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“I think I’m going to—” I bolt for the nearest bathroom, hurling my guts up into the toilet. That vague outline of a face looms and retreats in my mind’s eye, the accompanying voice sickly and taunting. My stomach heaves and empties as Max holds my hair away from my face. Eventually, I stand, the waves of nausea relenting.
“Sorry.” God, how embarrassing. Moving to the sink, I rinse out my mouth, swallowing a few mouthfuls of water.
Max hands me a toothbrush. “Don’t be. This is a spare.”
Grateful, I brush my teeth as Max paces about the bathroom, stopping every now and then to watch me, or connecting his eyes with mine in the mirror above the sink. All I can think about isthatmemory. It’s lodged so firmly in my mind I can’t shake it loose.
Max’s voice shatters through my distress. “I should have been more gentle. I’m rushing you.”
“No,” I state, leading Max back to the living room. Deciding to sit on a different seat, I eye the slate-grey sofa. But when Max falls into the loveseat, he holds out a hand towards me. “C’mere.”
I go to sit next to him and he pulls me onto his lap and wraps his arms around me, saying, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be—it wasn’t you. It’s important that you don’t worry about what you say or do, fearful it’ll trigger something.” This relationship must be different to the one I had with Jonas. It must be different to all that come after, if that’s the case. “My sexual awakening, if that’s what I can call it, whatever happens between us,” I say reaching for his upper arm, sensing vibrating tension and corded muscle, “this needs to be as real and natural as possible. Don’t hold back physically, and don’t feel verbally restrained.”
Max runs a palm along my thigh. “If you’re sure?” he asks, sounding uncertain.
“I remembered something,” I say. “You jogged a memory from my sick head.”
His eyes latch on to me like a predator’s.
A lone tear tracks down my cheek as I recount everything, all the sickening, grotesque details, ending with the perverse attempt at a poem meant to soothe or romance me. To make me comply.
Relief wars with fear, but the relief I feel at remembering, even if the memory is devastating, detestable, horrifying and only scraping the surface of what happened to me, has me shakily smiling all the same.
“Christ. Are you alright?”
I nod.
“Can you remember enough for an EFIT drawing? A name? A place?”
“No, no,” I shake my head. “Nothing clear.” His hand smooths over my thigh as I get my bearings again. I’ve unloaded a lot, everything, and it feels good. “Thank you.”
Max looks like he doesn’t want the gratitude.
“This is only going to get uglier,” I warn. “If it’s too much, I understand.”
“No. Don’t misread my caution as disinterest. I’m not going anywhere,” he assures me. “We’re unlocking that strongbox of a head, remember? And we’re doing it together.”
Shakily, I smile. Something’s triggering me, releasing all these snippets. Why here though? Why this cabin?
I drop my forehead to Max’s shoulder and we slowly breathe, regrouping and processing. But the one thought that seems to occupy me feels monumental.
If this is what happens when we kiss, how much more will I remember when I sleep with him?
CHAPTEREIGHT
AVA
Josie pullsinto the visitor car park, as Jen—riding shotgun—points out the available parking spaces. Once we park, we climb out of the car and grab our things from the boot: walking boots; thick coats; woolly hats; scarves; gloves; rucksacks. It’s the first of December, the ground is covered in a hard frost and we need all the layers we can get.
Since last night, my thoughts have been heavy. I’ve tried to hone in on the memory but it’s so translucent I begin to wonder if it’s even real. My reaction to it, however, felt visceral, so I know without a shadow of doubt that it must be a gut-wrenching truth.
“Are there any loos here?”
“Tabi, we only left the cabin twenty minutes ago!”
“Sorry, but I need to go again.”
