Strains

The next day I head over to the library on my old campus. Regardless of what Matthew had told me, I want to find out what happened to my parents myself. His recount of my own memories just wouldn’t feel the same. Besides, it’s not like we’re short on time.

The library has its own archives, and in addition to keeping old copies of the New York Times on microfiche, it also keeps every copy of the local papers that have ever been published.

“Hold on, let me go ask,” Matthew says.

I’m about to interject but then I remember that without my student ID, I probably wouldn’t get far anyway. I grab a scrap of paper and golf pencil from a nearby table and begin filling it out.

“Okay, here are the dates of the papers I’m looking for. I’ll wait for you at that study booth over there.”

He takes the paper in his hand and salutes me with it.

It takes twenty minutes for Matthew to come with the box full of newspapers. I was beginning to think this wasn’t going to work, considering we aren’t students.

“Wow, your strain really is convenient.”

He sets the box down beside me.

“Didn’t use it. The young lady behind the desk was happy to help in exchange for a cup of coffee.”

I slam my hand on the table. Luckily the library is empty of anyone but the staff and our area is tucked way in a corner.

“You went on a coffee date while I was waiting here?”

He hands me a bottle of water. “It’s not like you like coffee anyway,” he says, as if just getting coffee was the issue. He knows I’ve been waiting to find out what happened to my parents since I was enrolled in the academy. I don’t need to waste another second.

After flipping through a few papers, I find what I’m after. It’s not a headline, it wasn’t even worth a story at all. The only mention of my parent’s death is in the obituaries, and what’s worse is that it’s just the generic line from a local funeral chapel. Name, birth, and death dates, with no well wishes or mention of family.

Why wouldn’t I have written their obituaries for them? How could I let them go by without any notice at all? We were the only family we had. The next paper has an advertisement for the estate auction that sold our home.

I place the papers back in the box and stand up with it.

“Are we leaving?” Matthew asks.

“No, I’m going to get the papers from four weeks ago,” I answer.

“Stay here and I’ll get them for you,” he says as he reaches for the box. I pull it just out of his reach.

“No, you’ve done enough flirting for today. I’ll be right back.”

I go up to the girl sitting behind the desk and return the box of papers Matthew checked out. She looks them over and begins to frown.

“You were with that guy?”

I ignore the question.

“Can I please have every paper from four weeks ago?”

“Oh yeah, they’re right here. What a coincidence, someone had just looked at the same ones this morning. Is this for a specific class?”

That was easy. I guess you don’t need a student ID or bribe to check out newspapers. But what are the chances that someone else besides me would be looking at these?

“What did they look like?”

She taps a manicured finger to her chin. “I couldn’t make out his face too well. He kinda looked like those weird kids who play card games in the cafeteria.”

That description checks out. I take the new set of papers back to the booth with Matthew.

“Something happen?” he asks.

“I think Caiden was here this morning.”

Matthew sits up straight in his chair.

“That would explain why two-year-old newspapers were sitting at the front desk.”

So, Caiden had looked at those too.

“Why do you think he would do that?”

Matthew shakes his head.

“I don’t know, the guy is crazy. I thought he’d be busy with his Catherine obsession.”

I had wanted to look at these papers to see how I died. Maybe I would’ve gotten a headline or even a snippet more than what my parents had. But what would Caiden have to gain by looking through this?

“Do you think he’s looking for us?” I ask.

Matthew waves his hand.

“Who cares,” he says as he sits back in the chair and cracks open the water bottle he had gotten for me. He takes a long drawn out sip.

“Wow,” he says, looking over the blue cubed bottle. “That is the best water I’ve ever tasted.”

“Well it is Earth’s finest,” I mumble while pulling out the newspapers.

I begin flipping through them, but I don’t spot a mention of me in any of the headings. The way Carl, the guy who bought my house spoke, it seemed like it would have been easy to find.

“I could just tell you what happened if it’s easier. Or I can try to give you your memory back.”

I drop the paper in my hands.

“Why didn’t you offer to do that before?”

“Because I’m not sure it’ll work, and it would’ve involved doing something I knew you’d hate and wouldn’t agree to.”

“How could you possibly know that? What is it?”

“Kissing me, and considering how much memory you lost, it’d probably take a while.”

I give him the most incredulous look I can muster.

“You’ve been using your strain like crazy the entire time we’ve been here without so much as touching someone and you expect me to believe that?”

“It’s the truth. Memories, especially ones like yours take physical contact and a lot more effort to mess with.”

I don’t even want to think about what past me had agreed to when he took the memories from me in the first place.

“Okay then, I’ll just stick to reading,” I say and begin flipping through the papers again.

Matthew pulls his seat beside mine and takes a paper from the box.

“I already went through that one.”

“Well, you should’ve looked closer. This is it.”

He hands me the paper dated three Sundays ago. It’s one of the biweekly prints that are focused mostly on medical stories. The cover story is about an incident at the mental facility in town.

“Are you trying to waste my time?”

He takes the paper from my hands and begins to read it to me.

“An escape attempt at the Greenwood Mental Health and Wellness Center leaves two injured and one dead. The incident occurred midmorning last Saturday during an annual family day at the center. An investigation has been opened as to how the escape was possible and why authorities hadn’t been called.”

I don’t see how that has anything to do with me. I raise an eyebrow at him as he grabs the paper in my hand, flips through it, and begins to read again.

“The investigation into the escape at the Greenwood Mental Health and Wellness Center continues to grow larger as eyewitnesses come forward to retell what they saw that day. According to witnesses, the escape happened in the early hours of the annual family open house; the one time a year that family members are encouraged to visit their loved ones currently receiving treatment in the facility. One of the visitors, who asked to remain anonymous, stated that they saw the escapees overpower a guard and take their service weapon and even then an alarm had not sounded. Local authorities continue to investigate the reason the facility did not alert visitors or emergency personnel to the situation at the center.”

Is he trying to say I was killed by some lunatics? That’s worse than dying in the car accident two years ago. Matthew finds the local paper, scans it, and then hands it to me. This one, I read myself.

The patient who passed as a result of an escape attempt at the Greenwood Mental Health and Wellness Center has been identified as Elizabeth Watson, 23. Ms. Watson had been a patient at the facility for two years prior to the escape, following a tragic car accident on HWY 1 that killed her parents and left her in critical condition.

Nutcase. That’s what Carl had said, wasn’t it? Matthew slowly takes the paper from my hand and places it in the box with the others.

***

I don’t remember how we ended up back in the hotel suite. Or when Matthew ordered room service.

“Elizabeth, please eat something. I got you one of every dessert you never got to try at the academy.”

I shake my head from under one of the couch pillows. Matthew places a hand on my shoulder.

“Did I seem crazy to you? When you met me?” I say into the cushion.

“Not even a little bit,” he says.

Then what was I doing there? Could I really have handled my parent’s deaths that badly? Maybe. I guess I could. But why did I have to? I lost their house, and I couldn’t even dignify them by writing their obituaries. All because I was too weak.

Matthew pulls me by the shoulder and looks me in the eyes.

“You went through hell in Near Elysium, completely alone, and not once did you break. You are not weak, and you’re not crazy. The memories I saw of yours convince me of that.”

He brings a napkin to my cheek.

“Yeah because stable people usually end up in psychiatric facilities, don’t they?”

His face goes firm and his brows furrow.

“There had to have been some kind of mistake.”

I sit up on the couch.

“Don’t you get it? You were seeing the memory of a crazy person, how do you know what you saw was what really happened?”

“Because I know you. Not once have I ever called you crazy, not at the academy and not now.”

He’s right. It was one of the few things he had never written on the whiteboard. Nothing had even come close. But that was irrelevant, wasn’t it? Whatever he saw in my mind was probably some kind of a hallucination. Now it makes sense why I would ask to have my memory erased, I had already lost my reason.

Matthew places his hand on mine.

“Whenever you’re ready to have your memories back, just let me know. It might help.”

When I look at him, I can see the sincerity behind his eyes. Maybe he was right. At the moment, it didn’t matter much anyway. What happened was already printed on paper and set into my town’s history. No amount of self-pity would change that.

“I think it’s going to take me a while to be okay with making out with the guy who used to be my mentor. If you want to help…”

I point to the pie that is quickly becoming overcome by melting ice cream. He hands me the plate and a spoon.

He laughs. “I wasn’t really suited for the job anyway. Couldn’t even last a month.”

I take in a spoonful of apples and ice cream.

“I mean you were pretty much given an impossible task. So, I’d say you did pretty good. You were a better facilitator than Theron will ever be.”

Matthew groans.

“Don’t bring him up again. It’s been driving me crazy that he’s still there doing who knows what to the students.”

“It bothers me too.”

We decide to sit in silence and go through tasting every dessert on the serving cart in front of the window. Glasses of wine from the wet bar follow and by the time we’re finished, we’re both laying side by side on the floor.

“So is this how we’re going to die?” Matthew says, clutching his stomach.

“We’re immortal, remember?”

“What I would give for a slice of death right now,” he mumbles.

“Dramatic much?” I laugh, but the vibrations quickly give me a cramp. “Ow.”

“That’s what you get,” Matthew chides.

“Think Mr. Moneybags would mind if we extend our stay an extra day? I need to eat in that restaurant one more time.”

Matthew turns to look at my face.

“I think he would. But I think he’d insist his ‘fiancé’ get a new outfit for the occasion.”

“Come on. I’m not that shameless.”

“I know you’re not. You won’t even wear the ring.”

I look out the window and at the ocean outside of it. I always thought the ocean in Near Elysium had nothing beyond it and wasn’t as special as the one here. Now, it feels like Near Elysium’s had more to offer.

“Hey, Matthew?”

“Hey, Elizabeth,” he snickers. And even I let out a giggle. We both have had way too much to drink, but it and the dessert sitting in my stomach make it easier to talk to him.

“Just ask your question,” he says.

“Did you really study magic?”

He runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I did.”

“Why?”

He looks at me for a long while, almost as if he’s thinking of telling me a lie. He sighs. “When I first started at the academy, I didn’t think my strain was going to be useful. In the beginning, all I could do was hear thoughts and I couldn’t even tell where they were coming from half the time. I mean, I could do things for myself sometimes, but I didn’t see a way that I would be able to use it to help others. To be a true hero like we were meant to be. Magic just seemed like a way to fill the gap.”

“Did it work?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “No, but the class ironically helped me use my strain better, which is the whole point of a core class anyway.”

I push on his shoulder.

“So maybe it could help me with my strain too. Come on, Teacher, show me some magic.”

“So now I’m ‘Teacher’ again? Okay, sit up.”

I do as he says while he clears his throat and tries to sound authoritative. But his words are slipping out of his mouth now, so it isn’t effective.

“Hold up your hand. This is called a truth tie, it’ll force whoever you touch to tell you the truth.”

He draws a circle with his finger around our pinkies and mumbles a few lines my tipsy brain can’t make out. I giggle as his pinkie taps mine.

“Crap, I forgot, I’m supposed to tie some string on your finger.”

I pull the ring from my pocket.

“Will this work?”

He shrugs and places the ring over the tips of our pinkies. He mumbles a few more words then smiles.

“Now you have no choice but to tell me the truth,” he says with a slight slur and a glint in his eye.

“You’re just going to read my mind, aren’t you?”

He tries to feign innocence. “No, it’s magic. Now tell me what you want to do right now.”

Instead of speaking, I lean forward and brush my lips against his. They’re soft but recoil slightly at my touch. He lets out a boozy warm sigh that tickles my nose, before he leans in further and brings our lips together again. His fingers wind their way through my hair and pull me closer. My hands come up to his solid chest. His heart is racing, and I almost feel it call to mine. His mouth opens slightly and our kiss deepens. My tongue crosses over the threshold of his lips and his tongue eagerly meets mine.

I’m a sloppy tangle of emotions but for a moment I feel like things might actually work out. Matthew and I could find a way to live here, together. And even though my mind is soaked with alcohol, I can see our future so clearly that I can almost touch it.

But then it’s yanked through my fingers.

A shock runs through me and I think Matthew feels it too, because we nearly jump away from each other.

The cloud of alcohol evaporates in thin air, like it usually does when one majorly screws up.

“Sorry,” he says quickly. “Did you, uh, want your memories back right now? I might be too drunk to pull that off.”

“I…I um-,” I stammer. What the hell was that? What was I thinking? How could I even think something like that, and with him of all people?

“I think the stress of the situation is getting to us, not just the alcohol. We should just sleep it off,” he says, shaking his head.

“Yeah, let’s do that. Uh, good night.”