“You want to eat sushi in a landlocked state? Do you have a death wish?”
I shook the shirt out so I could fold it and his wallet, car keys, and a card flew out, clattering at my feet. I bent to pick them up, Dex’s unsmiling face staring back at me, and I grinned at how predictable his license photo was, as if it was such a nuisance to take. As I stood, my eyes stuck on the name.
August William Dexter.
“I’ll take you to a great sushi place when we get back to Boston,” Dex said.
“Does it have a conveyor belt?” Phoebe asked.
“No.”
“Pass.”
I stared at the name, waiting for it to break apart and reconstruct into what I knew to be true. His name was Benji. He hated it, so he went by Dex. I shut my eyes, breathing hard, remembering the disgust in his eyes when I asked if he was Benji Dexter. He’d never answered, I realized. The only other time I used that name, he’d saidDon’t call me that.
“Can I sign your cast?” Phoebe asked, inspecting Dex’s arm closely. He nodded, hair flopping over his forehead.
“Sure.”
I could’ve been standing on that cliffside, watching Phoebe and Dex spill over. A visceral sucker punch and the paralysis that followed. A solid beat ofnothing.
“What color? I have markers in the car. Ooh! I have stickers too!”
“You’re not putting stickers on my cast.”
The world ebbing back into focus. Something huge and sharp clawed its way out from inside my chest.
Phoebe’s voice sounded farther away, almost like an echo. “Please?”
My hand shook as I inspected the license for a mistake. Dex’s sour face and a name that didn’t belong to him. I had slept beside this man. I had woken up with him. I had no idea who he was.
“What kind of stickers?” Dex asked. Phoebe let out a maniacal laugh and snatched the keys from my shaking hand, bolting down the hallway. He turned to me. “Well, that’s not a great sign. Are you… Vi? What’s wrong?”
“What, um…” I blinked hard, brandishing his license, watching the color drain from his face. “Is your name August?”
He lifted his hand and immediately dropped it back to his side, squirming as if he’d forgotten how to stand. “Violet.”
I tried to take a steady breath but it was more like a gasp. “What the hell is going on?”
He walked backward until his knees hit the bed and he sank down, dropping his head into his hand. “I can’t believe this is happening when I’m on morphine,” he moaned.
“Dex.” I blinked hard, trying to right this topsy-turvy universe I’d stumbled into. “I’m coming up with a lot of scary scenarios in my head, so I need you to talk. Tell me I’m being ridiculous. Tell mesomething.” My mind grasped for logical explanations. “Sometimes a zebra is a horse, right? So, Benji’s a nickname. That’s why there’s no record of you online.”
He looked at me, eyes swimming in misery. “Violet.”
“It’s either that or you’re some kind of con man. Is that why you have so much money? You’re a criminal mastermind?” My fingers tightened around the soft fabric of his rumpled shirt. “Maybe Catalina has no idea who you are. Maybe nobody does.”
“Violet,” he said, clearer now, as if I’d shocked the morphine out of his system. “My name is August. Benji is my brother. He died a year and a half ago.”
I sat down on the floor, burying my face in a shirt that smelled like Dex, only he wasn’t Dex. Everything was upside down.
“I was going to tell you,” he said. “I tried. I just—I don’t talk about him. It’s too much. He was my best friend and I’m still so fucking lost. I was going to tell you before we got to Bend.”
“I don’t understand.” My voice came out soft, muffled by the shirt.
“Cat was the love of Benji’s life.” He was breathing hard. I could tell he hated this, but I didn’t tell him it was okay, that he could take his time. Not this time. “They broke up a few weeks before it happened. He obviously sent the letter sometime in between. I don’t know why it took so long for the post office toreturn it. I… I don’t know. When you showed up at Sequest and said his name, it felt like something broke inside me.”
I heard the groan of the cot as he stood, soft steps against the tile floor. He didn’t touch me, but I could feel him right there in front of me.
