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Perhaps the accident had knocked my brain around and ruined the perfect girl I’d once been. Mother and father would be so disappointed if they knew about the defiance that had taken root deep in my heart.
“You’ll see Alexander again,” Father said. “I know he wanted to come visit many times after the accident, but we couldn’t let him excite you. I do hope you understand.”
I didn’t know who Alexander was. They’d talked about him several times in the past week that I’d been home, but the one time I’d asked about him, they’d both been extremely bothered by my memory loss. After that, every time I’d made a big mistake about something, I would hear them whispering down their phones in hushed tones to Dr. Norris.
And the last thing I wanted to do was see Norris again. I couldn’t handle him and his overbearing demands, the way he prodded me and stared at me as if I was a slab of meat for his consumption.
One of the worst things about my life was lying to cover gaps in my head, having to hide it all from my parents. They were stern people and had high expectations. A daughter with a leaky faucet for a brain wasn’t something that fit into their perfectly sculpted world.
“I do understand,” I replied quietly.
“Of course she does,” Mother said, her smile tightening across her teeth. “She knows we only think of what’s best for her.”
I was sitting in the back seat of my father’s SUV, some custom job sent to him by Bentley. The seats were rich black leather, and I sank into them. It cradled my body almost lovingly, caressing me, pulling me back into it. I closed my eyes and had a flash of darkness, and weight overcame me, a gravitational pull dragging me down.
“Willow, did you hear me?”
Mother’s voice cut into the dark, and my eyelids snapped open.
“I’m sorry. I was thinking about seeing Alexander,” I replied. “What did I miss?”
“I asked if you’re going to start your violin lessons this week or if you’re going to wait until next week?” Mother repeated herself.
I didn’t play the violin. I knew how to fight. But how on earth was I supposed to tell her that?
“Next week,” I said and looked out the window at the passing landscape. We had left the city at least an hour ago, and the countryside was becoming more and more remote the farther we drove. “Are we almost there?”
Mother nodded, smiled again, and kept looking at me in her unsettling way. Studying me as if looking for a crack in my armor. A chip in the paint. For some flaw left over from the accident.
I couldn’t give it to her. I couldn’t let her know I had zero fucking clue what was happening or who I was. Or why I kept expecting to see short pink hair in the mirror and feel a strong, athletic body beneath my flesh.
A short time later, the flat farmland turned to a winding mountain road flanked by tall pine trees on either side. The road grew more remote and rose up into steeper mountain forests until I could no longer look behind us and see the plains.
After another hour or so, I finally saw a beautiful wooden sign announcing “Crimson Academy, ten miles” and knew we were almost there. My parents would drop me off, and I could finally take some time to figure out who I was.
The academy grounds were apparent when I saw a tall brick fence cutting through the forest. A wide black metal gate with menacing spikes atop each point and a large red C on either side twisted in the scrolling metallic vines and leaves.
The mood changed the moment we crossed through it, and the wilderness gave way to manicured hedges, shrubs, and wide, landscaped lawns.
One last curve revealed the college itself. The place I was starting my second year of studies and which I’d already called home before the accident.
I suppressed a gasp when I saw it that first time. Or what felt like the first time. It was beautiful. The main building was tall, with turret towers capped with pointed black roofs. The rest were white brick and historical, giving the entire thing the sense of a gothic cathedral crossed with a medieval castle.
“Here we are,” Father announced as we pulled up in front of the main building. He stopped and parked, and as we got out, he tossed his keys to a waiting concierge. “Luggage goes to room seven, in the Rook’s Tower Upper suite,” he told the man.
The man nodded, tipped his black conical hat, and got inside our vehicle. He drove away as I gazed in awe at the magnificent building in front of me.
“Why don’t we get you settled in?” Mother suggested. “We can find out if Victoria is on your floor again. It will do you some good to have continuity.”
I didn’t know who she meant by Victoria, so I simply agreed and let it slide.
We walked in silence towards the dorm, and I let them guide me. We crossed a campus grounds surrounded by tall, imposing buildings, and I heard the sounds of excited people all around me.
Friends meeting after a summer apart, new students meeting their brand new roommates, and school staff chatting amicably with the few parents who had bothered to drop their kids off in person.
I didn’t recognize a single one of them even when they greeted me, and I waved at them as I avoided any actual conversations that would reveal my ignorance. I couldn’t let it slip in front of my parents.
“It looks like there’s quite a group in front of Rook’s Tower,” Mother said as we walked up the winding, paved pathway towards a beautiful building with a single tall turret on the left side.
