Forgotten Self (Forgotten Self #1) (3 page)

4

Three months later

The first day of school. Ag
ain. For the 13
th
time now, considering I'm a senior. I park my car outside of Snowline High and watch students mill about. I don't realize how long I've been sitting there until a sharp rap sounds at my window. I jump up and hit my knee against the steeri
ng column. “Mother f-” My car door opens before I get a chance to complete my curse.

It's Danielle, who looks over me critically. “What are you doing?” She flips back her curled red hair and pops a pink bubble.

I roll my eyes and push her out of the way.
“Hasn't anyone ever told you that pink and red clash?” My backpack is sitting on the passenger seat and I groan as I pull it out.

“
Ha-ha,” Danielle mock laughs. “Now, come on. We need to scope the scene.”

My car beeps as I lock it. “What
scene
?”

She pulls
me along. “You know, guys! We need to see who's grown hot over the summer, who's lost it, and who's new.”

We make our way over to the grassy courtyard in the center of our school, one of us more enthusiastic than the other. I wave and greet and hug a lot
people on the way. It's one thing I really do like about school, being with people. I genuinely enjoy them because there is always something good to find no matter how bad they seem. Well, most of the time. Jonathan gives me a high-five as we join him on a
stone garden divider.

“
Ladies, looking fine.” He does the eyebrow raise.

“
Yeah, yeah,” I wave him off. “Don't distract Danielle. She's here to check out the
scene
.”

He frowns. “What scene?”

Danielle glares at me and gives a long-suffering look in Jonatha
n's direction. “Guys,” I explain for her.

“
Ah-huh. Well, don't mind me if I just get my Blackberry out while this goes on.” He quickly begins typing away.

After a moment, a finger taps my shoulder. “Look over there!” Even Danielle's whisper is loud.

I look
in the general direction she seems to be staring. “I don't know who you're looking at.”

“
Right. There.” She points very obviously at a boy who's standing around with a bunch of the football guys. He's tall, has brown hair, and is wearing a backpack.

“
I d
on't know what's so special about him, D.”

She lets out an exasperated sigh and continues scanning the courtyard without saying anything. I lean back against the wall and look up at the sky. It's grey, there's no sun. Earlier this morning the news had warn
ed that bad weather was coming our way. Our town is near the coast of Maine, famous for its “Nor’easter” storms. Summers here are short-lived, which many people bemoaned, but I didn't care either way. I breathe in the crisp, chilled air.

The first bell rin
gs loud in my ears and I sit up quickly, my eyes landing right on the boy Danielle had pointed out.

“
He's been staring at you for a while,” Danielle says quietly.

I break my gaze and look at her. “Guess your hot guy's a creep. Come on, let's go.”

My firs
t class is AP History, which if I had to guess, I would say is my best subject. I had an easy time with it – the names and dates just came to me. I chat with my friend Madison while we wait for class to start.

“
Are you cheer captain this year?”

She is lo
oking through her purse for something. “Yes,” she says happily, pulling lipstick out. “Oh, and yes to that too. It's about time.”

“
No doubt. I'm glad that Lissa didn't make it.” I pull my heavy backpack onto my desk, gritting my teeth.

“
Yeah, what a bitch
,” Madison agrees.

Right, what she said.

Our teacher, Mr. Lehman, loudly clears his throat. The class quiets down somewhat. A guy walks through the door at the last moment, just as the final bell rings. He makes his way back to to the middle row, where Ma
dison and I sit. He drops his bag lightly and slides into the chair next to mine. I continue whispering to Madison, taking no more notice. 

Mr. Lehman drones on about what will be expected of us this year as seniors. “You are in an Advanced Placement cour
se and I expect advanced work. This is the final year to prove you've actually learned something in your short lives. A syllabus is being handed around, which we will adhere to very strictly. Today we will be talking about...” A hand brushes my sleeve. I l
ook over to see who it is. My breath gets caught in my throat. It's the boy I'd caught watching me in the courtyard. Something about him makes me uncomfortable, more than just his earlier creepy staring.

“
What?” I ask a little rudely.

He smiles slightly a
nd holds out his hand. “Hi, I'm Lucas.”

My lips tighten as I look at his hand, which I don't shake. “Abigail.”

Before I can turn away he says, “I was wondering if I could borrow a pen, Abigail.” His eyes look kind, but something still unsettles me. The way
he says my name...

I pull a pen out of my pocket, slap it onto his desk, and look ahead. Mr. Lehman's head snaps up at the sound of the pen. “Everything okay there, Abby?” Mr. Lehman has known me since junior high, had been hired as Snowline's history tea
cher when I moved up. The only thing really notable about him is that he's looked thirty for like seven years.

He slides his glasses down to the end of his nose as he eyes me. I nod and, pushing his glasses back, he moves along with his lecture.

“
What was
that?” Madison whispers to me.

I tilt my head over at the new guy and make a face. “Weird,” I mouth to her.

She purses her lips and nods, giving him the stare down across me. I don't turn my head for the rest of class.

At lunch, I sit with a few of my
friends. “No, no, guys. You don't understand,” I'm telling them emphatically. “We
both
saw the bear-thing.”

A girl named April speaks up. “But there's no way it was Bigfoot. I mean, come on.”

Danielle smirks. “You never know. Weirder things are out there.
”

“
So wait, where was this? Why wasn't I there?” Jonathan is frowning as he rolls his soda around in his hands.

I take a drink of my own soda. “D and I were driving through Salem canyon a few weeks ago, listening to a new album she found. We thought we saw
something standing at the tree line. When we got out, though, it kind of
glided
back into the woods.”

“
Glided?” Madison asks, confused.

“
Yeah,” Danielle confirms. “It was bizarre. It just didn't look like it was walking. And just to clarify,” she adds, “A
bigail over here thought she saw a person. Which is crazy. No one walks around Salem canyon that close to dark.” Salem canyon is well-known for its predatory wildlife and numerous lost hikers.

“
Shut up,” I tell Danielle, who doesn't react. “I only thought
I saw a person for a second. It was definitely a weird kind of black bear. Probably Bigfoot.” I wink playfully at April.

Jonathan is still frowning. “You shouldn't have gotten out.”

Danielle is all over that. “Thanks for the chivalry, Jon, but we're just
as strong, if not stronger than you. We could definitely have taken some bear. Abigail keeps a knife in her car.”

Madison gives me a look.

“
What?” I retort. “You never know.”

“
Well, anyway,” Madison says, changing the subject. “Did you all see Mary's new
car?”

Mary grins enthusiastically and jumps into a rundown of its features. I sit back. I'm recalling the strange figure by the side of the road when I look over at Jonathan. He's still watching me.

After school, I walk back to my car alone. This day has
been weird. First, the new boy who makes me feel...unsettled. And then Jonathan and his unhappy reaction to Danielle's and my experience in Salem canyon. I shake my head. Boys were getting weirder the older we got.

My car is one of three left in the park
ing lot. Mr. Lehman had called me into his office when school ended, asking me if I'd wanted to be his student assistant that year, grading papers and such.  As I get to my car, I trip over a rock. I stop myself from face-planting by bracing myself against
the driver's door, but my keys have flung out of my hand and under the car. “Of course,” I say to myself and get down on the ground. The keys are way underneath, toward the middle. I slide under my car, scraping over the gravel.

“
Everything okay?”

Startle
d, I jump and bump my head on the undercarriage. “Mother of pearl,” I groan. I grab my keys and scoot back out. Standing up, I see that my visitor is none other than Lucas, creepy boy. “What are you doing here?”

He gives me a small smile and points to a c
ar, a row behind mine. “Leaving,” he says.

“
Oh,” I say. In my mind, I give myself a little slap on the wrist. Being mean to someone is not really my schtick. Pull it together, Abby.

“
Did you find what you needed, Abigail?”

I bite my lip. “Yes...” He smile
s again and I catch myself checking him out. He is
hot
. Like, woah hot. Now I can see what Danielle was talking about. Soft auburn hair – messy but not messy – sage-colored eyes that speak confidence, and a
nicely
fit body. Mmm-mmm.

I mentally slap myself
so I can get a grip. To my horror, it seems as though he's noticed my check-out: he has an amused look on his face.

“
Well, see you later,” I stammer and quickly get into my car and shut the door.

As I leave the parking lot I can see him in the rearview
mirror, still standing where he had been, watching me drive away.

That afternoon, I call Danielle to tell her about it. “Why does he keep watching me? And Jonathan's doing it too.” My cell phone beeps, telling me I'm almost out of battery.

“
I don't know
,” Danielle replies, obviously focused on something else.

“
Hey! Pay attention, D. This is serious.”

I hear rustling and a door being shut, “Alright, Abby. I'm here.  What's wrong with being noticed? New guy thinks you're hot and old friend's interest is r
enewed. Big deal.”

My phone beeps again. “Maybe you're right,” I concede.

“
Exactly. So I was thinking -” And my phone shuts off.

“
Damn it.” I look around for my charger, then remember it's in my car. As I walk downstairs,   my footsteps sound like an elep
hant's owing to the fact that my house is super quiet, except for the popping sounds coming from the refrigerator. That's new. Great, it's probably going to explode while my parents are gone. Not that they aren't always gone. Both of them work for Doctors
Without Borders. The huge amount of time they leave me home alone is surprising. Maybe I should feel complimented, like I'm mature enough to handle things on my own. But sometimes I wonder if they just don't want to
be stuck at home with a kid.

My parents
and I have always gotten along well, but I've always felt a distant connection, instead of the close ones my friends seem to have with their parents.

*

“
Abigail, what are you doing back here?”

My ten year old self sat in the mud next to a tree. “What do
you mean, mom?”

My mother walked right up to me. “You're getting yourself all dirty.” She looked around distastefully. “And it's freezing out here.”

I shrugged. “I like it out here. It feels like part of home.”

She frowned. “Well, get up and come inside.
Get cleaned up. Why don't you watch TV or something that other kids your age do? The way you just sit out here...it's just not normal.”

Begrudgingly, I stood up and followed her inside. Instead of watching TV I called Kelly. “They are so mean to me,” I tol
d her.

“
They're not mean,” she said. “They just don't understand.”

*

Perhaps she was right. I open the garage and walk out onto the driveway. It's dark now, and a misty fog has rolled in.