He just looks at me. “I don’t…I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about the carnival, the arcade, sitting outside that party just like we did last year…”
I wait for the look of recognition—a light—to enter Marcus’s eyes, but it never does.
“You don’t remember?” My voice is tiny.
“Obviously I remember Penny’s party from last year, but I don’t remember any dreams. I’m sorry,” he says, pushing his hand through his hair again, and he looks like he means it. “I wish I could say I did, but I…I don’t.”
“You don’t rememberanything? Even the boat or…” I sit up straighter. “What about when we ran through the fair?”
I know the answer before he says it: He has no idea.
I stare at the ground, trying to comprehend this. How toexplain this, how to change this, what to do next, what to say. But absolutely nothing comes to me.
He doesn’t remember.
“That’s impossible,” I whisper, mentally working through a dozen possibilities. I try to explain it all to Marcus again. We connected, we kissed, we told each other the truth.
He looks so, so sorry.
Because, at the end of the day, everything I felt and thought and saw—everything I became. Everything I wanted—was all in my head.
And me and Marcus, us being anus. Us being anything was the biggest lie of all.
Thirty
Marcus texts me after he leaves.
Marcus:I’m really sorry Zadie
Marcus:I’ll keep thinking about it, see if anything comes up
Marcus:…
Marcus:Please call me if you need me
I shouldn’t respond.
What’s left to say?
I’ve gone crazy. No, not crazy, but my memories are all false. I imagined them. I was unconscious the whole time.
Everythingwas not real.
But for some reason, I text back.I feel like I’m in a bad dream
Marcus:Yeah, it sounds like a nightmare honestly
Marcus:
Me:We made a lot of dream puns
Marcus:…
Marcus:What else did we do?
I tell him.
