Page 90 of Heidi Lucy Loses Her Mind
“Go,” she says, pointing. “Now.”
He grins, lands a kiss on her forehead before she can pull away, and then heads to the door. “Later,” he calls to me without turning around.
I wave and then say to Gemma, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
They filter out the front door, and the jingling of the bell over the door sounds strangely melancholy as I watch them disappear.
Sometimes I feel lonely. I expect everybody does at times; I’m not unique. It’s something about people being here during the day and then leaving at night, so that I’m the only one left.
My eyes linger on the floor in front of the door, where I landed after tripping over the Roomba and hitting my head. Then I sigh.
I should probably tell Soren. He’ll want to know, and he’s been helping me this whole time. Plus—I allow myself to acknowledge—he shrinks that loneliness inside down to a less intimidating size.
So I sit back down, and then I call him. The phone rings three times, and then he answers, his deep voice saying only one word: my name.
“I’m staring at the table where Carmina died,” I say, the words spilling out of me, “and Gemma and Eric were here but they just left, and I feel sad, and I don’t know why.”
“Mmm,” he says, his hum igniting something deep in my bones. “You’re allowed to feel sad. And you’re allowed to not understand why. You’ve had a lot of heavy things going on.”
I sigh. “I’ve always been the kind of person whose first instinct is to drown my negative feelings in productivity.” My old therapist said it was because I was likely infertile, and somehow I had internalized that I needed to make up for what I perceived as that defect. She said I felt the need to be hypercompetent because I felt like it would give me worth. I think she was probably right in her assessment, but knowing what the problem is, knowing where the flawed logic is…it doesn’t make it any easier to correct.
“It’s taken me a long time to be able to sit with my pains and just let them be,” I say. “But strangely, I almost enjoy it now. Not that I enjoy hurting or being sad,” I say quickly, “but I find it comforting to let myself experience those things.” I swallow, cringing. “Does that sound crazy?”
“Not at all,” Soren says with a little laugh. “It sounds healthy.”
“Speaking of pain,” I say, my hand drifting to my forehead. “I got the security tapes back.”
“You did?” he says immediately, and in my mind’s eye I imagine him sitting up straighter, his eyes sharpening. “Did you see what happened to your head?”
“Yes,” I say with a sigh. I can already feel my cheeks turning red. “I tripped.”
“Youtripped?”
“Yes,” I say dully. “Over my Roomba.”
There’s silence for a second, and then Soren speaks, his voice filtering oddly through the phone. “Permission to laugh?” he says.
“Granted,” I say.
His laugh is infectious; it’s a light, free sound, not raucous or out of control but pleasant and full of sunshine. By the time he’s calmed down, I’m smiling too.
“I’m so embarrassed,” I say, pressing my hand to my cheek, trying to cool my skin. “I really thought someone had hurt me on purpose. Because that’s the thing,” I say as something occurs to me. I sit up straighter, thinking hard. “Even knowing what happened…I still feel that weird feeling about my missing memories.”
“What feeling?”
“I don’t know how to explain it,” I say. My fingers drum on the table as I consider. “It sort of feels like there’s something I was supposed to do, or there’s somewhere I need to be. It feels like—well, like I’ve forgotten something important,” I say. “And in the video, I was behaving sort of oddly. I was rushing around with my phone pressed to my ear. According to the timestamp, I was calling you when the video captured me. But I rushed into my shop, disappeared for a minute, and then reappeared. So maybe…”
“Maybe something happened outside,” Soren concludes, and I nod.
“Yes. Maybe.” I scoot my chair back and stand, hurrying over to the door. I open it and stick my head out, trying to see the town square in a new light, trying to force myself to remember anything that might have happened out here. But other than the evening breeze playing with my hair, nothing stirs.
I sigh. “Anyway,” I say. “I—oh, hang on.” My phone has buzzed, and I pull it away from my ear, looking at the text. It’s from an unknown number.Heidi, this is Phil Hildegarde,it says.Just wanted to let you know we gave the police those photos.
“Oh, good,” I say. “Hang on, Soren.” Then I quickly text Phil back.Did it go okay?
His response comes several seconds later.A little awkward since my neighbor was on his way out while we were heading in, but otherwise fine. They said they’d look into it.
“I just got a text from Phil,” I say, returning to Soren. “They gave the photos to the police.”
