Chapter 9: Someday the Gears Will Turn

Chapter 9: Someday the Gears Will Turn

“Violet, please calm down, I--” Laura begins.

“Calm down? How am I supposed to calm down? Why do you know about my medication? Are you stalking me too!?” I scream at her.

My mind is spiraling out of control; panic beginning to sink its claws into my brain. Not good. I know I should try to remain calm, but I just can’t. Why would Laura know about my medicine? I don’t tell anyone about that! What the hell is going on!?

Laura holds me with her gaze, her eyes full of sadness. “Please, Violet, just hear me out for a second. I’m not stalking you or anything. I promise.” She then looks confused for a moment before asking me, “Wait, you said stalking you ‘too’? Is there really someone stalking you?”

Oh, crap. Why did I have to go and say that? I should definitely avoid telling her about the invisible-floating-stalker-man from another world. She probably wouldn’t even believe that anyway, thankfully. At any rate, I’ve managed to calm down a bit. I’m still pretty freaked out by this situation, but I need to get to the bottom of this. Now.

“N-no. No one’s stalking me or anything. Except maybe you.”

She looks offended. “I already said I’m not doing anything like that. I’m just concerned about you, Violet.”

I’m a little ticked off now, and it shows in my voice. “Who the hell are you to be concerned about me? Mind your own damn business, Laura. Now tell me; how do you know about my meds?”

Laura shuffles a bit in place, looking down at the carpet. She’s obviously feeling uncomfortable. Great, that makes two of us.

She looks back into my eyes, her expression distant,  and says softly, “You really don’t remember me, do you?”

“Remember you? I don’t understand. Why do you keep talking like that? It’s really starting to freak me out. I never met you before this semester’s Philosophy class.”

Laura looks deeply hurt by my words. “Why am I talking like this? How could you even say that?” she has to stop for a moment, seemingly to hold back tears. “Violet, did I do something to make you angry? Is that why you’ve been pretending not to know me this whole time?”

I’m beyond confused at this point. I don’t even feel creeped out anymore. Maybe it’s because, somehow, her words seem sincere to me. No one would go this far for a prank, but at the same time, I still don’t remember her. At least…I don’t think I do.

I stare into Laura’s green eyes.  Something…seems off here. I feel like I’m forgetting something. Wait a minute! Laura knows about my medication. That’s how this conversation started. And if she knows about my meds, there’s only one possible explanation…

As much as I hate to bring up the topic, I have to find out what’s going on here. “Laura, are you from…the clinic?”

Laura perks up, a wide smile stretching across her face. It seems to illuminate the entire room with warmth and light. “You remember me?”

The gears in my mind are turning very slowly. It’s almost as if there’s something stuck in there blocking them. I’m on the verge of recalling the memory I need, but it’s just slightly out of reach.

I decide to speak up. “I-I’m sorry. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure that we have met in the past. But I don’t really remember my days at the clinic all that well. Unfortunately, my memory in general isn’t the best, so…”

Laura looks disappointed. “O-okay…but that’s at least one step in the right direction, right?” she says as she smiles again.

“Y-yeah, I guess,” I respond, feeling slightly perturbed . If I’ve met Laura before, how come I never realized it until now? Why is my memory of the past so bad? Has it always been like this? I guess at some point, after avoiding my past for so long, the memories ended up getting buried.

Laura starts giggling.

“W-what?” I ask her.

“Nothing,” she says with a wink. She then walks up to me and wraps her arms around me in a warm embrace.

“W-whoa, what the hell you doing?” Being hugged by Laura is just too weird. I never could’ve imagined I’d find myself in this situation before now.

Because she’s hugging me, Laura’s mouth is right by me left ear. “Please, just let me do this. I’ve missed you so much, Violet. It’s been so hard…with you not remembering me.”

Suddenly, all of Laura’s intrusive and strange behavior towards me since the beginning of the year makes sense. She probably recognized me and has been trying to get close to me from the start, but due to my callousness and stupidity, I’ve kept pushing her away. She’s always just been an annoyance to me. Hell, even now, she’s still annoying. But now, I can’t hate her the way I did before. What reason is there to hate her? She seems to be a truly kind girl. This whole time, I’ve been suspecting her of being all kinds of things that she isn’t. That’s just pathetic of me. I’m aware that my insecurity is what leads me to assume the worst of people, but when it comes down to it, I continue to let my paranoia and fear get the better of me. It’s just that I’ve learned not to trust people. People will stab you in the back, lie, cheat, and trick you without a second thought. I’ve experienced it all so much that, just as Atum said, I’m incapable of accepting a person’s goodwill as genuine. I thought Laura was feigning her kindness towards me, perhaps to boost her reputation by taking pity on the freak, or to set me up as a charity-case for her self-serving ego. Now, none of that seems to be the case. It’s much more likely that all her actions up until now were just genuine attempts to rekindle her friendship with me. After all, judging by the way she’s acting now, I’d assume we were close friends in the past.

I haven’t exactly had many friends in my life, though. So how could I not remember her? Even now, I just have the feeling that we’ve met, and that it was at that damned clinic. That was about five years ago. How could I have befriended a girl my age at a hospital and not remember her? Oh well, I really shouldn’t be that surprised; my childhood memories are hazy at best. I have so many gaps in my memory, and I tend not to think about the past anyway. So I suppose forgetting Laura is not that weird for me.

“I’m sorry, Laura. For lots of things,” I say softly. Like yelling at you, thinking you were out to hurt or exploit me, pushing you away this whole time, and most importantly, for not remembering you. I’m the worst, aren’t I.

Laura pulls away from me. “It’s okay, Violet. And you don’t need to feel guilty about not remembering me. You can just take your time. I know you’ve been through a lot, and I don’t want you to feel any unnecessary stress.”

“W-who said I felt guilty about forgetting you?” I say, blushing.

Laura looks at my flustered expression and laughs. “It’s okay, Violet. I know you better than you think.”

“Nah, I think we’ve pretty much established that,” I crack back.

Laura bursts into laughter again, and this time I join her. I feel like a weight I didn’t even know existed has been lifted from my shoulders.

After a bit, both of us have settled down and Laura heads for the door. I open the door for her to be polite, but she doesn’t leave yet. Instead she stares at me longingly.

“What is it? I got horns on my head or something?” I joke.

Laura smiles at the joke and says, “Say, Violet. Can we…hang out sometimes? I know it might be weird for me to ask you this since you don’t really remember me, but…I really want to spend time with you again, like we used to.”

“Uh, sure, I guess. It’s fine with me,” I say, but in reality I have mixed feelings. I’ll just have  to get over it. Laura deserves a chance.

Laura beams, her very being brimming with joy. “Great! In that case, let’s exchange phone numbers!”

After exchanging phone numbers, I send Laura off and then leave myself shortly after.

It takes a couple of bus rides into the city, but eventually I arrive in front of a small house on the end of a street. In my hand is the note Professor Kusari scribbled his address on.

Going to my professor’s house on a Friday night. Not weird at all.

I walk up the front steps and prepare to ring the doorbell.

“Here goes nothing.”

Author's Note

Please let me know what you think! More is on the way. Also, please check out the related book, Stardust!