Guilty Memories

Chapter One

I sat back and sighed heavily. My birthday was looming closer and closer and I dreaded it. I stared at the empty document, shining brightly, reminding me that it was lacking words. Like my birthday, my deadline was approaching for my latest novel: Pleasant Nightmares. My eyes flickered to the right corner of the screen and I squinted at the time: 11:13 P.M.

The door to the house opened and my best friend and roommate, Basil Cao, came in and collapsed on the couch. “Explain to me again why I have to work?”

I smiled. “Because you’re saving up a trip to go to Japan—like you planned when we were in eighth grade.”

She smiled too. “Okay, I feel a little better now. What are you working on?”

Basil got up from the sofa and walked over to where I sat. She looked from my grimacing face to the computer screen and giggled. “Nothing, then?”

I groaned. “It just won’t come to me!”

Basil said nothing and when I looked at her face, it was pained. I could practically read her thoughts: The day is coming soon.

For the past five years, I hadn’t celebrated my birthday. The day had a different meaning to me now. It was not a cause for celebration. It was a time of grief. Two years ago, when I moved out of my sister’s house in Provo, Utah, to move in with Basil back in my hometown of Ellis, California, I remembered a conversation that my sister and Basil had when they thought I wasn’t listening.

“Never mention her birthday or bring it up, okay, Basil?” my sister, Charlie, insisted.

“Why?” Basil asked, surprised. I always shut off my phone on my birthday so none of my calls could go through. I never told Basil why. “Do you know what happened?”

“No, I tried to ask her but she doesn’t talk about it. Every single year, on her birthday, she locks herself in her room. She just holes up in there,” Charlie said so quietly I almost couldn’t hear her.

I heard Basil gasp with concern. “Does she cry?”

“I don’t know. Colt and I were pretty concerned, but the next day she came out of her room like nothing happened,” Charlie continued. Colt was my brother-in-law—Char’s husband. “We haven’t brought it up and I don’t think you should either.”

I tried my best not to snort in half-annoyance and half-amusement. Basil hated confrontations and avoided them like the plague. If there was one person who wouldn’t bother me about it, it was Basil. Unfortunately, I had another best friend who was persistent in trying to cheer me up and get me to celebrate my birthday.

“Is Luke coming next week?” Basil said. Speak of the devil. My birthday was next week.

“As always,” I grinned at her. I kept up my façade for as long as possible until I could just sit in my room and mope. I turned to face her in my swivel chair; she was in the kitchen. “I can’t believe he still spoils me and buys me stuff when he has his fiancé to look after.”

Basil had her back to me and was filling the kettle with water to make some instant cup of noodles. “Yeah, well, you’d probably kick his butt if he stopped giving you attention.”

I smiled widely. “Damn straight.”

Luke Kim was my best friend of five years, while Basil was my best friend of nine years. I had four best friends altogether: Luke, Basil, Artemis Anderson, and Scott McGregor.

I could tell Luke anything I wanted and he never got grossed out. One time, I told him I once didn’t shower for three weeks and he thought it was cute. To Luke, every thing was cute. I just couldn’t gross out that guy. He was two years older than me and I never let him forget it by calling him an old man. On his 24th birthday, I bought him a cane as a joke, but he chased me around with it, pretending he was going to beat me when he would catch up to me.

On the other hand, Scott McGregor was… a different sort of best friend. We’ve been “dating” for the past 3 years. Recently, he’s been visiting me a lot more often—not that I’m complaining. Well, he’s been visiting as often as someone who lives in Georgia could. Thank God for frequent flyer miles, right?

“You want some noodles too?” Basil asked me from the kitchen.

I groaned again, looking at the painfully blank page. I finally closed the document in defeat. “Yeah, make me some, please.” I checked my e-mail.

We quickly finished eating our noodles and Basil washed the dishes while I got back onto the computer. Basil finished college with a Bachelor’s Degree—like me. She was a history major and was planning to be a history teacher at Ellis High School as soon as something opened up. At the moment, she was working at Red Robin’s as a hostess. I was an education major and was planning on being an elementary teacher. I was also a writing minor and I had a couple of novels out. They sold pretty well so I’ve been living on that money for awhile. Artemis Anderson was my editor so she took care of everything because I am very lazy myself. Art wrote too but since her stories were mostly song fictions, she didn’t have time to ask for permission to use the lyricists’ lyrics so her stories have been rotting on her computer.

I checked what e-mail I had and saw one from Luke. He wrote me an e-mail quite often, and it consisted of his day and such. He told me about his physical therapy—he got into a car accident a month ago for driving too fast. I’m surprised he’s still alive—and his romantic date with Mandy. I wrote a quick reply and deleted all of my other junk mail. My eyes skimmed over the page, automatically stopping at a folder labeled, ‘James Luu’ before yanking my eyes away from it.

I closed the page and bit my tongue. Basil was watching T.V. with the volume off, but even then, she was dozing off. I was about to tell her to go to sleep when my MSN Messenger automatically started to log in. I nearly screamed in frustration.

Damnit, I thought. Why does it keep on doing that?

My MSN Messenger had a mind of its own and liked to log in itself. I had thought of uninstalling it, but for some strange reason, I didn’t want to. I tried to exit my MSN before scanning my buddy list but my eyes fell on one screen name. I shut off my computer by holding down the on/off button, not even bothering to shut it off properly. The words I had just read were etched in my mind.

“Basil, go to sleep, I’m going to sleep too,” I told her.

I brushed my teeth and calmly walked to my room.

I didn’t even go to his funeral, I thought neutrally.

I was in denial. I sat on my bed and stared at the dark and ghostly shadows before lying down to sleep.