like a uniform for uncomfortable situations. Situations like mom asking after your sex life. Situations like meeting your sister’s boyfriend. Situations like doctor’s telling you the odds of recovering your memory were none tonone.
I hated that look. It lied without usingwords.
“You being hurt might be old news for you, but it’s not for me. Cut me some slack, please.” A little of the neutrality softened, and I spied the painbeneath.
Me returning had turned something over inside him. It hurt him. I hadn’t thought about it when I decided to come here. I’d spent hours thinking about how he could be married or have kids by now. Hell, he could have beendead.
I stepped toward him, and he ambled equal distance backward. I repeated the step, and he bumped into a side table between the door and an old, wornarmchair.
