T W E N T Y F I V E

It felt as if my life were falling apart. In all honesty, it really was crumbling, like little pieces breaking off a archaic wall and smashing against the ground as rubble whilst bystanders lingered to watch. In this case, the bystanders were my parents and my friends.

I didn't know if Caleb was my friend anymore and I didn't know where Reeve had went and if he was still my boyfriend. Despite my worries for him, everything had been keeping me from heading over to his house. Jen's words seemed to have engraved themselves in the front of my brain.

Mum was still dying but I kept a smile on my face. Though, it looked more like a scowl.

On Saturday morning, I went to The Benevolent to collect my pay-cheque when the restaurant had not opened yet. My parents had also told me I could quit work since it wasn't the best time to do so. I did after I received the cheque. Mike was extremely disappointed, though understanding as he passed the money to me.

It was sealed inside a small brown envelope and was thicker than I had imagined it to be. Mike handed it to me with his beamed smile and chubby fingers. With a thank you, I had left the restaurant, peering inside at the one-thousand and two hundred wad of cash inside and putting it in my bag for later.

The restaurant vibes reminded me heavily of Reeve. I had left him several voice notes and calls, pestering him about where he was. I had so much to talk to him about and he wasn't even responding to me. He finally picked up after around ten calls, sounding groggy.

"Reeve?" I breathed.

"I was just about to call you. I finally got service."

"Reeve?"

"Stella, what's wrong?" Reeve asked, sounding a little worried. Something filled inside of me. Something neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

"Where have you been for like the past two weeks?" I managed to croak out. He hadn't come to visit me at the hospital nor texted me or called me back for the past few days. I felt a salty feeling rise in my throat.

"What do you mean?" Reeve asked through the phone, sounding a little rough.

"Did you hear what happened?"

"What happened?"

"Reeve, stop playing. Why didn't you come to see me in the hospital? Or at home? Why have you not responded to my--"

"What the hell? Hospital? Look Stella, I thought I told you this already? I'm out in the country visiting my grandparents. There's no wifi connection or signal out here. I only have signal now because I'm at a café. Why? What's wrong? What hospital?"

Something inside of me broke. I had no memory recall of Reeve telling me that. Did that mean I did lose some memory? He must have told me about going away to see his grandparents that night I collapsed.

"Reeve-- I'll speak to you later," I stammered, not wanting to wait for his reply. I ended the call before I could do so, and parked the car outside the house, rushing inside to my bedroom.

I sat on my bed, closing my eyes. I strained my memory to think about anything else that had slipped from my memory. Nothing. Nothing about Reeve telling me he went away came to mind. In the end, after twenty minutes of brain-straining, I wanted to come to a conclusion that Reeve was lying.

He had to have known about my accident. Everyone knew.

My eyes flew open when I heard a tap on my window. I jumped but relaxed when I saw a bird outside. My instincts were about to head over to see, but it flew away in a blink. My eyes trailed over to my school bag that was sitting by the door of the bathroom, untouched since the day of the accident and the day Caleb told me Mum had cancer.

Perhaps something inside there could jog any possible memory I had lost. If I had lost any.

With a ruffle through my bag, I pushed through books and nothing else seemed to make me remember anything I possibly could have lost from memory. I felt as if I didn't lose any at all. That was what I wanted to listen to.

The only things inside my bag were files of books and discarded papers, all of which I knew strongly about and were familiar with. I remembered writing about the Epidemic of the Bubonic Plague in 1876 during History class. That paper was still here. My water bottle lay untouched at the bottom of my bag. I remembered buying it with my mother a while ago. I remembered kissing Reeve.

I remembered Reeve telling me to drink the water out of the blue that day. Wait.

Reeve told me to drink that water. It could have been Reeve, my own boyfriend, who planted the drug there to make me lose my memory. I grabbed the bottle, unscrewing the lid and peering inside. Half of the bottle was filled with days old distilled water from the filter tap in my kitchen. I sniffed the bottle, wondering if I could perhaps notice something out of the blue.

I did.

It smelled odd and unfamiliar to me. I didn't want to believe it but Reeve could have actually been the one to drug me. He could have made the whole story of visiting his grandparents up-- just so he would have an excuse of not coming to visit me and act innocent. Maybe he knew he was a bad actor.

I sat back and held the bottle in my hands, looking down at it. I was scared as hell.

My own boyfriend could have drugged me and I had no idea about it. But why would he want to make me forget? From his perspective, there was nothing I could forget that would benefit him.

Questions, thoughts and confusion filled my brain as I stood up and pushed the door knob to my bathroom, tipping the remains of the water bottle out into the sink. I watched as the water ran down the sides and made a noise going down the drain. Then I went back to my bedroom and sat there, thinking for hours until I could no longer think.

//

hii. short chapter! sorry

what do you think about reeve?