Resurrected (Resurrected Series Book 1) (9 page)

“You mean Lottie grew up here?” Lydia’s voice had risen at least two octaves. She was nearing hysterics.

I pushed the wine glass slowly across the table. “I won’t bite. Seriously. Drink. These feel like real crystal. They’ll shatter you know.” Lottie suppressed a smile. Lydia just looked confused.

Lottie shrugged, her attention still on Lydia. “Isn’t that what I said?”

“No, you said, ‘
I
grew up here.’
You
most certainly did not. You grew up with
me.
You remember that, don’t you?”

I hadn’t thought it was possible, but Lydia’s voice had risen another octave. I drank her wine instead.

“Of course, I just misspoke. It’s no big deal.” But Lottie looked like she was definitely uncomfortable with the idea of having misspoken at all, no matter how much she tried to reassure her friend now.

“Why would you move us to a city where you knew she had grown up? You wanted to come here! This was your idea!”

Lottie ran her fingers along the edge of her wine glass, growing more and more uneasy the longer this inquisition lasted. I wanted to help her, but how? I couldn’t even get Lydia to drink. In fact, I had done the exact opposite of that. I had finished her glass of wine. “For the same reason I went to Houston. Sometimes, I don’t know where her life ends and mine begins.”

We both stared at Lottie silently after that, both with very different thoughts weighing on us. Lottie’s death was supposed to have meant a new life for them, maybe an exciting one, although I failed to see how working at a chain bookstore or driving a Yaris would qualify as exciting. But Lottie’s death had also been a sort of death for Lydia’s best friend, hadn’t it? She would never be Kyrieana again either. At least, I selfishly hoped not. If there were some loophole, some way to extinguish whatever part of Lottie had resurfaced, then I didn’t want them to find it. I wanted Lottie back.

Lydia finally spoke, quiet, still so patient, loving. Unendingly kind. No, I could never mistake her for Jamie. “You went looking for … him, then?”

“No, I told you, that was an accident. It was a stupid, stupid mistake on my part. I wasn’t even going to go anywhere near where I might run into him, but I was driving around and not really paying attention to where I was going, and then I looked over, and there was this coffeehouse, and I used to love it, so I just stopped …” she had caught herself this time, that first-person pronoun slipping out again before she could stop it. She picked up her wine glass and finished it off.

“But you didn’t think he might be there?”

“Dietrich.” I offered. I was getting annoyed by the constant references to myself in the third person like I wasn’t there.

“Oh, sorry. Dietrich, I mean. You didn’t think he would be there?”

Close enough.

Lottie shook her head. “No, he doesn’t really drink coffee.” She suddenly looked up at me, tilting her head and squinting at me as if suddenly realizing I had been the one who had fucked up. “What
were
you doing there?”

“I was thirsty.” I picked up the wine bottle and refilled her glass. Maybe I could at least get one of them drunk long enough to forget she was pissed off at me.

“Oh, God, Lottie, this is such a mess. What are we going to do?” Lydia sank into the couch, her long legs stretching under the coffee table, one arm thrown over her eyes.

“I don’t understand. Why is this such a huge problem?” I eyed the wine bottle but decided against drinking anymore. I was pretty sure the hotel had a bar in it, and I definitely needed something stronger than a red wine anyway.

“Because you know we’re here,” Lydia explained. She had that tone of voice again like she was explaining this to a child, patiently and sweetly, but part of me suspected she thought I should have figured that out on my own.

“Dietrich would never tell anyone,” Lottie immediately jumped to my defense, and I sank a little lower in my seat.

“Um.”

“What.”

It hadn’t been a question but a demand. It’s not like she had told me
not
to tell anyone though. Lydia had uncovered her eyes and was watching me now too. Resignation. Fear. The Jabberwocky.

“Just Eric, Lottie, and come on, think about him if you can’t remember him. Try to. You
know
you can trust him.” I believed that. He was the only person I had ever trusted besides her, and he and Lottie had been good friends. I would have trusted her life with him.

“I should have known you would tell him.” Good God, how much
did
she remember? “What did he say?”

“Well … he would like to meet you.” I thought about telling her he was down the street. I wasn’t sure she’d had enough wine for that.

“Ungh, and I thought work was bad.” Lydia muttered. Her face was buried under both arms now.

“Lydia, we aren’t going to … what are you even worried about? Isn’t there some movie with a government agency that tracks down aliens?”

“
Men in Black
?” Lottie guessed.

I shrugged. “If that’s what you’re worried about … I’m almost positive no such agency exists. Well … like 97% sure. But that’s pretty good, though, right?”

“You still haven’t seen that movie have you? We wouldn’t be worried about Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones trying to keep track of us. They helped hide the existence of aliens in this world; it’s the public we worry about. We can die just as easily as anyone else, you know.”

I thought about Lottie being hunted.  By the government. By a scared and angry Tea Party mob. By some crazy vigilante anti-extraterrestrial gun-loving militia group from Montana. No one was going to hunt her. No one was going to hurt her. Nobody would ever lay a fucking hand on her. No one except me.

I hoped the wine was affecting her by now. I reached across the table and took her hand, her left hand, still ringless, still decorated with those three freckles that formed that wide triangle with the perfect, smooth white skin inside. “Lottie,” I said softly, “you know I can keep you safe. I will. And Lydia. Nobody will hurt you. I promise.”

Lottie looked down at our hands. I tensed, waiting for her to rip hers away from mine, to ask me what the hell I thought I was doing, to remind me … again … that she wasn’t really my fiancée. But she slowly exhaled, stretched her fingers out, lacing them between mine, then held on tightly. “I know, Dietrich,” she breathed. “I know you will.”

Chapter 5

Lottie sat crosslegged on one of the beds in my hotel room, watching Eric curiously as he vacillated between disbelief and shock. I sat on the opposite bed watching Lottie. When I left her apartment the night before, Lydia had finally started drinking and Lottie was trying, somewhat futilely, to calm her down. She had promised me she would come by in the morning to see Eric – and me – but I was still surprised when she had actually knocked on my door, her thin frame and short stature always giving her this pixie illusion that was exaggerated this morning by the pale pink tank top and high ponytail.

She had kicked her flip flops off by the side of the bed, and was telling me, in a way that was
almost
like Lottie would have, about how despairing Lydia had been once I’d left; how convinced Lydia was that her best friend, the person she loved most, had something terribly wrong with her; that the more she drank, the more she seemed to think it was like some sort of cancer that would just get worse and worse. Lottie had tried, repeatedly, to assure her that in two years, it hadn’t changed, she was herself now, it was just a different self, but Lydia had as much trouble understanding that concept as the rest of us.

Eric listened attentively, watching our exchange, Lottie’s hands – she talked with her hands just like my Lottie had – her facial expressions, my reactions to it all. And then he asked her to explain how this process worked or what she thought was different about her. But when he asked her why she’d never tried to contact me in over two years if she remembered me so well, my heart sank into my stomach. Or maybe my stomach jumped into my chest. Of course I had wondered that, too, but I’m not a masochist; there was no way in hell I had ever planned on asking her.

Lottie’s face paled and she looked toward me as if I could save her from this humiliation, from this intrusion into her innermost secrets. I had the sudden urge to throw Eric out of my hotel room.

“Eric, it’s not that simple,” she said, seeming so much smaller than usual.

“Why not? He hasn’t moved, his number hasn’t changed, his email is the same. It seems pretty simple to me.”

“Because I’m not the same!”

“But here you are,” Eric persisted.

“Eric, what the fuck are you doing?” They were logical questions, but she was close enough to my Lottie; I didn’t care what reasons she had, he was upsetting her, and I couldn’t let him.

“It doesn’t make any sense, Dietrich. She claims she’s Lottie, sort of, and if that’s true, I don’t believe for a second Lottie wouldn’t have come to you the first chance she had.”

“But I’m not! I’m not her!” Lottie protested.

Eric pulled a chair away from the table by the window and sat down. Lottie had to turn to see him now. “I don’t get it,” he said. “You’ve said you’re Lottie and this other girl, but not Lottie and not this other girl. So you’re like … what? Half Lottie and half … you?”

Lottie shook her head. “No. I don’t know. I’m not sure anymore who’s
me
anyway.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense.”

“Have you ever tried having two people in one head?”

I looked at Eric now.
She’s got you there, Buddy
.

“
All
of Lottie’s in there then?” he asked cautiously.

It was Lottie’s turn to sigh. She was getting impatient. She and Eric had been such good friends, and maybe that was why she found his reluctance to believe her so frustrating. Of course, I hadn’t believed her at first either, but I hadn’t told her I didn’t believe her. “Again, it doesn’t work that way. There’s no
in there,
it’s just
me.
I’m both Lottie and Kyrieana, and I’m neither.”

“So you’re Lottiana?”

I rolled my eyes. So did Lottie.

“How do I know,” he continued, turning serious and thoughtful again, “that what you’re telling me, these aren’t just memories you’ve picked up from conversations with Dietrich recently or shit you just guessed correctly? Like the thing with the lightning whelk. It is our state shell, after all.”

Eric had had no fucking clue it was our state shell until a few days ago when I told him about the conversation between Lottie and me.

“I mean, if you’re
really
Lottie or half-Lottie or whatever,” he continued, “then what happened at Daniel’s Christmas party two and a half years ago?”

Lottie’s eyes widened, her posture stiffened and she hissed, “
Shut. UP.”

I sat up straighter. “What happened.” I was glaring at Eric. I didn’t remember anything unusual happening at that party, other than the fact that I had actually been talked into going in the first place.

Eric never took his eyes off of Lottie. “Tell him,” he suggested.

Lottie shook her head quickly. “Are you suicidal?” she spit it out, like she couldn’t believe he would even venture into this memory. I couldn’t either, actually.

“Eric, I
will
fucking kill you. What the hell happened?” Whatever excitement I had felt over Lottie showing up this morning had completely vanished.

The corners of Eric’s eyes had started to wrinkle, a small smile turned the corners of his lips. He knew that Lottie was clinging on to this memory, this
secret
they had kept from me. I was starting to think Eric must really have a death wish. “You’d better tell him, Lottie. You know how he is. He’s not going to wait much longer, then he probably will kill me.”

Lottie exhaled angrily, still scowling at Eric, and through gritted teeth, breathed, “Fine.” She slowly turned her attention toward me. My chest was burning. A stabbing, burning, sickening kind of pain. What the fuck did Eric think he was doing?

“Remember how drunk Eric got? I mean, hell, we had to take him home.”

I nodded. I also remembered having to pull over so he could throw up on the side of the road and not in my brand new Alabaster Silver Metallic Accord.

“He tried to kiss me at the party.” Lottie had folded her arms across her chest in that defensive way of hers and although she had tried to speak those words nonchalantly, she was still disturbed by that memory or maybe it was the tension in the room. I am pretty sure all of the tension was coming from me.

I tried to unclench my fists, reminded myself this was Eric after all. I inhaled. “You
what
?” I asked slowly.

Eric just shrugged and flippantly responded, “She was standing under the mistletoe.”

“That was
not
a mistletoe kiss!” Lottie shot back. Now she was angry. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one growing increasingly pissed off by Eric’s dismissive attitude.

I looked to Lottie. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about this?”

Lottie waved her hand irritably at Eric. “
That’s
why. The next day, he was all like, ‘God, Lottie, I’m so sorry, that was really stupid,’ and I was like, ‘No shit, and if you ever tell Dietrich, he’ll kill you, so you’d better keep your fucking mouth shut. And off of mine.’” Lottie sank back into the bed and muttered something under her breath that sounded like, “Fucking men.”

Eric looked at me, eyebrows raised, eyes full of wonder. He wasn’t at all concerned about this kiss. It was old news to him. But he had dragged a secret memory out of Lottie that she had, quite literally, taken to her grave, and she had retold that story exactly as Lottie would have told it. There was no hesitation, no self-doubt, no fumbling over word choices or wrestling with the spirit of another person who didn’t want to be reliving this memory. This was Lottie. My Lottie. That little voice that so often whispered in the back of my brain that something wasn’t
exactly
right when I was around her had been silent, and it wasn’t just because of my own fury. There was no Kyrieana in that moment. Just Lottie.

“Don’t kill him,” Lottie finally mumbled. She was eyeing me, maybe waiting to see if I really was going to try or if I would let the past go. I swallowed, a hard knot seemed stuck in my throat.

“Why did you do it?” I finally asked him. I’m not sure if I meant why he had tried to kiss her in the first place or why he had dredged up this secret, this betrayal. He apparently decided I meant the former.

Eric never looked away or dropped his eyes. That’s not the kind of man he was. I knew him well enough to know that he would have told me exactly what had happened the day after the party if Lottie hadn’t asked him not to. That didn’t make it hurt any less. “I don’t know, Dietrich. You had just gotten engaged, Brooke and I had just broken up, it was the holidays, I was lonely, and I was really drunk. I really did just mean it to be a friendly kiss. You know I’d never hurt either one of you. You know that.”

“I thought I did,” my voice was full of venom. That comment stung. I knew it did, but I wasn’t sorry I had said it. Not even a little.

“It was a long time ago, Dietrich,” Lottie said. She was lying on her back now, staring at the ceiling. Maybe wishing some portal or ice pick hole would open up and let her escape off of this planet. Immediately.

“Not for me.”

She just nodded. “True.” She kept her focus on the popcorn ceiling above her.

“Dietrich,” Eric started but I wouldn’t let him speak.

“Just shut up.” He didn’t argue.

I uncurled my fingers and studied my hands. The room was heavy and silent except for the humming of the air conditioner. After a few minutes of no one speaking, Lottie finally propped herself up on her elbows and watched me again. That doubt and uncertainty were back. She was Lottie and not-Lottie again. She wasn’t quite sure what to say. “You
aren’t
going to hurt him, are you?” she asked.

I glanced over at Eric. He hadn’t moved. I shook my head, “No, but …”

“Stop there,” Lottie interrupted. “No buts. Look, we all know why he brought it up in the first place. He wanted to prove something and he did, right? Can’t you just …”

Just, what? Forget my best friend had tried to make out with my fiancée? No, I don’t think that’s the kind of thing a person forgets. And forgive him? There was no fucking way I could forgive him for it either. Lottie wasn’t just my world in that clichéd I’m-so-in-love kind of way; she was the only part of my world that gave my life any meaning. I had no friends when I met her, I’d never had any family. I went to LSU and then applied to graduate schools because I didn’t know what else to do. I was still a lost child, a discarded pitiful creature, when she met me, and for the first time in my life, someone had wanted me. She had wanted me; she had loved me, and God, had I loved her.

Lottie never tried to finish whatever she thought might have helped me to realize I couldn’t keep losing the only people in my life. At this point, wasn’t I really down to one? Maybe none, now? So instead she sat up, dangling her legs over the edge of the bed and faced me. “Do you want some time alone? We can go meet Lydia. She may have slept off her hangover by now.”

Actually, the last thing I wanted was for Lottie to leave with him
.
I never wanted them to be alone together ever again. Or maybe even together ever again, period. But looking at Lottie, I could tell she was hoping I would say yes. She was eager to get out of this stressful situation, with this ominous silence just hanging around us like a shroud. And in all the years I had known Lottie, I had never been able to disappoint her. So I told her yes. I needed some time alone.

Eric didn’t protest, although I could tell he didn’t want to leave without me. Or maybe he just wanted Lottie to leave so he could talk to me. If that were true, then, I thought that was either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid of him. But he followed her silently out of my room, and as soon as the door closed, I collapsed back on my bed, looking up at the ceiling just as Lottie had, waiting for that same hole to appear to swallow me.

I didn’t want to travel universes, just time. I wanted to go back a little over two years, to a beautiful spring day in Houston when a rare seasonal cold front had moved cool, dry air into the city. The meteorologist on the radio that morning had promised me a high of no more than 68 degrees. This weather was too exceptional, too perfect to waste. I wanted to make a better decision. I wanted to turn around, go back home, crawl back into bed with Lottie and tell her that when she was ready to get up, we would drive down to Galveston and walk along the beach. It would be too cold to get in the water but we would walk in the sand, look for seashells or just try to avoid dead jellyfish, spread out a blanket and umbrella and read or fall asleep with the waves and seagulls providing the kind of ambient sounds that quieted even my overactive mind.

She would still be alive then. If I had only turned around. And I had thought about it. But I had gone to work, and she had gotten up, answered Jamie’s call and decided to go somewhere with her. I still didn’t know where they had been going. What had been so important at my desk that day? What had kept me from turning around? What had made me think that I could waste this day, this too-good-to-be-true day that in hindsight, was foreshadowing something incomprehensibly sinister, perhaps trying to warn me,
Go get her, Dietrich. This day isn’t right. No, it’s
too
right, and that’s the problem.
I hadn’t listened. I hadn’t listened, and she had paid with her life and mine. I had been living in this Hell of an afterlife ever since.