Chapter Four

Hot wind blew at my cheeks, smoke blocked the scream from my throat, embers fell on my skin, and they burned and burned. The house was on fire. The floors, the walls, the roof, the couch where Dad and I would watch Friends reruns and take naps, the bookshelf holding Mom’s favorite paperback thrillers. Flames licked my arms and flickered against my shoulders and traveled up the grandfather clock that Mom had loved, consuming it.

Finally, the boy let go of my hands, but by then it was too late. I couldn’t run…couldn’t escape the wall of fire.

My chest constricted and breathing became impossible. It was the smoke. It had gotten into my lungs and it was sucking out the oxygen. I gasped over and over, trying to get air.

In the back of my head, I should’ve known that this wasn’t how people died of smoke. They became heavy…sleepy. Not more awake, not panicking. Not shallow, gasping breaths. I also should’ve known that this was a memory—one I’d never had before. I’d never known Mom loved paperback thrillers or that we had a grandfather clock, or even that we had a couch Dad and I used to take naps on.

But I couldn’t think straight. My world was a fiery nightmare, and I couldn’t leave it.

Cool hands wrapped around my hot wrists. Breath, fresh and crisp like an autumn breeze, tickled my cheeks. Words, soft and urgent, whispered in my ear over and over, pulling me away from the fire. Out of the memory.

I opened my eyes and found myself staring into another pair. They were a soft summer green, positioned on either side of a thin, straight nose and above high cheekbones. It was a face. A face of a boy—blond, tan, and handsome.

His lips moved, speaking sentences that hadn’t yet registered in my brain.

Dazed, I glanced down to see that he supported the upper half of my body with an arm that wrapped tightly around my shoulders. His forearm muscles pressed against the back of my neck, and I marveled at how his cool temperature relieved my burning skin. My legs curved in a way that had suggested I’d fallen somehow. Did I trip on a loose floorboard?

“What?” I breathed, the question passing across my lips like the simmering heat in a desert.

“…all right?”

His voice finally reached me, and I blinked hard, focusing on the solidity of the stranger and the fact that he was holding me so close I could count the sparks of light in his eyes.

I flexed my fingers, and when the numbness retreated and the strength returned to my arms, I pushed out against the stranger’s chest. He dropped me—probably from surprise rather than from my own force—and I landed on the burned wood, wincing as splinters pierced my arms, elbows, and palms.

“Careful,” the stranger said, watching my movements in obvious concern.

I scooted away inch by inch, my shorts snagging on the splintered wood. “Who are you doing here?”

The boy tilted his head, his lips twitching in what seemed to be amusement. “That sounds like two separate questions.”

I gritted my teeth. “You know what I meant. Who are you? And what are you doing here?”

All trace of amusement disappeared, and his gold eyebrows pushed together into a V. “What are you doing back here?”

Back. What am I doing back here? Had he…known me?

It certainly was possible. Apart from my family, I hadn’t really thought of anyone else I could’ve forgotten thanks to my amnesia. I hadn’t even considered it.

“This was my house…once,” I said slowly, my gaze meticulously noting every detail of his appearance in hopes of remembering something. He wore a plain navy shirt with olive green shorts, and he was barefoot. Odd… I observed his eyes again and the planes of his face. Nothing struck a chord, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

“Did…did I know you?” I finally asked.

It was like I’d pulled a gun on him or something. He abruptly stood and took a step back. His eyes were wide, and he looked from me to the charred walls then back to me. “No. I mean, it’s not safe here. You should leave.”

“Hey, why do I have to go?” I stood, rubbing my arms that were irritated and scratched from the wood. “You’re the one who creeped up on me.”

“I didn’t creep—” He stopped, his lips twisting into a scowl. “You were passed out on the floor. I was just checking to make sure you were okay.”

Had I really passed out? I’d gotten some weird flashbacks and the next thing I knew I was on the floor and this stranger was holding me.

But just who the heck was this guy? A nice, upstanding citizen who happened to be passing by an old burned house…randomly…in the middle of the mountains. Without any shoes? Yeah, I wasn’t buying it.

In fact, it felt borderline dangerous. Whoever he was, whatever he wanted, why he was here, I knew it wasn’t smart to be around him. Stranger danger and all that.

“It’s fine, I’m fine, so thanks for your concern, but I’m good. You’re right. You should go. Or I should go—both of us. But not together!” I backed away, clearly rambling. But as terrible timing would have it, my right foot came down on a rotted floorboard and the charred wood scraped against my skin as my leg went straight through.

The boy lunged, first catching my wrist, then grabbing my waist and hoisting me out of the newly made crater.

The moment he touched me, the ever-present void in my chest seemed to expand, sucking in my breath like a black hole—a vortex. All the ache and loss and confusion increased exponentially. The feeling came so fast it was like someone had knocked the wind out of me.

As he set me on safe ground and began to remove his hands from my waist, I latched on to them, hoping to cling to the lingering feeling, despite how intensely painful it was. Because it meant something. I wouldn’t have had this reaction touching just anyone. Maybe this boy was a clue. And maybe if I held on to him longer, something would return.

When I looked up into the boy’s face, it was with a new set of eyes.

“I did know you,” I whispered.

I searched his face, watching his expression morph into panic. His eyes widened and his cheeks paled. When his mouth opened, nothing came out except the strange coolness of his breath, reminding me once again of an autumn breeze.

“No,” he said at last, after long seconds had passed while I kept hold of his hands. “You didn’t.”

“You’re lying,” I said. The sensation he’d incited was painful to breathe through now. It was like someone was standing on my chest.

I didn’t recognize him, but I recognized the feeling. And it hadn’t left me since the second I’d stepped outside Izzie’s car at Gran’s. Nostalgia.

But a hundredfold.

I longed for this stranger like I longed for the taste of Mom’s special chocolate chip cookies with rock salt on top. I longed for this stranger like I longed to hear Dad read me my favorite picture book, or the way the crickets chirped outside in the twilight, or sticky fingers from watermelon juice.

I don’t remember eating Mom’s rock-salt chocolate chip cookies, and I don’t remember which book was my favorite. But I longed for them.

How could I long for something I couldn’t remember?

“I have to go.” The boy ripped his hands from my gasp, and as he did, my fingers grazed thread on his wrist.

I glanced down and my suspicions were confirmed. I’d known this boy once. No, not only known him, I’d cared about him. He’d been important to me.

It wasn’t just the void inside me, longing for memories I no longer possessed. It was what was attached to his wrist that gave me rock-solid proof.

Indisputable proof.

Around the boy’s wrist was a very old, worn, blue-and-orange friendship bracelet.