Ellia Dawson doesn't recognize the handsome boy who sits in tears by her hospital bed. He claims he's her boyfriend, Liam. But to Ellia, he's a stranger. She remembers her name. Her parents. Her best friend, Stacey. But Liam is a total blank in her life.Liam McPherson is devastated. His girlfriend, Ellia, suffered a terrible accident--maybe because of him--and now she's lost her memory. But the harder Liam tries to reach Ellia, and remind her of what they had, the more she pulls away. As Ellia begins on the slow road to recovery, Liam begins work on a secret project that he hopes will bring back the girl he loved.But can there ever be a future when the past is in pieces?
EXCERPT
UNTITLED | PAGE 236
At that hour, the beach was deserted save the
fisherman manning their posts on each of the twin piers. The sun hid just
behind the mountains in the east and a purple sky hovered over the Spanish
rooftops beyond the dunes. To the west lay darkness, rolling waves and a half
moon, but no view could compare to the one jogging by my side. She was a
living, breathing celestial event and the closest star I would ever reach.
The ‘she’ in
question was none other than The
Ellia Renée Dawson, a girl so gorgeous, so gloriously epic that it bordered on
the obscene. Some celebrities went by one name, like Oprah or Madonna or Bono —
they were just that iconic. But Ellia had achieved a level of awesome where she
could be identified by a simple pronoun. To this day, legends of her reign
echoed the halls of León High School and inspired a number of copycats, but
Ellia was a force with no equal. With that said, one seriously had to wonder
what she saw in a lanky bookworm like me.
That question had crossed my mind hundreds of times
and it surfaced again as I looked over my shoulder to see her struggling to
keep up with me. Her rich brown skin shimmered with sweat and a thick puff of
black curls bobbed at the top of her head. She wore running tights and a
cut-off sweat shirt that hung off one shoulder. The words I’m Not Lazy, I’m A Stay-At-Home Child was printed across the front
and summed up her workout ethic perfectly.
Though blessed with endowments that exploited the
many miracles of spandex, the poor girl ran like an old person with palsy.
Horrible posture, flailing arms and her refusal to control her breathing made
our fitness routine a work of comedic genius. It also showed that she wasn’t
the flawless deity that her reputation had led everyone to believe. At the end
of the day, she was just a girl. My
girl. And she loved me enough to sneak out of the house to keep me company.
Her participation dragged my regimen out an extra
hour and did zilch to improve my sprint time for track season, but who cared?
It was a small price to pay for a few more minutes alone with her before the
sunrise forced us to part ways.
“I won’t make it! Go on, save yourself!” Ellia
gasped and clutched her chest, then collapsed on the sand and pretended to be dying.
“I’m not leaving without you!” With my arms
stretching out for her, I called back in my best action star voice, “We’re in
this together!”
“Don’t be a hero, you fool! You’ve got too much to
live for! It’s too late for me, but you still have a chance!" She fell
back down and began twitching.
Laughing, I trotted to her side and towered over her
sprawled form as she began to make snow angels in the sand. “Your acting skills
are terrible, babe. Don’t quit your day job.”
She stopped and glanced up at the stars, which were
still visible this early in the morning. “Liam, I don’t know how you can do
this in and outside of school and not
demand combat pay. All this running has to be bad for your joints. I can hear
my bones crying. And that runner’s high you keep talking about is a straight-up
myth.”
“It’s not a myth; you just have to keep at it.
Running’s good for you. It gives you stamina and gets the blood flowing.”
“That might be how things go on your home planet,
but us earthbound folk need a legit reason for strenuous work. Either you’re
running from something or running to something. Whatever the case is, it
better be worth all the huffing and puffing.”
“Quick, someone put that on a T-shirt,” I quipped.
“It‘ll fit well with the rest of the Ellia Dawson Smart-Mouth Fall Collection.”
“Ooh! That’s actually a good name for a clothing
line.” She patted the spot next to her. “Come sit and take a break with me.”
“A break?” I dug in my pocket and checked the
running app on my phone. “We just started five minutes ago.”
“Yeah, I need to stretch some more. I think I pulled
something.” She pouted.
Oh, she was pulling something all right, but saying
no to her was close to impossible when she looked up at me with big, round eyes
that belonged in a Pixar film. I sat down on my bent knees and captured one of
her legs in my hands. “Aw, my poor wittle baby. Where does it hurt?” I gave her
slim ankle a light squeeze. “Here?”
“Nope.” She smiled and bit her bottom lip.
My fingers slid up to her leg and encircled the soft
calf. “How about here?”
“Close, but not quite.”
My hands drifted higher as I watched her eyes
flutter closed. When she began to relax, I moved in for the kill and tickled
the sensitive spot on the back of her knees.
Squealing, she wiggled and tried to scoot away, but
didn’t get far. “Ah! Stop! Stop! I’m sorry!”
“Had enough?”
“Yes!” she cried out, giggling. “Stop!”
“Good.” I let go then laid long-ways along the sand beside
her.
She was still laughing and I kissed her lips through
her smile. Her lips were full, soft and carried the faint taste of tooth paste
and cherry lip gloss. Her giggles soon turned to moans as she raked her fingers
through my hair and returned the kiss in earnest. All at once, everything
became this great emergency where we couldn’t get close enough and there wasn’t
enough time to try. But the attempt had to happen right now, regardless of who
might walk by.
But then it occurred to me that I should probably breathe
soon, so I pulled my mouth from hers. Forehead on forehead, hands still
wandering, we rested against each other for balance as we were too dizzy to
find it on our own.
“We should get going on that run. The sun will be
rising soon and people will be getting up,” I warned.
“Nuh-uh. Don’t wanna,” She shook her head, making
our noses rub together. “I could be home, sound asleep in my warm bed where I’m
supposed to be, but oh nooo. I’m out here before the butt crack of dawn,
messing up my hair and getting tortured by you.” Her lips dabbed around my
cheek and jaw. “The things I do for you, sir.”
I lowered my head and planted a kiss on her bare
shoulder. “I thank you for your sacrifice, ma’am.”
“As you should.” She shifted her body so she lay on
her side to look at me fully. “My dad would kill me if he found out I snuck out
here.”
“You mean he would kill me,” I corrected her.
“Whoever he could get his hands on first.” She
shrugged, but her frown and the loud click of her tongue told me that something
was bothering her. “It’s not fair having to sneak around like this, like we’re
outlaws. It was cute at first — it was giving me all kinds of Romeo and Juliet,
Bonnie and Clyde, On the Run
realness. But now I’m just over it. I love you; you love me and this shouldn’t
be a part-time gig. We need to upgrade.”
I could understand her frustration. Her dad was a
mean battle axe and all of my visits to her house were heavily supervised and
often cut short if I so much as kissed her. Any real quality time was spent
over the phone or online. Even in school, our meetings were brief, what with
classes, teachers and learning and all. Privacy was a rare and expensive piece
of merchandise that we’d been forced to steal to keep from starving.
“Why does your dad hate me so much?” I asked after a
long bout of silence. “You sure it’s not because I’m white?”
“Yeah, sure, play the race card.” She sniggered.
“You’re a boy and a cute one and I’m his only daughter. That’s enough for him
to whip out the shot gun. It’s nothing personal.”
“Well, it’s personally
affecting me,” I replied. “I can’t wait until we graduate. We can finally do
what we want.”
She watched me carefully then reached out to stroke
the side of my face. “Hey, hey, cut that out. Stop brooding.”
I leaned into her warm palm. “I’m not brooding.”
“Yes, you are. You’re doing that bottom-lip thing
and you got a line between your eyebrows. That’s definitely brooding. I sense
another poem in the works.” She draped an arm over her eyes in a show of
dramatized angst. “Life is so bleak and not my own. For my parents hound and
gripe and moan. That only sports will pay off college student loans. Thus my
dream to write is but a seed unsown. I am now and shall remain forever… alone.”
I glared at her. Seriously glared. For the record,
my writing was way better than that, but my prose did lean on the dark and
moody side of the spectrum. Only Ellia knew about that as she was the only one
I ever allowed to read my work. Unlike my folks, Ellia could see my true
calling and by her own edict, her opinion was the only one that mattered.
“Ha-ha. Real funny. You’re in the same boat as I am,
Miss Project Runway,” I replied, effectively wiping the smirk off her face.
“Have you broken the news to dear old dad that you vetoed the whole engineer
idea? I’m sure he was devastated to hear that his only child won’t be taking
over the family business.”
Trash talk had always been our shtick, but my
comment must’ve struck a nerve because she rose to her knees in a burst of
movement.
“All right, that’s it!” she yelled and brushed the
sand off her tights. “We are staging a coup! I refuse to spend the rest of our
junior year hiding in shadows. We have a year and a half to convince our folks
that we want different things. We are not puppets or avatars to live vicariously
through.”
I lifted a power fist in the air. “Word.”
She cut her eyes at me. “Please don’t do that. You
make it weird.” Then she continued, “Let’s form a pact, a promise right here,
right now that from this point forward we live our own lives and pursue our own
dreams and no matter what, we will never be as uptight with our own kids.
Promise?” She reached out her hand for me to shake, but I threaded her fingers
between mine instead.
“I promise,” I said.
Her slender fingers closed over my hand and squeezed.
“We won’t stop until your novel hits the New York Times and a hot supermodel is
wearing my gown on the cover of Vogue. If one of us gets lost and veers off the
pathway, the other has to pull them back. Deal?”
“Deal. No matter what.” I nodded, knowing she meant
every word and that alone gave me a valid reason to try. To hope.
If I had an answer to that question of what she saw
in me, it would be the recognition of a person lost. We may have been from
different backgrounds, but we spoke the same language and we each bore the
weight of family expectations. She hid it well with humor and sass for the kids
at school, but those sad brown eyes pleaded for someone to set her free. And
come what may, be it heaven or hell, that someone was going to be me.
“Okay. Now that that’s settled — I’ve got a second
wind, so on with the cardio! I’ll race you to the pier. Ready-1-2-3-go!” She
dashed across the beach before I could even get to my feet. With her typical
clumsy strides, she headed to the winding bike trail leading up the hill. The
path had a high peak that overlooked the water's edge and beach below and
served as the quickest route toward the docks from here.
She threw her head back with a wicked laugh of
certain victory then spun around and gestured for me to follow. Dusting the
sand from my shorts, I took my time to catch up with her. I could outrun her by
miles and it seemed only fair to give her a decent head start.
Little did I know that these would be the last few
minutes we’d have together. If I had known, I would’ve stopped her or told her
to wait for me. That one small error in judgment would cost me dearly and that
penalty came by way of a piercing scream that rang in the air.
“Ellia?” The name ripped from me in a startled
breath and served as both a question and answer. It had to be her. The scream
was high-pitched and definitely female, but the cause of that noise had spiked
my adrenaline and unleashed the darker parts of my imagination.
I poured all my energy into running at the sound, my
heart pounding in my chest, my leg muscles burning from the rising incline.
Ellia couldn’t have been too far ahead, but it was enough for me to lose sight
of her. As I neared a bend in the path, it then became apparent that she hadn’t
cried out again. There was no sound from her at all and the only footsteps I
could hear were my own.
“Ellia!” I called out into the darkness again and
got nothing but crashing waves and my pounding heartbeat as a reply.
Panic quickly set in as my ears strained to pick up
any sign of life: a whimper, a curse, another blood-curdling scream; anything
other than the eerie quiet that made the hair rise on my arms. I begged for
just one guiding footprint, one small flash of movement to help me find her.
I’d never beg for anything so hard in my life . . .
I
lifted the pen from the page and ripped my reading glasses off my face. My eyes
began to prickle and burn and I pressed down on the sockets with my knuckles.
The tears came anyway and kept coming as I tried to pick up the pen again. Even
with blurry vision, it was obvious that what I’d written down was absolute
gibberish. The letters dipped past the blue lines of the paper in squiggling
waves then trailed off at the margins. Not one single word was legible.
Every
night this week had produced the same results. No matter how hard I tried, I
couldn’t get past this exact point in the narrative. These thoughts couldn’t
stay locked in my brain, and for the sake of my physical health, I had to find
rest at some point. For the past month, sleep came to me in three, sometimes
four-hour spells before I was up at my computer or scribbling in my notebook
for the rest of the night. Now my old standby was working against me.
I
closed my notebook and dropped it on the floor by my bed, resigning to the fact
that I wasn’t going to get any coherent writing done this morning. My brain was
skipping again and had completely jammed once I decided to commit that painful
memory to paper.
My
head fell back against the headboard, my stare bounced to various points around
the room until it settled on the clock on my desk. I had an hour before I
needed to get ready for school and a hard run would help to clear my mind.
I
threw on some running shorts and a T-shirt then laced up my sneakers. Charging
my phone, grabbing my keys and ruffling my hair was the extent of my
pre-workout ritual. I tiptoed downstairs so not to wake up Dad and after
chugging down a bottle of water, I headed out through the back kitchen door.
It
was still dark outside. Thin purple streaks in the sky let me know dawn was
approaching. The air was a bit cold for February in this part of California.
Hopefully, the rapid blood flow would keep me warm. Not even bothering to
stretch first, I headed west and ran like my life depended on it. The air sawed
in and out of my lungs and I enjoyed the burn, craved it. My arms swung back
and forth, propelling my movements like blades slicing through air. Once I
attained a comfortable rhythm, my brain could finally shut down and my body
operated offline. It was good not having to think for a while. I was aware that
hard pavement lay under me, but my feet barely absorbed the impact and all I
could see ahead was my destination.
The
bad part about mental autopilot was that the body was left to follow its
original flight plan. Repetition had programed popular commands and navigation
points into its system. The only way to override it was to make a conscious
effort to change course, but that involved thinking, which would defeat the
purpose.
This
was the excuse I made for stopping at the curb across the street from Ellia’s
house once again. It sounded logical enough — it was simply a reflex. It
couldn’t be helped.
My
eyes drifted up to the second window to the left, and in a true act of
self-torture, I waited in hope for my girl to appear through the curtains. I
knew she wouldn’t, but I’d like to think that at any minute she’d turn on her
lamp and signal that she was on her way down to join me. I could picture her
scurrying around the side of her house, crouched low under her parents’ window
then racing across the grass to meet me at the corner. Wishful thinking can
create a mirage of the highest caliber and the amount of power the mind wielded
never ceased to amaze me. If pushed hard enough, it could make you believe
almost anything.
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