Resurrected (Resurrected Series Book 1) (8 page)

I turned around to look at her, and her eyes were pooling with those tears again. “Is there anything in there that
wasn’t
hers?” she asked.

I looked back at the bookshelf. I didn’t recognize quite a few of the titles actually, but some of them were quite new. It wouldn’t help to point that out, so I just said yes. Lottie wasn’t satisfied. “Which ones?”

“Lottie, there’s a lot of books here …” I started, but she cut me off, begging me, “I know, Dietrich, please. Just tell me.”

I put
Vampire Academy
back on the shelf and grabbed one I didn’t recognize. I held it up to her victoriously. She sighed and rolled her eyes. “That’s Lydia’s.”

“Oh.” I put it back. Remembering the tablet on the coffee table, I asked her, “What about the Nook? Is that yours?” What was I even doing? I had come here hoping to find more evidence that some part of my dead fiancée was still alive and now that I had found it, I was trying to help bury it?

Lottie shook her head. “Also Lydia’s. I can’t read on it. It gives me a headache.”

Reading on my iPad always gave Lottie a headache, too, I thought.

“What else is hers?” she asked glumly, her eyes closed, her head reclined back, like she was getting a headache now. Honestly, I tended to have that effect on people.

“Well, she shopped at Banana Republic. A lot.”

Lottie nodded. She opened her eyes and looked at me, waiting for me to continue. It seemed like for the past month, all I had done was walk directly into conversations I wanted to avoid. “That smells like her Bolognese.” I tried to say it casually, but that memory, that association, was too strong and too painful and it stuck in my throat.

I looked away from her and turned my attention back to the bookshelf to try to buy myself a few pregnant seconds before she started interrogating me again. I wasn’t the one who was supposed to be getting grilled anyway. How had this gotten so turned around?

A song faded on the television, replaced by a familiar one, and my eyes quickly flicked to the TV before I just as quickly looked away, hoping Lottie hadn’t noticed. I knew she was still watching me. But she had seen me, and she groaned again. “God, even
Fallout Boy
? Do I get to have anything of my own?” She threw her hands up in exasperation and let them fall limply down at her sides.

“Lottie, how do you know it isn’t always like this? Maybe the memories are different for you, but Lydia may be a lot more like Jamie than you could possibly know unless …” I wondered if she would let me meet her. She waited for me to finish but when I didn’t, she slowly shook her head and started fidgeting with the hemline of her t-shirt again.

“Lydia is just like she’s always been. She hasn’t changed at all. I mean, she looks different, but
she’s
not different. I’m … not the same. She knows I’m not too. I told her I’m just homesick and she thinks I’m depressed and I’ll eventually get over it, but …” she trailed off now, still picking at some invisible flaw at the edge of her shirt. That sandpapery feeling in my mouth was back. I couldn’t swallow.

“It’s more than just … memories?” I asked. I think my voice cracked. Jesus, I hoped I had just imagined that.

“I told you not to come here, Dietrich. Why did you?” She wasn’t mad or accusatory. She wore that same defeated and weary expression from the intersection when I had finally caught up to her and knew trying to escape me would be pointless.

“You know why, Lottie. I love you.”

“You love her.”

“Is there much of a difference?”
Goddamn it, Dietrich
. I hated myself sometimes.

I thought she would certainly kick me out now, but she just cocked her head to one side and offered me that sexy half-smile, half-smirk that usually meant I was either about to hear something I didn’t like or I was about to get laid. I didn’t think it was the latter.

“No,” she finally said, “apparently not. Maybe. I don’t know. I just know I don’t really know who I am anymore and it scares me, and Lydia only came here because of me in the first place. No matter what I do, I always seem to be hurting someone now. This isn’t how I thought any of this would work out. And I
want
to be me. I don’t want to be someone else. No offense.”

I smiled. “If it makes you feel any better, you aren’t exactly like her. Some of the words you choose, it’s not the way Lottie would have spoken. And she cursed a lot more.”

Lottie laughed, a genuine laugh that made me smile again. I would tell her anything to keep hearing that laugh. “I cuss a lot more in my head. Lydia doesn’t like it so I try to watch my language out loud.”

“Well, that settles that then. Jamie was definitely not bothered by cursing. That woman could make me blush.”

“What else is different?” she asked, turning thoughtful, looking away from me now at some spot on the wall, like a memory – one of
her
memories – was playing out there and she was able to see it all again through these different eyes.

“I haven’t spent that much time around you. I don’t know. What was your name? Before?”

That smirk returned. I couldn’t help it. It had been over two years and I couldn’t stop myself from wishing it would turn into one of Lottie’s you’re-about-to-get-laid hybrid smiles. I wondered what Eric would have to say about that. I wondered what a psychiatrist would have to say about that.

“We don’t exactly speak, English, Dietrich.”

“That’s ok. I didn’t either until I was, like, eleven.”

Her smile widened. “I’m not even sure how to … translate it.”

“I’ve learned Arabic, Mandarin
and
Russian. How hard can one name be?” I didn’t even know if her language was spoken. “Look, just make something up if you want. So I can differentiate between you. For my own sanity.”

Lottie sighed but nodded. “Ok. I guess … it would be something kinda like … Kyrieana.”

I arched an eyebrow at her. “Really? That’s beautiful.”

“What did you expect? An ugly name?” She was teasing but she had a point. I guess I had been expecting something more Klingonish. “But I’m not really her anymore either,” Lottie added.

“Then what was Kyrieana like?”

Lottie opened her mouth to answer me, but we had both heard the sound of footsteps outside. “Shit,” she muttered. She stood up quickly, too quickly, and had to grab on to the arm of the chair from the sudden head rush. Lydia’s key was already in the door by the time she turned to me, worry written all over her face. I stood up, more slowly than she had, and was going to offer to leave before Lydia could ask many questions … but I wanted to stay. I desperately wanted to meet her, actually.

Jamie walked in – or Lydia – God, this was all such a mind-fuck and Lottie quickly introduced me. Sort of. “Hey, how was the rest of your shift?” She rushed on and didn’t even let her roommate answer. “This is my friend, he was just visiting, and I lost track of time. Sorry. I don’t have any pasta made yet. You must be starving.”

“Oh, that’s ok,” Lydia gave Lottie a hug with her free arm and set her purse on the sofa with the other, then reached out to shake my hand. Her smile was warm, genuinely affectionate and spread to her eyes – the kind of smile that let you know you were talking to someone who was inherently good. A flash of confusion crossed across her features but she blinked and simply offered, “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.” I shook her hand, and realized for the first time what Lottie had been trying to tell me. Lydia was nothing like Jamie. She
looked
just like her, the same tall, beautiful blonde who had worked runways in Houston fashion shows, but she had none of Jamie’s overconfidence, none of her self-righteous superiority. I doubted Lydia realized she had been a model in her former life and could still be one. I sincerely doubted she would want to. I had the impression she was more at home in an aisle of the bookstore than the runway of even a J C Penney’s.

“Have we met before?” she asked, that befuddled semi-recognition still lurking behind her eyes. She looked tired, but was still smiling, still trying to be hospitable and friendly, not because she had to, but because it was just how she was. No wonder Lottie often felt like she was on the verge of hurting or offending her.

As desperately as I loved Lottie, there was a reason we had always felt pulled to one another; she was a hell of a lot more thoughtful than I was, but she had the same sense of sarcasm that permeated almost everything we touched in life. It was one of the reasons she and Jamie had become friends in the first place; Lottie and Jamie had bonded over a shared sense of humor, even if Jamie’s often veered toward the mean-spirited side.

Lottie shook her head as soon as Lydia asked me, but it was too late. Full recognition suddenly hit her, and her smile disappeared, that friendliness in her expression shifting to utter horror. “Oh, God, Lottie, what have you done?” She backed away from me as if I had suddenly become dangerous. I don’t know why, but I felt the need to defend Lottie.

“It wasn’t her fault,” I started, but it kind of was. She started it, anyway.

Lydia’s eyes were still wide and terrified and she looked from me to Lottie, waiting for her to explain that this was … what? Even with the remnants of the Lottie-as-E.T. denial quickly crumbling around me, I didn’t have a fucking clue what was going on. And I didn’t even know how Lydia had recognized me, let alone why she was scared of me.

“Ok, but … please, don’t freak out. Just … here.” Lottie reached over to the table and handed Lydia the entire bottle of unopened wine. Lydia just stared at it dumbly.

“Um. Do you want me to open that for you?” I asked. I didn’t want to miss any of this conversation but if Lottie thought Lydia needed to be drunk for it, who was I to argue? Lydia looked up at me, that same dumbstruck expression still on her face. Whatever Lottie had done, I was guessing it must be pretty bad.

“The corkscrew’s on the table,” Lottie murmured to me. As I reached for the bottle of wine, Lydia flinched away from me, and I watched her expectantly, waiting for some accusation or insult,
something
to explain her sudden fear of me.

But she just backed away from me again and moved closer to Lottie, repeating, this time in a whisper, “What have you done?”

Great. If they were going to start whispering, I was going to miss half of this.

“I didn’t mean to do anything, I swear. Look, you know how I told you I was going to Biloxi a few weeks ago? Well, I didn’t.” Lottie glanced over at me. I had the bottle open and was pouring wine into their glasses. When I stopped, she motioned for me to keep going. Apparently, this conversation required a great deal of alcohol consumption. “I didn’t go to Biloxi. Obviously. I went to Houston.”

“Lottie!”

At least she wasn’t whispering anymore.

“Lydia, I promise you, it wasn’t to meet him or anyone else! It was just the city,” Lottie sighed and slumped down into one of the seats at her table and took the wine glass closer to her. “Remember those dreams I told you about when we first …?” Her eyes swept up to me, then dropped back down to her wine glass. She took a long sip.

“Of course, I remember,” Lydia offered kindly, despite being clearly terrified of some Jabberwocky in the room. I still wasn’t sure how I had turned into that literary monster.

“They weren’t dreams … exactly.” This was news to me as well. I took the other chair at the table. It didn’t look like Lydia was going to come anywhere near me anyway. “The thing is, from the beginning, ever since I woke up, I had these …
memories
. They felt just as real as mine. But they weren’t mine. They were hers.”

“Lottie, that’s impossible,” Lydia’s voice was gentle, reassuring, the way a mother might talk to a child who was scared of the boogeyman in his closet. At least, I imagined that’s the way a mother would talk to a frightened child. Mine had hardly ever talked to me, let alone to reassure me of anything. She had once assured me the milk in the fridge wasn’t sour. I supposed that was close enough. If it hadn’t actually been sour.

“I know it’s supposed to be. But I just felt so … alone. And then as time went on, I realized it wasn’t just her memories, but her feelings and behavior and … look around. None of this is even
mine.
I don’t know if she’s me or I’m her or we’re both, I just know I’m not
me.
I just wanted to see the city because it all seemed so real and everything else had already been exactly the way she remembered it …”

“What else?” we both asked her at the same time. She looked from Lydia to me then back again.

“Aren’t you going to drink that?” Lottie pointed at the other wine glass that Lydia still hadn’t touched.

“Lottie. What else? You’ve done this before?”

“This is a really good wine. You should try it, Lydia.”

“Lottie, what else?”

“Well, there are other places we’ve been to.”

“Like where?”

“Wait, she doesn’t know why you live here?” I asked. Lottie glared at me and I moved the wine bottle out of her reach.

“Here? What does he mean?” Lydia asked.

“I grew up here.”

It was the first time I had heard her use a first person pronoun when talking about Lottie’s life. It took both Lydia and me by surprise. Maybe all of us.