“I’m so sorry!” Dahlia exclaimed as she threw her arms around him. Eric backed off instinctively, but she was only hugging him. “I didn’t realize you couldn’t remember anything! Things must have been so hard for you this past few months. And I’ve been so mean!” She was almost sobbing.
Eric patted her head.
* * *
While Dahlia was distracting Eric, Bridgett pulled Jamie aside, “You know something you aren’t telling me.”
“Maybe.” Jamie met her eyes challengingly.
“You want to help Eric, don’t you?” Bridgett appealed.
“Yeah,” Jamie said in an obscure manner, “I’ll help him”.
Bridgett eyed him, both suspicious and annoyed at being excluded. But Jamie was normally so open that when he decided to keep something secret, it was secret.
* * *
Eric woke up early for work the next day. The evening had ended with Dahlia asking Eric endless questions. Mostly for reassurance. No he wasn’t mad at her. Yes he remembered when her birthday was. Jamie had chosen to remain silent the rest of the evening. How could Jamie be so cold? Eric hated that feeling of not being cool enough to get the cool kid’s attention.
Eric dreaded the day. He stared at the amorphous pile of clothes on the floor. Always shifting. Sometimes disappearing when Master Brown demanded he do laundry. More often now that Eric did manual labor. Dahlia had done a complete 360. Gone from snide little monster child to doting little monster child. Too sweet. Too enthusiastic. Eric had no idea how to, to keep her back. To be what she wanted him to be, now that he had this out-of-his-control excuse. And he had a huge test today. Huge mental test after hours of hot sun manual labor.
Eric blinked. Realizing he was supposed to be getting dressed.
He found himself at the breakfast table, clothed, mostly awake. Dahlia bubbling voice in the background. Eating porridge, when “Eric, Eric. Is that true?” Master Brown asked him.
“Wha?” Eric rubbed his eye, focusing harder on his surroundings.
“Do you really have trouble remembering the five years you spent here?”
“Oh, that. No” Eric took another bite of his porridge. In the corner of his eye Master Brown turned again to Dahlia.
She said, “Well he won’t admit it—he wouldn’t admit it last night—because he can still remember general ideas, but nothing specific.”
“That would certainly explain your test scores.” Master Brown declared. Eric shrugged. He had never been a good student.
Master Brown was tapping the table, mumbling “…who do I know…” Eric kept eating. Respecting Master Brown’s need to think, Dahlia was forced into silence. And Eric ate in silence several bites.
Master Brown placed her hand on Eric’s arm from across the crowded table. Her sleeve threatening to dirty itself in dishes of food. “I’m going to cancel your tests. You need a physical and psychological-“ Eric groaned at the word. Master Brown ignored it. “evaluation to determine why you’re having memory lapses. But we’re going to have to send you somewhere else. Since Master Carter left, we haven’t had anyone trained in psychology.” Master Brown was tapping the table again. Standing to leave for her office.
Dahlia turned to Eric. “This is great!” She beamed. Eric groaned tiredly. This meant he was still going to work today.
2 comments:
I think that you're achieving a much nicer balance of narrative/dialogue, Eric's mind/outside world. But some of the characters still seem a little flat. Even Eric, who, in theory, is home-base for the narrative. I think, among other things, that they're written a little more like young teenagers than young adults. Also, what's up with Master Brown? She's "concerned" about him, but even though she LIVES with the boy, she hasn't noticed his problem? What kind of mental bubble is she living in?
When the girls indigently defend being pissed with Eric, it would have been a perfect time to sum up how they view scenes we, the readers, experienced through Eric. Like "how he treated me". Well, Bridgett, how did he treat you? "Like I wasn't even there. Or like we were never friends." Also, I'm surprised they haven't come up with some sort of theory about why Eric is out of sorts - "he's just pissy because he blaims x-person for y-happening" or "it can be traumatizing, you know, when y-happens" or "Jamie, a bonded person needs more support from their other. Of course Eric hasn't recovered if you don't put yourself out for him at all emotionally." But then again, you would risk giving away more juicy details about what the hell happened if you let characters talk to openly about it...
Also, note, the passage where Dahlia and Bridgett discuss Eric callously in front of Jamie, I had trouble telling who the speaker was (at first, I mistakenly thought it was Jamie himself).
Bottom line, I am very excited that you are writing so much! Yays!
I want Eric to seem teenage-like because he's essentially lost five years of memories. Dahlia is a teenager. But you're right, both Bridgett and Jamie and acting horribly immature.
At some point I'm going to rewrite everything, but I'm not sure when. I don't want to lost my momentum, but at some point I'm going to write myself into a corner. For now I might add addendums to old posts.
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