Dare swallows. “Your mind has been trying to protect itself. You’ve experienced an overwhelming loss. You felt like you were at fault when you weren’t. It was more than you could bear. The day after they died, you woke up and thought Finn was still here, in fact, there were times that you thought you were Finn. The doctors said you needed to come out of it on your own, that to try and bring you into reality would hurt you.”
“So everyone went along with it,” I realize in horror. “I’m crazy. I’m crazy and never even knew it.”
Dare’s dark eyes connect with mine. “No, you’re not,” he says firmly, resolutely. “You had a mental break because your reality was too hard to bear. They called it PTSD and Disassociative Memory Loss. You’re not crazy.”
“That’s why you couldn’t be with me,” I realize slowly, putting the pieces together. “Because I’m a lunatic and I didn’t remember you. How in the world could I forget such a big piece of my life? I don’t know why you stayed with me. I’m so crazy.”
I’m crying again, or still, because maybe I never stopped, and Dare holds me tight against his chest.
“I love you, Calla. You forgot me because you felt too guilty to remember. Because you thought it was your fault. Because you thought you didn’t deserve to have something good.”
“Maybe I don’t,” I cry hotly, squeezing my eyes closed, but when I do, all I see is my brother’s face.
“You do,” Dare says firmly. I open my eyes and look at him. “You love me, Calla. And I love you.”
I remember the first time he said those words to me, months ago, but the memories are hard to see. They’re foggy and distant, like I’m trying to pull them to me through murky water.
“I can’t remember everything,” I say in frustration. “My memories around you are… there aren’t many.”
Dare nods. “The doctors said they’ll come back in stages. At first, I… tried to stay away, but it was too hard, and you weren’t making any progress. We decided that I’d re-enter your life as a stranger to see if it’d jog your memory at all.”
I feel so foolish….so crazy.
“You staged meeting me again for the first time? At the hospital?”
Dare stares at me, his eyes carefully expressionless. “Yeah.”
“That’s why it felt like I knew you,” I realize slowly. “That’s why you felt familiar, why I felt pulled to you from the very beginning.” The déjà vu, the dreams.
“You have no idea how hard it’s been,” he tells me. “To pretend that I didn’t know you.”
I gulp, because I can only imagine, and because all of it, the whole elaborate thing, was my fault. Then something else occurs to me, something horrifying.
“The pecans,” I breathe, my eyes wide and appalled. “Finn didn’t feed them to me. I fed them to myself. The hospital… I wasn’t there to visit Finn… I was there for me. They were watching me… to see if I’d try and hurt myself a
gain.”
Dare doesn’t anything, but his silence is everything.
I stare around the room, at the empty, empty room.
“My brother is dead.” The words taste bitter.
Dare doesn’t say anything but he squeezes me tighter.
“You knew all along.” My words are hard. Dare looks down at me.
“I couldn’t tell you. The doctors said you had to remember on your own.”
“I’m so stupid.” Tears run down my cheeks and I wipe them away, ignoring my pounding heart because it hurts too much. “I’m insane.”
“You’re not.”
“Are you trying to convince you or me?” I ask painfully.
“You,” he says firmly.
I look out the windows, at the rain, at the cliffs. The wind, the rain, the clay… all of it blurs together with my tears and it all turns red, because red = dangerous.