“Um, hi,” he says uncertainly, looking between the two of us. “Is something wrong?”
“Yeah, your moral compass. How dare you call her a coward, you cheater,” Katy hisses, and I grab her elbow to restrain her. Both Zach and Kevin look shell-shocked. Katy’s clearly been itching for a showdown with Zach for a long time, because when I asked her to come with me to his house, she was only too happy to go running for some pitchforks and firewood. I shoot her a look now—down, Katy—and take over. She relents, remembering our discussion on the drive over about how I’d get to do the talking.
“Can I talk to you in private?” I ask a red-faced Zach. With him here now, the familiar turning in my stomach is starting, the lure to his gray eyes, the desire to touch his hair. Why didn’t I touch Memory Zach’s hair before he was gone?
“Um, yeah, okay,” he says, scratching the back of his head. I remind myself that this is not Memory Zach; this is the boy who broke my heart. They might look and sound and act the same, but one is gone and one is someone Iusedto love.
I start to follow Zach, and I hear Kevin’s voice behind us, telling Katy, “I’ll keep you company, babe.”
I can’t hear what she says back, but the acid in her voice is hard to miss. I fight a smile.
As I follow Zach through the hallway—passing family photographs and an autographed picture of a soccer star—I strain my mind for something familiar. The house feels warm, like I could imagine feeling comfortable here once, but I don’t remember it. Not in the detailed, specific way you recall places you’ve been to.
Zach leans against the island in the kitchen and offers me a stool, but I shake my head. “So,” he says, a question in his voice.
Across the room, a goldfish bigger than my hand swims across the tank, its tail waving some kind of greeting.
I try to think of all the things Past Addie would want Zach to know. All the things she might have felt or wanted to say, but didn’t give herself the chance to. But I don’t know enough about her or enough about what she knew to speak for her, so I take a breath and tell him how I feel now.
“You said I was a coward,” I say, jumping right in—starting in the middle of a thought because I can’t think where else to start. I don’t have much context for so many things in my life, but I can’t keep waiting to gain it. I want my life to be more than that. “For erasing you.”
Zach hesitates. “I meant—”
“I was,” I say, cutting him off. “But it wasn’t your place to tell me that. It was a stupid choice, but it wasmybad choice. The way you acted yesterday in your car was completely unfair.Youbroke my heart.Youlied to me. You don’t get to act like I’m the one in the wrong or like I’m the one who owes you an apology. I’m not obligated to remember you.”
Hurt flickers over his face, but he doesn’t speak.
“Iwantto,” I admit, feeling my voice shake a little bit. “But only because it mattered to me. Because it changed everything. You’re the first boy I ever loved.”
“I’m sorry, Addie….”
“It’s my fault I don’t remember. And I’ll live with that for the rest of my life.”
I continue. “Butyouwere a coward for not telling me you were still in love with Lindsay. For treating me like I didn’t matter.”
“But Itoldyou I was. At the very start. I said we should be friends.”
I…don’t remember that.
“Then why did you change your mind? Why did you let things go further and further with us?”
“Because…” Zach sighs, pushes his hand into his hair like Memory Zach used to, but there’s so much less of it. “What I liked about you was how open you were, how ready you were to try new things. And I wanted to be a little bit like you. I didn’t want to keep moping about Lindsay. I wanted to be open to something new, to forget about her.”
So I wasn’t the only one who was trying to forget someone.
He looks me in the eye. “I know now that it was wrong and I wasn’t being honest with you or myself. But even though I wasn’t over Lindsay, Ididlike you and I told myself this was the way to move on.”
Move on.
There it is again.
“Can you at least understand how much pain I was in and why I would want to erase you? You didn’t have to cheat on me. If you weren’t over Lindsay, if you wantedher,then you should have been honest with me. You could have justtoldme.”
He looks ashamed, but he holds my gaze. “I know, Addie. I’m sorry. I fucked up. Some days I hate myself for what I did.”
I am silent for a few moments, and then I tell him, “You shouldn’t have used me as a crutch, but I think to move on, you have to deal with the stuff behind you, to let it go. That’s why I came here.”
And I’m not exonerating him.
