“What about your video?” Edie asked. “How do you explain that?”
“I don’t know how to explain that,” James said, hands still up in the air. “I was just messing around to see what would get past the censors, just like I told everyone to do.”
“But then what you said came true, so how do you explain that? Where does that fit into your whole coverup theory?”
“Yeah,” Cassidy agreed, dropping her hands to her side, and turning on James.
“It sounds like maybe you know more than we do, and you’re trying to pull the wool over our eyes about it and look like the good guy or something,” Edie said.
James finally allowed his hands to drop and gave Edie a cold glare. “Maybe they know I know something and they’re trying to pacify me or something. I don’t know any more than the two of you do, and neither of you can explain why your friends seem not to remember anything. I have nothing to do with that. Maybe they’re being paid off as part of the coverup and you’re the ones trying to trick me into something.”
“No, that doesn’t make any sense. Apricot and Daisy wouldn’t do that. They couldn’t,” Cassidy’s voice thickened as the tears filled in her eyes. “And now all of Daisy’s profiles are gone and this video is changed again? And there’s no way Apricot was faking remembering Daisy. I’ve seen her act and …” she trailed off, wiping her nose. “It doesn’t make sense! None of us are in on something, but we’re all in the middle of it now and … and we have to do something. We have to tell someone.”
“Who?” Edie asked.
Cassidy brought her hands to her face and cried out in frustration and fear. “I don’t know!”
“Okay, okay, let’s just calm down,” James said, placing his hands on Cassidy’s shoulders and leading her to the edge of the bed. “We’re Americans overseas. Let’s call the embassy in the Bahamas and try to tell them what’s going on.”
“I’m not American,” Edie said.
James turned to her. “Your friend also isn’t missing.” His tone was too sharp with her, but again she let it go.
But he wasn’t entirely correct, and a sense of fear rose hot in her chest because no, her friend wasn’t missing, but Rose had started to forget things, much like Apricot seemed to. Rose forgot about the man that Edie watched die, as well as this entire group that they’d spoken to the day before. Now, separated from Edie, what if she forgot even more?
What if she forgets about me?
On the bed, James and Cassidy tried to find the number for the embassy in the Bahamas. Edie turned away from them and watched the waves and the influencers out the window to try to distract herself, partly hoping to be assured that she at least knew where Ruby, her forgetful friend, was. Edie felt a bit like an overprotective mother and felt sharp pang of guilt over all the times she rolled her eyes at her own mother asking for a call when her plane landed no matter what the destination was.
Edie pulled her phone out to text her mom an update, leaving out all the drama.
On Cassidy’s speaker phone, the tone rang and rang and rang and then just hung up.
“What the fuck!” Cassidy shouted. “See? This is what I’m telling you. I haven’t been able to call anyone. Not my mom, not my manager. She always texts me back, and I haven’t gotten anything since being here.”
“Maybe it’s your phone. Let me call,” James said.
He dialed the number and put his phone on speaker, but again it rang and rang and rang and disconnected without reaching a human or even a voicemail box.
“Well, what now?” Cassidy asked.
Edie sighed. “Maybe it’s the signal in this bunker of a dorm building. I can’t get a text to send,” she said.
“My phone has full bars,” James argued.
“Yeah, so does mine, but I couldn’t even send a text,” Edie said.
“Okay, if you’re not going to listen to me, sure. Let’s try that. Let’s try to go outside and make a call,” Cassidy said.
Outside on the patchy grass, Edie resent the text message to her mom but got the same error message at almost the same time that Cassidy pulled the phone away from her ear and screamed. “Fuck!”
James and Cassidy both tapped away at their phones. Edie put her phone on airplane mode to try to restart whatever malfunctioned. Cassidy grumbled and held her phone out at arm’s length and a new ringing sound came out of the speaker.
“Now what are you doing?” Edie asked.
“I’m face timing my mom,” she said. Her picture in picture selfie was clear, but the tone rang and rang and rang and disconnected again.
Edie’s phone started ringing in her hand. “James? Why are you calling me?”
