CHAPTER F I V E
Useless Memories, Mood Swings, and Tickle Fights Gone Bad
"You know, Jayden, it makes things seem…normal, again."
Lena informed her adopted daughter, of sorts, of this ruefully, a small, whimsical smile playing on her thin lips as she wrapped her hands around a warm cup of tea. Her eyes had the quality of someone who was about to slip off into memory-land. Jayden could not help but feel a prickle of jealousy invade her mind before she forced herself to concentrate on Lena's good-natured words, her voice as musically accented as her son's. "You and Tyler arguing…you screaming at him…It's all too familiar."
Jayden looked at the floor in embarrassment, her cheeks flushing slightly. Not only had she screamed her head off and her voice hoarse, but his parents had heard her. Despite how nice they were, and how Lena didn't seem to be neither angry or resentful, it was really the principle of the matter. Had she been taking advantage of their hospitality, giving her not only a home, but a family of sorts? She felt so ashamed.
"Sorry," She muttered, discomforted and embarrassed.
"Oh, don't be sorry, honey," Lena laughed unexpectedly, waving her delicate hand in the air, as if to wave away the impractical statement. "Knowing Tyler, he probably deserved it."
"He did deserve it," Jayden blurted out unpredictably. If she was sure of anything at all, it was that fact.
"Did you slap him?"
Jayden jerked up in surprise, her eyes snapping away from the milky brown liquid in her own tea cup. "I, um…" She sighed, looking up through long lashes, trying to appear genuinely innocent and apologetic. "I'm sorry?"
"It's fine, honey. Like I said, it keeps some semblance of normality around here, and….and we really do need that. All of us."
She didn't know what to say. Jayden bit her lip and absently brushed her raven-colored hair behind her petite shoulders, not realizing the effect that the simple gesture would have on Lena.
"Jayden," She said with a breathing sigh, not meeting her eyes for some reason. She sounded rueful, sad, and...wishful, it seemed. "You're so like your mother. It's almost painful at times."
"I-I wish I could remember her like everyone else can," Jayden replied in a small, hesitant voice. It was the truth. "And I'm sorry...I know it must be hard to have a constant reminder of her always walking around your house."
"Don't be sorry, sweetheart, you apologize too much. And, yes, on one level, it is painful, though it isn't at all your fault," Lena mused sadly. "But though it is a constant reminder, it's more of a reminder of how hope can still shine through darkness."
That was poetic, and fit Lena's musical, melodious and soft-spoken voice so perfectly. "How so?"
"Because even though some of the best people I've ever known were lost that night..." Jayden felt distraught to see Lena's eyes sparkling mistily, a clear indication of tears. She herself felt that feeling coming on... "Somehow you managed, probably kicking and screaming, to come through." She sniffed and lowered her eyes to the table, "We're so lucky, Jayden, that you're here with us right now."
"I don't feel lucky," Jayden muttered darkly, tracing slow circles across the top of her teacup with her finger. "I feel like I'm pretty much useless, without my memories, really."
"Don't say that!" Lena exclaimed. "Don't ever say that! You are far from useless. And you might not remember, but it's still there, in the back of your mind. It'll come back eventually.
"It better. Because once we catch this sick, twisted, filthy little son of a--" She cleared her throat embarrassedly, stopping the sentence short upon realizing she was speaking with an adult. Her cheeks momentarily flushed the lightest shade of pink. "Once we catch him..." She was suddenly harboring all sorts of nasty, vindictive, and spiteful thoughts about this thing which could not be considered a man. She thought of an appropriate way to phrase it, "He'll definitely get what he deserves."
"You've still got your personality, honey," Lena smiled softly, her hair flowing into her face, giving her the gentle look of the loving mother that she was. "And that's one of the most important things you can hope to keep."
Jayden made a strange face. "Tyler was commenting on that, too," She said. "About how certain aspects of my personality make him feel like even though my memory is…I think the term he used was "temporarily misplaced"… that my personality is still here."
"Comforting, isn't it?" Lena asked in a motherly, understanding sort of voice.
There was so much that Jayden was tempted to say. Such as how most of the time it was tremendously comforting, but how at random snippets of time, she found herself having an odd, sense of Déjà vu. Like she had been somewhere or done something before, but how it would dissappear as randomly and quickly as it had come, leaving her without a trace. Sometimes she could actually feel a memory trying to surface, as if pushing through the thick, unpenetrable layers of her complicated and clever mind, but then it would simply…fade away. And no matter how hard she tried to grasp it, it still faded. Slowly and agonizingly. Taunting her.
"Yes, it is," was all that she said, taking a sip of the sweet tea, feeling warmth flood her body. "It really is."
A few weeks had led to her settling into the habitual lull of everyday life as if she'd been doing it forever. It was comforting to have a routine to stick to; it helped her an incredible amount to know that there was something to depend on, even if it was only the fact that breakfast was always pancakes and eggs, or cereal and orange juice on the rushed days, and that when she woke up she was always in the same bed, with the sun dappling through the curtains in the exact same pattern as always.
She always had to look in the mirror, first thing when she went into the bathroom. It was weird, she knew, but she needed to know that when she looked in that same mirror, her own eyes, deeply green, would be staring back at her. She would trace the counters of her face with her fingers, as if trying to etch the shape of her face and the feel of her hair into memory. She was terrified beyond reasonable belief of waking up and being absolutely clueless as to what was going on. So terrified, in fact, that sometimes she had to lie awake at night to placate herself, running the facts over and over again in her mind.
Your name is Jayden Mae Bristed.
She would start with this every time, straining to put the words in her own voice, still slightly unfamiliar. It was not because she was vain, it was because she so desperately needed to have a solid foundation in her life. And knowing what her own voice sounded like was a very vital piece to this. You have green eyes and long black hair, and you are living with Lena and Joe Black, and their son Tyler, who is hopelessly infuriating but also a great friend when you need him. Your bedroom is big, and the walls are green…And on and on it would go, until she drifted off uneasily to an equally as restless sleep, the basics of her life running through her mind again and again like a broken record theme. And then she would wake up in the morning, the smell of breakfast wafting through the crack underneath her door.
She needed the familiarity as much as she needed to breathe, maybe more. She took so much comfort from it.
She took a large amount of comfort, also, in the fact that her old mannerisms and silly little quirks were quickly returning to her as if they had never left in the first place; and she could almost feel the familiarity of them. Like the way she would hum absentmindedly to herself when she was intently working on something, without realizing she was doing it. Or the way she inattentively cracked her knuckles when there was no other good use for her hands, only to cover her ears and glower when Tyler would crack his purposely, simply to irk her. Plus, she always brushed her bangs from her face in extreme irritation; it was so completely aggravating that she once commented to Tyler over popcorn and a random Disney movie,
"Why did I ever decide to get bangs in the first place?" She wondered in blatant frustration, as Dori demonstrated her infuriating short-term memory loss as she swam crookedly away from Nemo's father, proving that God, really, loved irony. "She didn't even cut them right...I wanted them choppy and one length, not fucking layers all over the place."
The implication of her statement had caught them both off guard a few seconds later. Quite a delayed reaction. Jayden felt as if she had been slapped in the face, hard. The popcorn she had just shoved in her mouth now had an unidentifiable taste; flavorless and disgusting at the same time. When she met Tyler's gaze, she saw that he was not dumbfounded like her, but ecstatic.
"You remember that?" He asked in obvious amazement, his bright eyes sparkling with hope. "You're starting to remember?" He looked so optimistic, so expectant, so confident…. Jayden hated to crush him, but she couldn't lie to Tyler. It would be exceedingly dumb to say that the random thought hadn't just slipped her mind; lying in order to make him happy would have been stupid as well as cruel.
"No," She replied, dumbfounded and resentful, a scowl plastered onto her face. She swallowed her popcorn and uneasily shifted her place on the old sink-in couch, spilling some fluffy balls of popcorn and accidentally crushing a few with her hurried foot as she irately attempted to get up. "No, I don't."
"But how—"
"I don't know!" Jayden had snapped. "I don't know."
And he'd thrown his arms up in surrender and keenly watched her clomp up the stairs, as if she would spontaneously combust at any second. It was one of the few times that he'd willingly backed down without a fight, or backed down at all, really. She'd gone to her room and flung herself on the bed, sighing heavily, facedown into the pillows, feeling worthless and discouraged and utterly frustrated.
This was a prime example of the useless little snippets of memories flitting into her mind like random snapshots of nothing important. She would remember the memory, the memory would slip away...it would come back later, only to leave her with a vague impression of what it had been. It would have at least been nice if she'd caught a glimpse of someone in her family, even out of the corner of her eyes. That would have, even if it hadn't provided any clues for the investigation on the murders, reminded her of what she was missing so she could grieve properly. But there was never anything even remotely valuable.
Never.
Hence, she would get mad, and act moody, and then later realize with a gong of vibrating horror that she was acting like an overly emotional drama queen who was bloated and on her period. Therefore she would attempt to act nicer to everyone, but when she did that Tyler wryly commented that she was "acting a bit bipolar", which earned him a harsh shove as she shot him a death glare, further proving his point.
They had a love/hate sort of relationship, Jayden and Tyler, where they'd be fighting like a pair of wild animals one minute, and then wrestling it out the next, insulting each other jokingly while they tumbled around, a mass of tangled arms and legs. There was tension there, too, and she knew that eventually she might have to deal with the fact that she found him unbearably attractive, but that didn't mean that she was ever going to give into what he called his "charm." Not over her dead body. Boys like him broke hearts on a daily basis. They were friends. He was like a protective older brother who would go to any means to ensure that she was allright. He was also the irritating boy who never seemed to tire of provoking her, who brought his friends over and made her hang out with them, saying that she might turn into a hobit without his " social guidance."
The prick. But he distracted her from wallowing miserably in her dejected thoughts, for as long as she was adequately busy the deep, overpowering depression was kept at bay.
"She's kind of an ice bitch sometimes," He commented one day as she passed by three friends and the devil himself, in an old tank top that felt too tight, and her stringy bathing suit bottom, on her way to sunbathe out on the deck. (She hadn't known they were there, which was the only reason she was clothed so indecently. It was the only bathing suit she had, anyway.) It was an insensitive, cruel remark, but he said it with a joking tone, and the two of them were known to hit close to home with their insults without truly crossing the line. She could handle it. He knew that. He also knew that he wasn't getting away from her wrath unscathed after that little jab. He was looking at her from the corner of his peripheral vision, smirking that infuriating smirk, a lock of his chocolate-brown hair falling into his left eye. "But I mean, hey, she looks freakishly hot when she's angry, so—"
His sentence was silenced as Jayden sharply tipped the contents of her full glass all over his head. As the coke, sticky, cold, and probably unpleasant-feeling, dribbled slowly down his face, neck, and shirt, he gave her a dangerous look. "You've got about five seconds," He warned, steadily holding up one coke-soaked hand for emphasis, all five fingers up. There were some "oooh's" and collective mock-gasps from his friends, as they looked to Jayden and then back to Tyler again. She stopped only to give him a quirked eyebrow and an, "I dare you" look, her chin raised in insolence, before she took off running upon the count of four, her long hair flowing out behind her.
Tyler never played fair, and she knew that. He got down to one in about a millisecond and was running after her before all his fingers were back down. She could hear him behind her, feet pounding on the ground, snickering loudly and cockily. "I've got a nice veiw of your ass, Jade," He commented dryly, knowing for sure that it would peeve her.
"Well, you're never going to catch me, so look all you want, it's the closest you'll ever get," She admonished him, picking up the pace so that she could continue to easily outrun him. She loved to run. Fate seemed to have it in the cards that she would be a loser twice that day, though, because her bare foot caught on a root, or a rock, or something of the sort, and she tumbled clumsily to the ground. Seconds later Tyler had tackled her, and she was lying immobile on the ground, her arms pinned at her sides while he sat on her legs.
"God hates you," He told her, smiling boastfully. "And he loves me."
"He's the only one," She muttered as she wriggled slightly. She could feel something sharp digging into her back, and it was irritating. "Now get off me."
His eyes sparkled condescendingly. "Say I won."
"Watch hell freeze over."
"Touché."
"I think we've hit an impasse."
"So," He began slowly, as if she were an impertinent third-grader he was teaching a very basic math problem. "We're going to watch fire turn to ice while I brag about the fact that I'm superior to you, are we?"
"No, you silly boy," She mocked, tilting her head to the side and arching her lower back slightly to prevent the stupid, incessantly painful stone from evilly digging into that sore spot. Unfourtunately, it wouldn't budge. Just lovely. "You are going to realize that hell is never going to freeze over, and therefore I will never admit defeat to you." She smiled sweetly. "And I am the superior one, by the way."
Tyler pretended to look quite dissappointed. "I might have to unleash my secret weapon, then," He smiled devilishly.
Jayden's eyes widened to the size of saucers and she tried ineffectively but desperately to free herself from his grasp. "I'm a poor, defenseless, traumatized girl!" She exclaimed. "If you tickle me too much I might hit my head and—and—"
"Die?" Tyler supplied amusedly, his hands poised and ready to strike. He wriggled his fingers tauntingly. "I doubt it."
"I'll kill you," She threatened. "I swear to God, Tyler Black, if you try that I'll—" But the rest of her sentence was quickly cut off by a furious bout of enraged, spluttering giggles, as she trued futilely to grab at his hands and stop them from poking at her mercilessly.
"You prick!" She managed to grit out.
"You loser!"
"There's a stone digging into my back, at least move over!"
"Nope," He responded casually, if amusedly, as his hands went for her stomach without hesitation. She screeched angrily.
"I'll sabotage you!" She screamed. "I'll put…frogs…in your bed! I'll pour ice cold water on you to wake you up in the morning! You'll regret this, you unbalanced freak—"
"You're the loser, don't make threats!" He thought this was hilarious. Great. Just fucking peachy. Would the torture never end? "Just admit that I win, and life can resume it's intended course as usual."
"No!"
"Well, your stubbornness is just going to screw you over in the end, Miss Jade," He said this with such an elegant, refined tone that she had to laugh even more against her better judgement and pride, which unfourtunately gave her a sharp, stabbing pain in her gut.
"And I'll screw you over fifty times before my stubbornness has the chance to do it to me!" She was seriously about to pass out. She couldn't breathe anymore.
"Woah, this was a nice time to walk over," She heard a cheery voice exclaim. She ignored it. His friends could think whatever the hell they wanted, as long as he would stop ticking her into insanity!
"I'LL KILL YOU!"
But instantaneously, after those words had offhandedly, carelessly, jokingly flown from her mouth, the world went abruptly spiraling from the sunny and humid summer day to a rainy, foggy night—an eerily familiar, terrifyingly recognizable night.