Cristin Bishara - Relativity

I turn my back on him and start walking—fast. This guy has screwball written all over him.

He follows. “Where are you going? You’re late for French Club. Why are your clothes wet and muddy?” His voice hits a hysterical pitch when he asks, “Is that a tattoo?”

I hold my breath and break into a run. How does he know my name? I can hear him directly behind me. God, I’m sick of getting chased. “Leave me alone!” I scream over my shoulder.

Within seconds, his hands are around my waist. He lifts me off the ground, my legs still moving in midair.

“Do I know you?” I shriek, wriggling out of his grasp.

“Ruby!” he says, planting his hands on my shoulders, looking me squarely in the eye. “Did someone hurt you?”

I stare back. “Could I borrow your cell phone?”

“Why?”

“I’d like to call my father,” I say, swatting his hands off my shoulders. “So he can come pick me up.”

He cringes, jerks his head back. “ Your father?”

“Yeah. Is there a phone inside the school I could use?” I gesture toward the stone building.

“What are you talking about?” The crazed look on his face intensifies. He motions to the street that runs in front of the school. “You’re five minutes from home.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “You know where I live?”

“Since you were born! What happened to you?” He reaches out to touch my head, but I duck away. “You seriously don’t know who I am,” he says, and a look of angst sweeps across his face. “Forget French Club.” He suddenly has my wrist and starts dragging me along.

I twist my arm out of his grasp and take off. He chases me again. The jerk must be a football player, because he easily grabs my legs and pulls me to the ground. I slap at his arms and try to kick him off.

“Patrick? What’s going on?” It’s a girl’s voice, above us. I look up and see Kandy. She’s pointing at my leg. “She’s bleeding.”

“No shit,” I snap at her, pulling myself to my feet. “Where are we, Kandy? How do we get back to your house?”

Kandy gives Patrick this perplexed look, like I’m speaking another language. “What’s with the hacked-off hair?”

I thrust a thumb toward Patrick. “Who is this guy? Your boyfriend?”

“Boyfriend?” Kandy says with total disgust. “Are you kidding me? Your brother?”

My face burns with anger and confusion. “I don’t have a brother!”

“Something’s wrong with her,” Patrick says. “Amnesia or something.”

“Whatever,” Kandy says. She glances at her watch. “I’m starving. I need to go pick up the wings.”

“Kandy!” I’m ready to punch her. “Where the hell are we? Quit joking around!”

Patrick talks to me like I’m a two-year-old. “Can you walk?”

“Duh,” I say. Then I turn to Kandy. She’s the only person, place, or thing I recognize. I have no choice but to ask her for help. “Get me to a phone. That’s all I ask. And a glass of water.”

“Shut up and hurry up.” Kandy looks at the looming black clouds. “It’s about to rain.”

“And don’t touch me,” I add as we walk off together, me about twenty feet behind them. Patrick keeps turning around to ask if I’m okay. “I’m super,” I say. “Fabulous.”

Once I got lost walking home from a birthday party. I was eight years old. After about two hours of wandering through backyards, I sat down on a bus stop bench. Dad screeched up to the curb in his car, jumped out, and scooped me into his arms. He’d kissed my face a hundred times. “I love you,” he’d said, sobbing. “Thank God.”

I keep scanning the road, hoping, half-expecting Dad to show up here too.

Finally, Kandy, Patrick, and I turn onto a residential street named Corrán Tuathail Avenue. Is that English? Seriously, where are we? Soon we’re walking up Patrick’s driveway, toward a squat brick house. In the center of the lawn, a red wheelbarrow is tipped on its side. White impatiens spill from the wheelbarrow, winding their flowery way down the mulch bed. Something about it bugs me, other than its cloying cuteness. It’s giving me déjà vu.

In the driveway are two cars. One is a Toyota hybrid, same as Willow’s, but blue instead of cream. The other is a black Jeep, like Dad’s, only a newer model. It’s disturbing. Like a familiar song, only one key off.

Patrick enters the garage door code, and we weave our way through a maze of stacked moving boxes. In the corner of the garage is a single bed, which looks like it’s just been slept in. Patrick leads the way through a narrow laundry room, pausing to kick a linoleum square back into place. Kandy edges next to me, and I step aside to let her go past.

“Personal space, if you don’t mind.” She’s close enough to sink a knife between my ribs.

“Relax,” she says, giving me an annoyed look.

The laundry room opens into the kitchen, and I head straight for the phone. I dial Dad’s number.

“The number you have dialed is not in service. Please hang up and try again.”

I try Dad’s cell phone again. And again.

I can’t quite remember our home number. It’s too new. “Kandy, what’s your home phone number?”

“You mean this number? Here?”

I growl with frustration and notice a cell phone plugged into the wall to charge. Without asking permission, I grab it and scroll through the apps. I hit the GPS button. “137 Buck Pass Road,” I say into the phone.

The screen blinks and a voice asks, “Which city and state?”

“Ennis, Ohio.”

“Did you say Eaton?”

“No.” I type in the address and submit the information.

The phone responds with an exclamation point and No Matches Found . I scroll through the apps again. “Don’t you have Google Earth on this thing?”

“Tell me it’s fake.” Patrick is behind me, breathing on me. “That’s not a real tattoo, is it?”

I slap my hand over the nape of my neck. “Do you have a phone book?” I ask Patrick.

“Seriously, Ruby. What’s wrong with you?” His voice is a whispering plea. “You know you can tell your big brother anything.”

“Look, you’re creeping me out.” I step away from him, but he matches my move. “If anyone’s got amnesia around here, it’s you.”

“Come on,” he says. “You know me. Think!” He thrusts his face toward me, and I’m forced to concede that he might resemble someone I may have met. Somewhere, briefly. He could be the waiter who served us a few days ago at Ennis’s burger joint, or the talkative cashier at the grocery store, or that guy I saw jogging. But wasn’t our waiter blond, and the cashier older, and the jogger super-skinny? The dots won’t connect.

I run my hands across my head again, checking for a lump or sore spot, and still don’t find anything. “Just back off, okay?”

“No, it’s not okay,” he barks, but he hands me a thin yellow directory and a glass of cold water anyway. The directory’s cover says Ó Direáin and Surrounding Areas . There’s a small list of other towns, but Ennis isn’t one of them. Patrick must see the panic on my face, the color vanishing from my cheeks.

“Sit down,” he says, pushing a chair underneath me.

Kandy twirls a set of car keys. “What kind of dressing do you want for your salad?”

Dressing? How can she act so nonchalant, like this afternoon’s near-homicide never happened? Like this is all normal? I glare at her. “Did you follow me through that tree?”

“Tree?” she asks, twisting her face.

Patrick sighs and rubs his temples, just like Dad does when he’s worried. “If you don’t start making sense, I’m taking you to the ER. I think you’ve got a concussion.”

“Brain tumor,” Kandy adds with a laugh. Outside, thunder cracks.