With pictures of Ailee dancing around the edges of my thoughts, I allowed myself to think about what had happened. I’d lost myself while I was kissing her. Like, fucking literally.
Something was wrong with me. I was no doctor, but I knew it wasn’t normal to have blackouts like this. The first time it had happened, I’d blown it off, thinking it was from the alcohol. I’d been drinking the other times, too. Funny thing was, I never remembered making or ordering those drinks. Still, I’d attributed the bouts of amnesia to the alcohol. It wasn’t unheard of. Maybe my body chemistry just didn’t mix with hard liquor.
Yesterday, however, I hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol. This I knew for a fact. I hadn’t been drinking before the shoot. I never showed up for work under the influence. And I no longer kept alcohol in my house. Also, unlike the other times, I didn’t smell it on my breath or sweating out my pores. Whatever nasty food I’d eaten, yeah. But booze? No. I was sure of it.
So, what the hell had happened?
My mind started racing again, imagining all kinds of reasons from an early onslaught of Alzheimer’s to a brain tumor. Whatever it was, something was wrong with my head, that much was obvious. I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I needed to go see a doctor.
A wave of panic seized me. I hated doctors. Hated hospitals even more. No one really knew why. I didn’t know why, either. My foster parents, once they’d gotten me in their care, quickly discovered I had to be sedated for even the simplest checkups. And now, as an adult, I actively avoided anyone in a white coat.
The first years of my life, when I tried to remember them, are nothing but a burst of faces and noises and smells in my head. I remember the air being hot and dry. I remember a woman calling to me, her voice shrill with fear. And I remember loud noises, among a few other things. But these small memories all mix together in my head until it’s like a bad movie or something. I stopped trying to remember shortly after finding my new family, and on my foster parent’s advice, concentrated on forming new memories.
Once, I asked my new father where I’d come from. We were both in front of the kitchen sink, doing dishes after dinner. He’d put his hand on my head and told me it didn’t matter. What mattered was that I was with them now.
Maybe they knew as much as I did.
I called Willow back. I didn’t tell her about the blank spots in my memory, or about how worried I was that something was seriously wrong with me. I also didn’t tell her about kissing Ailee. That was personal, between her and I. Willow had no place in what was happening between us. It was none of her business, really. She tried to get details, but I stuck to what had happened during the shoot and that was it. After a few tries, she gave up.
Then I tried to call Ailee again. Still no answer. I left another message.
I set about cleaning up the place, and then I took Snickers out to the park. Every once in a while, I’d try to call Ailee. By the fifth or sixth time, I realized she was avoiding me.
I needed to talk to her. To try to explain. I don’t know what happened after I’d kissed her, but right now the only thing I gave a shit about was that she was okay. And the only way I would know that was if she would answer her fucking phone.
Back at my place, I got Snickers his dinner and tried one more time. It rang a bunch of times and went to voicemail. I threw some leftover pizza in the toaster oven and tried again. This time it went straight to voicemail without even ringing, which means she’d turned her phone off.
Fuck.
Fuck!
I paced the floor for a few minutes. Then I called Stefanie. She answered after the second ring. I asked her if she’d seen Ailee, and she said she hadn’t, but that she was going over there after dinner. I asked her to tell her I’d called, and she promised she would. I thanked her and ended the call.
There was nothing else to do but wait. If I didn’t hear from her tonight, I could always go by her studio tomorrow.
I was acting desperate. Fuck, Iwasdesperate. The only thing that kept me from hopping on the bus and going to Ailee’s place was the fact that Stefanie was going to be there to check out the edits from the shoot yesterday. I was desperate, but I wasn’t some psycho. I didn’t want to interrupt their business. Plus, I didn’t know where she lived. Only that she’d mentioned once it was somewhere close by her studio.
I just had to trust that Stefanie would give her my message and hope that Ailee would call me back.
CHAPTER6
Ailee
Later that night, after Stef and I checked out her cover shot and shared a glass of wine back at my apartment, I turned my cell back on.
Six missed calls. Holy hell, what had I gotten myself into?
Enough was enough. Without overthinking it—for once—I hit the call back button. He answered after the first ring.
“Ailee. Fucking finally.”
He sounded so relieved, my red flags wavered and lowered to about half mast. Maybe something had happened. An emergency. An alien invasion, perhaps. “Hi, Tyler.”
“I’m sorry for blowing up your phone. But I’d really like to see you. I need to see you.”
The flags inched back up a foot or two. I took a deep breath and prepared myself to hold fast with my decision. “I don’t think so, Tyler.”
There was a long silence on the other line. “Ailee…”
