To: Isla Reyes <[email protected]>
From: Assurance Inc. Claims Department <[email protected]>
Subject Line: New Claim #P327361373
Date: 15 October 2010
Dear Isla Reyes:
We have received and are currently processing your insurance claim. For your reference, the details of your claim are listed below. A claims representative will contact you within 3 to 5 business days.
Sincerely,
Assurance Inc. Claims Department
Date of Incident: 14 October 2010
NYPD Case Number: #10331352
Officer: James Miller
Items Stolen:
iPhone 4S 64GB, white
Apparently, just prior to the chaos I descended into, my phone had been stolen and I filed an insurance claim—before which I had apparently filed a police report. I don’t remember any of that, but then again, this entire time period of college is gone like the wind from my memory.
But that email… especially given that I’d never opened it… that had to be something.
I’d gone to the police.
I don’t remember going to the police, but they obviously have a record of me going to them.
I have no idea if my stolen cell phone has anything to do with the missing chunk of time from that year, but I know for sure it has the potential to mean something. Because amidst the chaos I can’t remember, I supposedly had that phone. Or at least, I had a phone. Because my parents said I’d been in contact with them, and that means I must have had a phone.
I am suddenly a detective, and that email is my first real clue.
Later, there was a single email from Columbia informing me that I had been automatically withdrawn, and then it was nothing but a bunch of sales spam and random newsletters for more than six months before I got to the last message that came from the Corwick Royal email server.
To: Isla Reyes <[email protected]>
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <[email protected]>
Subject Line: Delivery Status Notification (Failure) Message: Malachi, please call me.
Date: 15 July 2011
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
Technical details of permanent failure:
Reyesfam.umgcorp.com tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the server for the recipient domain corwickroyal.cw by [email protected].
The error that the other server returned was:
550 <[email protected]> sender blocked
Sender blocked.
Despite all the things I forgot in the time that stretched between 2010 and 2011, that was something I would remember for the rest of my life. Because that was when I realized, after the most harrowing ordeal of my life—which I only knew about via hearsay from my parents’ hearsay from other people involved—and when I needed him most, Malachi had disappeared from my life forever.
And he didn’t just disappear.
He blocked me.
And now, more than ten years later, it was clear that during the time missing from my memory, the things I did included what I did to him.
That was obviously the extent of the emails from him, and all the rest were ones I remembered after returning from my ordeal and re-enrolling in college. Due to whatever it was that I’d done, my parents insisted that I stay at home and take online classes because I’d lost their trust—and that was putting it lightly.
Based on all the knowledge I have now regarding all of this, I don’t blame them, and I don’t blame Malachi either.
Nothing can make you feel as helpless and crazy as not being able to trust your own memory and perception of your life. Except maybe waking up in an unfamiliar place that you don’t remember going and being informed by your parents—who are not concerned, rather livid with you—that you killed someone.
Even if it was in alleged self-defense.
ISLA
Nineteen Years Old
THE FIRST THING I remembered was a concrete room with a large metal door, and I was lying on a concrete slab. The stench of stale human waste filled my nostrils, and I dry-heaved more times that I could keep track of.
Voices ricocheted off the hard walls, speaking in Spanish, and despite it being my native tongue, I couldn’t understand any of it.
There was very little airflow, and it was hot and stuffy despite the cold concrete I was lying on, curled up on my side.
Every part of me hurt. There were dull aches from internal bone and muscle pain, and the biting, stinging sear of scrapes and cuts on my skin. There was also enervating fatigue and soreness, like I’d been clenching every muscle in my body for millennia. My head throbbed and pounded from both dehydration and what felt like more injuries.
I was dirty.
There’s a specific feeling that accompanies the state of being truly filthy in every single way. Like I hadn’t showered in weeks, but also like something bad had happened and I just didn’t know what. There’s a dirtiness that comes from the dread of perceiving that something terrible had taken place, but you don’t know what, and you have no idea what your involvement in or contribution to it was.
I had never been drunk, but I’d been to a couple of parties with my friends during which they had too much to drink and woke up totally disoriented and afraid of the unknown of what they did. And that’s what this was like, but to the nth degree.
The last thing I remembered was getting off the phone with Malachi, getting into the shower, and getting dressed before opening the door of my dorm for my friend, Elise.
Everything else was missing.
And given that I was suddenly in a rank, stuffy, hard concrete room, which looked scarily like a jail cell, I could tell that I was missing a lot of time. And I’d probably done something awful.
But in the first few moments of waking up, I was too sick, and sore, and tired, and scared to be concerned with whatever it was.
Another span of time passed, and I woke again to more Spanish, this time from voices I recognized. Those of my parents.
Papá: Sit up, goddamn it. It is time to go.
Mamá: Don’t do this to her yet, Ernesto. We don’t even have all the information yet. Look at her. She is injured and sick. Do not punish her with your words yet.
Papá: I have all the information I need, which is that she wound up like this at all.
Mamá: Enough. We will deal with it later. Come here, darling. Sit up, darling. Give me your hand. I will help you. We are taking you home.
Home.
After a span of time traveling that was rendered a complete blur amidst my realization that I had ended up in Mexico—holy mother fucking shit—I finally staggered through the doors of my home.
It was now July. The date of the party I had been getting ready for was in October.
Something awful had happened. And my parents were angry at me. And that had to mean the awful thing that had happened was at least partially my doing.
They allowed me to go to my room and sleep, but the first thing I did was wonder about my phone because I needed to call Malachi.