Everyone We've Been (29 page)

“This is a conversation for when I have pants on,” Zach says groggily, burrowing his face into his pillow. I roll onto my side beside him and prop myself up on my elbow.

“I'm serious, Zach,” I say. “You could
totally
get into NYU.”

Zach doesn't respond, except to make a low, groaning sound into his pillow.

“They have a really good film program, and all you'd have to do is apply. I mean, I'm sure it's competitive, but you're good, and I bet you could get something together, an application package, before their early-decision deadline.”

Zach is out of bed now, wriggling into a pair of jeans that has previously on the floor of his room. I wrap the sheet around me and place my head on his pillow. It smells like the cucumber shampoo he's just started using, and I close my eyes for a second.

“I doubt they're going to be impressed by homemade parody films.”

“You never know,” I say, opening my eyes now.

Still shirtless, Zach brings a glass of water to his lips and sets it back down on his table.

“It doesn't matter whether they like it or not if I'm not even sure I'm going to college,” Zach says, and I sit right up in bed. “And why would I go to NYU, of all places?”

Because that's where I'll be?

My hair must be crazy at this point, but I don't even bother patting it down or anything.

“You won't go to college at all?” I ask, shock in my voice. “Because you can't afford it?”

“Because I might not want to go,” he says with a shrug, bending down to retrieve my jeans from the carpet and placing them on the foot of his bed.

“Zach,” I say.

“Addie,” he says.

“You're going in with a defeatist attitude. College admissions committees can smell that a mile away,” I say, half joking.

“God, Addie,” Zach says suddenly, “could you drop it? It's easy for you; you're a fucking prodigy. You can get into whatever school you want.”

I blink at him, my face slowly heating up. “That's not true.”

“It
is
true,” he says. “You could get into Juilliard but you won't even
apply
because you're desperate to hang on to this anti-conformity thing. This idea that it's expected of you or you can't stand to be like all
the other
fucking prodigies.”

“That is
not
it. At all,” I say, raising my voice now, too. I'm stunned by what Zach's saying. He's the only person I've ever told about why I chose New York, about wanting it to fill something in me. How can he say that? “It's not
easy
for me. You know how hard I've worked to stand a chance of getting into NYU—how hard I work to make good grades. I was reading books for the next school year in the
summer.
And even if any of what you're saying is true, what's your point? What does that have to do with you not wanting to go to college?”

“I didn't say I don't
want
to,” Zach says, more softly now.

“You did!” I exclaim, not reducing my volume. “You just said that!”

“I don't know what I want,” Zach says. He pauses for a moment, as if he's trying to figure it out right now, and then he goes back to picking stuff up from the ground. “Anyway, I'm pawning the CXX.”

“Are you serious?” I ask.

Zach nods. “My parents can barely afford to keep the store open. And here's eight hundred dollars rotting on my table and I can't even
use
it. And I'm back to smoking a fucking pack a day.”

He sits on the bed, his back to me. And even though I'm pissed off at him and hurt at the things he said, I see the tension in his slumped shoulders. His frustration as he bends over, elbows on his knees.

“We'll figure it out.”

“I have to sell it,” he says, mostly to himself now. “I shouldn't have accepted it in the first place. I
knew
I shouldn't, but I couldn't say no.”

“Zach,” I sigh, and put my chin against his bare back. “It's okay. We'll figure it out.”

We stay like that for several minutes, and then Zach says, half twisting so I can see his face, “Sorry for being an asshole. You
are
a prodigy.” A hint of his signature smile appears, but it doesn't quite fill his face. “But I shouldn't have said any of the other stuff. I'm just jealous you're talented.”

He turns around fully and kisses me.

I say, “I'm just jealous you're hot.”

He bites my lower lip. “You do
not
need to be jealous about that. Trust me.”

Meridian High is putting on a Thanksgiving production that Zach has been coaxed into videotaping for the drama department, so I have seen even less of him the past two weeks.

Katy has informed me that Lindsay is in it.

“If there's any justice in the world,” I say as we are getting ready to attend opening night, “she's playing the turkey.”

Katy snort-laughs. “She certainly has the chin for it.”

“What? She's tiny!” I exclaim, laughing even though I feel guilty. But I want Katy to know I appreciate her loyalty. Soon after finding out that Lindsay had been texting Zach, Katy promptly dropped her, explaining that best friends come before the-
yo-
ter friends. She broke into a rant about how Lindsay's blatant pursuit of Zach exemplified one of the major problems in show business: actors relinquishing their human characteristics in favor of more cowlike-slash-female-dog behaviors. Since they have many mutual friends, Katy is still keeping tabs on Lindsay, and she updates me on her activities from time to time.

“Oh, honey,” she says now in a posh British accent. “As a victim of Big Belly on Tiny People myself, I can't deny that skinny people with double chins do exist.”

“She does
not
have a double chin,” I say, because it is true. Katy just laughs.

Zach and I haven't talked too much about Lindsay since the day after Halloween, except for me asking a couple of times if she was still texting him and him saying no, that he'd told her to respect his decision. With how little we see each other lately, everything feels a bit harder between us than it used to, and bringing her up would only add to that.

I glance at my phone several times before the lights go down. I texted Zach my seat number and asked about meeting him afterward, but he hasn't responded.

Sadly, it turns out Lindsay is not playing the turkey. We don't even get the satisfaction of seeing her in an ill-fitting Pilgrim costume. Her character is a refugee from an unnamed European principality who transfers to an American school in time for Thanksgiving and must traverse the high school social hierarchy while learning about deeply held traditions and the legacy of our forefathers.

“Deep shit for a Thursday night,” Katy whispers, forcing me to break into an uncontrollable fit of giggles.

I spend the whole intermission scanning the auditorium for Zach. Just afterward, I finally find him way at the back, up in the viewing balcony, working the camera. He's wearing an orange T-shirt and large headphones. We wave at him from our seats below, but I don't think he sees us. He's concentrating hard, his attention never leaving the stage.

I keep glancing back, glancing up, not expecting him to see me since I'm just a spot, just another seat in the sold-out auditorium. But I watch the careful way he works, the stillness of his body as he goes entire minutes without moving once.

I look back at the stage, at Lindsay's riveting monologue, then back at him. Then back at the stage again. I can see his shoulders rising slightly with each intake of breath, falling when he exhales.

It's only when Katy nudges me that I realize what I'm doing.

I'm mirroring his movements, tilting left when he does, inching forward, moving back.

But minutes after Katy flicks my arm, I go back to doing it again.

Inching forward, watching the stage, watching him watch her.

And for the whole last act, I can't breathe.

Because he's holding his breath.

I can't breathe.

Are you following me?

Zach's—the real Zach's—words hang in the air between us.

“No. Yes. Maybe.” My words tangle together.

“I was pretty sure it was you yesterday,” Zach says, arms folded over his chest.
Oh crap. They
did
see me.
“And I was
definitely
sure today.”

“I'm sorry. I just need to talk to you.”

He nods, but he's frowning, staring at me. “So you remember me?” His words are laced with bitterness, his posture still rigid.

“I don't,” I admit. “It's kind of a long story. Can we talk?”

He doesn't answer right away, just holds my gaze, and then his expression softens the slightest bit. “I might be able to take a break now. Let me ask Mrs. Gupta.”

I watch him disappear into the kitchen, already peeling off his apron. I think about running away, think about leaving before I open another can of worms, one I might not be able to close again. One I apparently couldn't live with.

Zach comes back and I follow him out of the restaurant. It's chilly despite the sunlight that's making us both squint. I breathe in and face him, and I want desperately to know everything. To start fresh. I feel like we should introduce ourselves.

“Hi,” I say at last.
You're real. We're having a conversation.
I smile at him and he hesitates but finally, finally smiles back. This time, his teeth show. And his smile is bright. And it is beautiful, but still reserved, stiff.
Memory Zach smiles at me with his whole face. He fidgets less than the real-life boy in front of me.
I almost wish I was telling my Zach about this, explaining how it went and watching his reaction, rather than living this moment. I know he'd laugh at the part where I ended up stuffing my face with Indian food instead of confronting Zach.

“Where do you want to go?” Zach asks. “My car's still a piece of shit, but it's probably warm.”
Still.
He's watching me, wondering whether I get the reference, whether I remember ever being in it.

When he first got on the bus, Memory Zach said his piece-of-shit car wouldn't start.

My ears ache from the cold. “Sure.”

Zach unlocks his car and we slide in.

I glance around. It's a mess, full of film magazines and old bottles and DVDs. A koala dangles from the rearview mirror. I want so desperately for something to be familiar. The smell, the warmth, anything.

“What are you doing here?” Zach asks, and behind the defensiveness, I hear the genuine curiosity in his voice. I think his eyes look a little bit sad. “Katy told me you had gotten the procedure done.”

“Katy told you? She said no one else knew.” Did she think I'd be angry that she told Zach?

“I guess she felt she had to tell me to keep me from bothering you. She told me what you'd done, that you would never remember…”

“Us,” I offer, and he nods. “I don't. But I found out about the”—I swallow—“memory splicing.”

“I didn't know about it at first. You didn't even tell me when…” He shakes his head, and the hurt in his voice is palpable. “You just did it without saying anything. Like everything that happened between us didn't matter.” He runs his hand through his hair. “I still don't understand.”

That's why he's been so cold to me. For erasing him.

I suddenly feel ashamed. Because he cared about me. It's obvious that he did. So why
would
I do it?

“I'm sorry,” I whisper.

He shrugs. “Katy said you wanted me to stay away from you, that I needed to act like we didn't know each other if I ever saw you. I tried calling you anyway, and I even came to see you at school, but Katy threatened to beat my ass if I didn't leave you alone.

“She said this was your way of trying to let go, and that I didn't have to like it, but I had to respect it. So Raj—he's the only person I told—and I weren't sure what to make of it when you suddenly started following us.” Most of his anger seems to have dissolved now, to have been replaced by hurt. “And it's one thing if we'd run into you, but I don't understand what kind of sick game you're playing. Is Katy behind it? I know she's not my biggest fan. You're coming into Mrs. Gupta's restaurant, and to my school, just to what? Show me I still mean nothing to you? That I never will again?”

It feels like he's pushing pins into my chest. “That's not why I came. I would never do that.”

“Well,” Zach says, and runs his hand over his head like he's expecting for there to be more hair. “I've seen you a bunch of times since…we broke up.” He glances at me. I stare back. “And since the procedure. Usually you don't even look at me.”

“At all?” I ask, a little incredulous. Because even if I didn't know Zach, surely I would still notice him. That smile, those eyes. I guess maybe with the shorter hair, but…“I feel like I'd still notice.”

His cheeks get a little pinker and he laughs. “Thanks, but no. It's been”—he searches for the right expression—“kind of a mindfuck. And now you're…here.”

“I was in an accident almost three weeks ago,” I say. “On a bus from Raddick.”

“Oh my God,” Zach says, his eyes widening. “I heard about that. Are you okay?” I see his hands twitch like he's tempted to reach out, but they stay put on his lap. And all his concern remains on his face.

“I'm fine,” I say. But then I tell him what happened after. About the boy on the bus who's more than a boy on the bus now—who's
him
—and his face goes ashen.

“That
is
a mindfuck,” he remarks.

I tell him about the brother I never knew I had, about how figuring out that the apparition I was seeing was a memory led me here.

“Sorry about stalking you,” I finish.

“Yeah, likewise,” Zach says, looking spooked, and we both laugh awkwardly. He seems—looks—older than the Zach I've been seeing, and I feel a twinge of sadness, realizing I know neither of those Zachs. It's funny how the way I remember him is both different from and completely the same as the real him.

“All anyone keeps saying is that I was”—I pause—“like, depressed after whatever happened with us.”

Zach looks at his hands. “Yeah, I heard. I mean, Katy sent me some pretty strongly worded death threats.”

I give him a smile, but it is a small one.

“The whole thing was…I mean, I got why you did it, why you hated me. But even if things were reversed, I would
never
want to forget you.” His voice is deep with hurt, but insistent, like he's wanted a chance to tell me this for a long time. “I still can't believe you went through with it. It just seemed like such a cowardly thing to do. And I'd always thought of you as brave.”

My face is burning now with embarrassment, with anger at myself. Having no memory, no context, I can't defend myself.

I am a coward.

Was.

Am?

“What happened?” I press after a moment. “Why did I do it?”

Zach's expression is wary as he appraises me. “I don't know if…I mean, I'm probably not supposed to tell you. And I'm not sure I
want
to.” His face is a deep red now.

“Zach,” I say, feeling a surge of anger rising up in me. I'm sick of people keeping things from me, lying to me—myself included.

“Did something happen?” I ask him.

“Um, yeah?” he says, like he's not entirely sure what I'm asking.

“Was I there?”

“I…yeah, of course you were.”

“Then you don't get to be angry with me without telling me why, without letting me understand. Tell me everything. Please.”