Dr. Kirkpatrick watches me very closely. I’m not sure if she believes me, so I focus on keeping my breathing even and my face serene. I force my hands to my knees and command them to stay loose and still. I take a breath since she is still silent. “Maybe it shouldn’t bother me so much, but it really does. I feel like I’m missing pieces of my life.”
Big, six-month-shaped pieces, but whatever.
“All right,” she says at length, and I can tell by her tone that she’s not buying this. She sits back in her chair anyway. “A good first step to reconnecting with the details of your life is to revisit recent events. Do you have any recent pictures?”
“My mom does,” I say.
Luckily, I know this for sure. My mother is a rabid scrapbooker. Which sounds really loving and sweet, but actually means every moment of my life has been documented in ridiculous detail. She pulls out the camera for a good batch of lasagna, so I guarantee there’s plenty of photographic evidence of the last six months.
And why in God’s name didn’t I think about this sooner? I probably could have filled myself in on all kinds of crap.
Dr. Kirkpatrick starts scribbling in her notebook as she talks. “I’d like you to look at some recent photographs and compare them to some of your older photographs.”
“Older ones?”
“Yes. It’s possible that revisiting an event you remember well will help you tap into more robust recollections of more recent events. Do you have any photographs from a school event? Prom maybe? Or a trip with friends?”
I nod, swallowing hard. “I have a scrapbook from art camp. A year and a half ago.”
Maggie and I went together. Not because I have an ounce of talent, mind you. I don’t. But Maggie is gifted. And I like to play with the pottery wheel. Plus, art camp has its share of good-looking boys—the kind with paint-spattered jeans and tortured souls.
Mom made me take her digital camera, demanding I take pictures of everything. We took this as literally as possible, snapping shots of the most inane details we could find. We had pictures of the bottom of people’s shoes and wads of gum stuck to the underside of the tables.
I thought it would make Mom crazy. Instead, she was so happy she cried. She made Maggie and me matching scrapbooks. Truthfully, I flipped through mine only once, but it was sweet. And I did remember everything about that weekend.
“Terrific. I want you to go back and revisit that book. And I want you to find a few photographs that were taken more recently. Not portraits in a studio. Snapshots. I don’t want you to just focus on what’s happening in the picture. I want you to look at the background. Have you ever heard the saying ‘The devil’s in the details’?”
“Sure.”
“I believe there’s something to that. Not that there’s evil in the details, but that they can sometimes be much more important pieces to the puzzle than we initially think. Consider the details in both photos. Write down some observations and see where that gets you.”
***
I’ll tell you where it’s getting me. Absofreakinglutely nowhere. Unless depressed is a destination. I might as well be watching a documentary of butterflies dying in the rain.
I flip back to the cover of the art camp scrapbook, the one my mom painstakingly put together. A close-up of Maggie and me. My dark hair curling next to Maggie’s fine, strawberry blond waves. Her eyes are brown and mine are pale, but our smiles are the same in this shot: wide and genuine.
The rest of the book is pretty standard scrapbook fodder. Me throwing clay. Maggie streaking dark ink across thick paper. Both of us offering gooey marshmallow smiles near a campfire.
I linger on that cover picture though, because I remember posing for this like it was yesterday. Every detail speaks to me. Maggie’s cheeks and nose are pink, sunburned from swimming earlier that day. I can see turquoise paint spatters on my shirt and the orange-brown remnants of clay beneath my fingernails. And we’re both wearing one of those ugly, hammered bracelets Maggie made.
Those things made their way straight to the metal box under the oak tree at the edge of Maggie’s property. We call it our Not Treasure Box because there’s no real reason to keep anything in it. It’s an oddball collection of our history. Buttons from our matching coats in the third grade. A photograph of Maggie kissing Daniel Marcum in the school play. Those hideous bracelets are in there too.
This photograph says a thousand things to me, but not one of them help a damn bit.
I push the scrapbook away and turn back to the recent photographs I found, the ones that might as well be pictures of another Chloe, one from a different dimension. I’m not too sure I want to go through these again. They creeped me out enough the first time.
I need to get over it. I need to suck it up, put on my big girl panties—whatever it takes.
One deep breath later, I spread them out on the table. Picnics and parties and a steak dinner that I’m pretty sure commemorates my seventeenth birthday. I remember none of it. I don’t remember having fried chicken and pink lemonade at a park. I don’t remember watching fireworks with half of the varsity lacrosse team, Blake’s arm curved around my waist like we were glued that way. I don’t remember playing softball ever, and certainly not with this group of girls, girls who I would never—wait a minute—
Is that Julien?
My finger traces over her image. Shiny blond hair, almond-shaped eyes in a plain but pretty face.
I still can’t imagine her gone. She was probably going to be principal someday. Hell, maybe the mayor. Even when we were little girls on the playground monkey bars, she used to talk about buying a house on Belmont, living right across the street from her mom and dad. She knew her future, and her future was Ridgeview.
Goose bumps rise on my arms, but no matter how hard I stare, the picture doesn’t reveal any more secrets. I shift it away, refocusing on the one of Blake and me. I know I should focus on the details, but the basics are eerie enough. The way our heads are mashed together, his golden hair starkly pale against mine. I stare hard at the picture, trying to imagine feeling comfortable like this. Trying to imagine a world where Blake’s arm around me would be easy and normal.
“You’re like a couple from a movie,” Mom says, announcing her entry into the kitchen. “Almost too beautiful to look at.”
“You’re delusional,” I tell her, but really she’s not. Not about Blake, at any rate. He does belong on a movie set. Blond hair, nice biceps, killer smile. And I’m…well, I’m me. I’ve got a great smile, but I’m not the kind of girl who makes homecoming queen. And I’m not the kind of girl who dates Blake.
“I just call it like I see it,” Mom says, pouring herself a cup of coffee.
I watch the steam rise from her cup and frown. I’d managed about a third of my mocha from Rowdy’s this morning, but it still tasted terrible to me.
“Mom?”
“Hmm?”
“Did you ever think it was weird that I had so many new friends?”
When she turns to look at me, I see the wariness in her eyes, like maybe she thinks this is the start of an I’m-too-depressed-and-damaged-for-friends speech.
“What do you mean?”
I bite my lip, thinking. “I mean, I’m practically a different person. The grades, the friends—everything, really. I just wondered if it surprised you.”
“Of course not.” She leans forward, putting her hand on mine. “Chloe, you have such a good head on your shoulders. Deep down, I always knew you’d do something with it. Once you joined the study group, you were surrounded by successful kids. It makes sense that you’d want to join in with that crowd.”
“When have I ever been a crowd joiner? Don’t you remember the fourth grade, when I refused to wear pink because all the girls in school said it was the thing to do?”
“But you’re not in the fourth grade anymore, are you? And you’re with Blake now. I guess I figured…”
She trails off with a shrug, and I feel a rush of irritation flood me. “You figured what? That I did this to become someone worthy of Blake?”
The shock registers on her face like a slap. “That’s not what I meant.”