Going off the grid?
I can feel my eyelids stretch wide, and calling Elise was definitely a good idea.
“Isla? Are you still there, sweetie?”
“Oh.” I blink. “Yes. Sorry.” I pause as I sift through my words, because how do I explain my bizarre—to use Officer Miller’s words—mental condition? “So… here’s the thing. I’ve been considering therapy over, you know, all of that because I actually don’t remember it very well. And I was wondering—”
“Oh, that’s not really surprising at all,” Elise says easily. “I remember the doctors saying that drug can cause a little memory lapse as it’s leaving your system. They said you might be fuzzy for a day or so afterward.”
“Right,” I say quickly. “So… if it’s not too unpleasant… I was wondering if you could tell me what you remember.”
She draws in a deep breath and exhales loudly. “Well… I mean, we went to that party. And the only reason we were there in the first place is because I was trying to talk to that boy I was crushing on.” She tsks. “It was so stupid, Isla, and I kind of hate myself for leaving you alone the way I did. I feel like it’s partially my fault, what happened to you. I should’ve been looking out for you. Parties can be so dangerous, especially for girls.”
“It’s really okay, Elise. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Well, I know. I just wish I’d done all of it differently.” She sighs again. “Anyway, I found you, and called 9-1-1, and we went to the hospital. It was all a blur even then. I sat with you while the police talked to you. You were so out of it even after you woke up. So then, you were finally discharged, and I asked you if you wanted me to take you to your parents’ house, but you were too upset to explain it to them yet. You were so shaken that I tried to distract you from everything by helping you call to file the insurance claim for your phone—you know… because whoever did it stole your phone and took money from you. I thought doing something practical might help you take your mind off the trauma of it all. So, we did that, and I had brought you back to your dorm, and you were exhausted. It really wasn’t a good time to try to rehash all of it with your parents yet, so I helped you get into bed, and the plan was for you to get some rest, and then I was going to take you to your parents’ house the next day. But then you were just gone.”
I blink rapidly as I don’t entirely digest the last sentence. “Gone where?”
“From your dorm,” she clarifies. “I went by your dorm the next morning so I could drive you to your parents’ house, but you’d already left. You’d packed a bunch of your clothes and things, and it was obvious that you had decided to just go home by yourself. I obviously couldn’t call you and ask, so I emailed you. I tried looking up the address to go by and see how you were, but it’s unlisted. I didn’t hear from you after that, and then a few weeks later, I heard from someone in one of your classes that you’d withdrawn from school completely.”
The line goes silent as Elise’s words seem to run dry, and my mind is suddenly a hurricane of ricocheting thoughts.
I didn’t go back to my parents’ house.
According to what they told me, I hadn’t seen them since a number of weeks before the incident at the party, and didn’t see them again until they picked me up in Mexico.
That means my disappearance from my dorm was actually my disappearance in general that ultimately landed me in a cold, hard jail cell in the middle of nowhere.
Something about all of this simultaneously doesn’t add up, but also adds up completely.
Where the hell had I gone?
And why the hell didn’t I call Malachi in the middle of all of this?
Oh, right. Because I had no phone.
But Malachi got the messages after my phone had been stolen, which was clearly a cruel prank. The pieces of shit who drugged me and attacked me sent those messages to him, so they were the ones who had my—
A memory of the day my parents brought me home hurls itself against my frontal lobes, and my heart does a sudden, arrhythmic tap dance.
Mamá said I had been calling and sending messages to them.
“You sent a message saying you were going away with a girlfriend for a long weekend,” her voice from years ago. “We tried to reach you about Thanksgiving plans. Your phone was turned off. We called the Sterlings to see if Malachi had heard from you. They told us you broke up. It stunned us, and that is when we knew something was wrong. Your phone was still turned off, and we left many messages. We said we were going to call the police if you didn’t call us soon. Then you called. You said everything was fine, but that you had decided to leave school. You sounded like a shell of yourself. You were cold and disconnected. You didn’t call again, but you sent us messages. Very hateful messages. You demanded money. You insisted that your father owed you your inheritance.”
I called them. I sent messages to them.
But with what phone?
If my phone had allegedly been stolen, how was I calling and sending messages?
I mean… I probably just bought a new one… right?
Again, something about all of this makes perfect sense while also not making sense at all. There are dozens of little puzzle pieces floating around in the air, and I can’t figure out how they fit together, but I know they fit together.
It sure would help if I could actually fucking remember what happened to me.
The one thing I do remember is that Elise was the one close friend I had at the time that I might have gone on a weekend trip with, like I told my mom. And, based on what Elise just told me, that obviously didn’t happen. So, I lied to them about that. I have never lied to my parents about anything, let alone a bizarre lie about going on a trip.
I also never brought up the topic of my inheritance. I’ve never been an entitled, spoiled brat. My parents have always given me everything I could possibly want, and I can’t imagine the trauma of rape would show itself as greediness for cash. I’ve also never been hateful to them, and though it’s possible, I guess, for the trauma of my ordeal to turn me into a mean person, it’s still kind of unbelievable.
It seems I really did lose my mind.
Either that, or…
Some kind of foul play was going on that my parents weren’t aware of, and that I can’t remember due to the faultiness of my brain.
And didn’t Malachi say that Elle, and her professor, and the psychologist I’m supposed to start seeing soon told him my memory lapses are likely a result of me being afraid and blocking things out?
Didn’t Elle say that to me on my wedding day?
She did. I remember that with perfect clarity.
“Sometimes forgetting things you don’t like is a very common coping mechanism. It’s your mind’s way of protecting you from unpleasant experiences that might keep you from being functional later in life.”
So, what if something was going on in my life that was so fucking scary and traumatizing that I just blocked it out?
I mean, I woke up battered in a jail cell in Mexico after I had killed a guy, so surely, whatever I was doing that led me to that must’ve been really fucking serious and potentially really fucking scary.
The puzzle pieces are all still floating around in the air, but something about this feels eerily similar to realizing that I hadn’t actually cheated on Malachi, and the whole thing was just a cruel prank.