Page 76 of Memories of the Lost

Jared, I need help. Can you meet me at my apartment around eight?

You told me not to talk to you, and now you want my help?

Please. It’s important. I’m scared.

What about Liam?

He left.

No games.

No games, I swear.

She stared at the words as if they would wake something up. Her heart thudded a warning, slow and hard. “I don’t remember,” she whispered. Because they’d been together five years and she maybe owed him something, she added, “I’m sorry. I’m having memory problems, and I can’t remember what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“You look like shit,” he said, and did what he had always done—stepped forward and tugged her into an embrace that felt like a bulwark against the world. “It’s okay. Let’s get you upstairs and into a hot bath.”

In the past, he would have done this for her when she’d had a migraine or a bad day. Helped her into the bath, washed her hair, brought her a cup of tea. One of the things she’d loved about him was his gentleness. In her fear during her blackout, that was probably what she’d yearned for.

But now that she was in her right mind, she knew she didn’t want that. Still not with Jared.

Whatever else was going on, Tillie didn’t want to give him the wrong idea. “Jared, I don’t want to get back together.”

His body tensed.

She pulled out of his arms. “I don’t remember texting you. I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong idea.”

He stared at her. “Memory issues? What does that even mean?”

She was too fried to even begin to explain. “I don’t know.”

They stood there, looking at each other, and suddenly he capitulated. “You know what, Tillie? Fuck you, and fuck this. Fuck everything. Don’t call me again, for anything. Ever.”

“Jared—”

“No. You’re not going to use me and throw me away.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

But he was storming off.

Storming. Stormy. The hostile little girl looked up from her memory.

We are you, silly.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

London

The workshop in London was only two days, plus an evening meet-and-greet the night before. Liam usually enjoyed this part—talking with people who shared his interests in meditation and spirituality, listening to their stories. They often had heart-wrenching, difficult tales to share, and he was humbled by the things people could leave behind them. Terrible things, sad things. Most people didn’t start to walk the path to enlightenment without a big slap from life.

Tonight, he only wanted to go to his hotel room and wait for the phone to ring. He’d sent a dozen texts and two phone messages to Tillie, and nothing had come back.

He’d had harsh words with Krish on the plane over the incident with Nikki Gonzales, and his manager was now on his best behavior. He knew he’d overstepped, and was contrite, but Liam felt a certain arrogance from him that was unsettling. Liam would have trusted Krish with his life, but something had changed.

Money. That was the problem. None of the team had ever had any, and now they all had a lot. No matter what the intentions, that sometimes shifted the dynamics of things. In Krish’s case, a lot of people weredepending on him—a brother in an expensive university in America, a sister with bipolar disorder who struggled to hold a job, aging parents. He’d never married, and although he didn’t say so publicly in order to spare his conservative family, he was gay, with a long-term partner in Wellington, where they kept a house on a cliff above the Tasman Sea.

But it was one thing for Krish to worry about Liam, fear that he was going around the bend, and quite another to send in a beautiful girl to seduce him.