Forgotten Read online

  Forgotten

  By Jessica Carbine

  Contents

  Chapter 1: Glimpse

  Chapter 2: Dreams

  Chapter 3: Introductions

  Chapter 4: A Date

  Chapter 5: An Outing

  Chapter 6: Questions

  Chapter 7: A Solution & More Problems

  Chapter 8: Confusion

  Chapter 9: Diversions

  Chapter 10: Answers

  Chapter 11: Discoveries

  Chapter 12: Memories

  Chapter 13: Instructions

  Chapter 14: The Deviation

  Chapter 15: Gone By

  Chapter 16: Reunion

  Chapter 17: History

  Chapter 18: Plans

  Chapter 19: Set up

  Chapter 20: Fraud

  Chapter 21: Curtain

  Chapter 22: The Whole Truth

  Chapter 1: Glimpse

  The atmosphere was perfect. Full of the smell of pasta and wine, the air contained an undefined excitement. Low lights and high-backed booths spaced fairly far apart, it was a private restaurant. And just when Cassie was sure it couldn’t get any more perfect, an old woman whose wrinkles had wrinkles, started playing an achingly sweet melody on a violin as she weaved among the booths.

  Booths Cassie only wished she was sitting at. Instead, she sat at the front of the restaurant with her date, Craig. He hadn’t made reservations. The wait was long, and they were waiting for the rest of their party to show up.

  “So then it was just between Yale or Stanford,” Craig said. He was about her height, maybe a little shorter, with sandy blond hair and blue eyes. He wasn’t particularly attractive, but that was definitely not his worst characteristic. “But then our crap university called. They begged me to come. Even offered a full-ride, including room and board. I was gonna turn them down flat, but my parents insisted they wouldn’t pay anymore if I turned down a scholarship. It was bull.”

  Cassie held her eye roll in, but only just. Did he mean to impress her by demeaning her school? They’re “crap university” wasn’t Ivy League, but it was typically listed in the top fifty in the nation. She was already annoyed at the whole situation, but he was making it worse. So much worse. She’d agreed to this date as a favor to a friend. Supposedly Craig had “needed” a date for a party his brothers were throwing, and no one had said yes.

  Gee, I wonder why, Cassie thought.

  Cassie had agreed because she had met him briefly in her business class and he’d seemed nice enough. A little arrogant, but nothing too bad, and his friend had sold a sob story about how girls didn’t appreciate what a nice guy he was, just because he was a little weird-looking. He’d picked her up and headed to the “party,” only to have his brothers say the party was cancelled and to look at Cassie curiously, almost like, “What are you doing with him?” His brothers looked like they felt bad for him and suggested they go to dinner. They were supposed to meet him here, but they hadn’t arrived yet.

  “Well now that you’re here, do you like it?” Cassie asked. She loved her school, located in the American northeast, the campus was full of beautiful trees and old buildings, and the engineering programs were excellent.

  “Eh, it’s fine. I mean, it’ll look good that I’ve aced all my classes. I didn’t have much of a choice, though. If I’m going to take over my father’s medical practice, I have to do what he tells me, even if it is a stupid decision. This place is pretty pathetic compared to the Ivy Leagues. It would have been nice to be challenged more. The homework here is so boring. I don’t ever do it, and I still ace all the tests.”

  It has nothing to do with your looks, Craig. She thought, releasing her annoyance in her head. She’d skipped a girls’ night for this!

  Fortunately, just then his brothers arrived. They looked askance at his choice of restaurant, but didn’t say anything.

  “Hi Cassie, I’m John.” A taller, more attractive version of Craig held his hand out to her.

  “Hi John. Nice to meet you,” Cassie said, and then turned to the other brother she’d already met, “And nice to see you again, Brandon.”

  They were seated at one of the larger booths, close to the violinist and Cassie couldn’t help but notice that Brandon and John were personable and friendly. And attractive. It was extremely strange to be eating dinner in a romantic setting, full of people on dates, with three brothers. And to be making awkward conversation with one of them, while trying to not be too friendly with the others. She’d seen people flirt with those who weren’t their dates, and she was determined not to do that, however tempting it was.

  “Will you go to medical school here? It’s ranked pretty well,” Cassie said to Craig. Brandon and John had moved to the far edge of the booth, flirting with the waitress as she took their orders.

  “Yeah. I know. But I’m keeping my options open,” he said. “I’ve been accepted into a ton of places. Some of the most expensive schools in the country, actually. Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard. I’ll do really well there. I already know more than most of the professors here. Last week, I had to correct Professor Walkin on…”

  Cassie tried to tune him out and focus on the violinist. The food arriving helped. But it was hard. He had a lot of personal anecdotes that illustrated his magnificence. Maybe they were exaggerations, maybe they weren’t. She hardly cared.

  “I don’t go on a lot of dates. You’re lucky to catch me before I’m a doctor. Everyone wants to be with doctors,” he said later as he escorted her to his car.

  Cassie was so relieved to be leaving, she managed to listen in silence. It was over! But he didn’t head back to her dorm.

  “Uh, where are we going?”

  “It’s a surprise!” Craig said enthusiastically.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t late enough to cry off that she was tired.

  “I’d rather go home, actually. I have a fair amount of homework,” Cassie said diplomatically.

  “Oh, a party would have gone much later. It’s not far,” he said dismissively.

  Thoroughly annoyed at his attitude, Cassie sat stewing until they pulled into a dark parking lot. Cassie looked around for their destination, confused. As he hadn’t shown a shred of creativity thus far, she figured they were doing typical first date stuff, like mini-golf or a movie. They appeared to be behind a large warehouse of some sort. He turned the car off.

  “Uh, there’s no entrance on this side,” she said, feeling suddenly nervous. She couldn’t see much with the lights of the car off.

  “I know. This is the best parking lot in the city,” Craig said, putting his hand on her leg. “I love coming here.”

  Cassie dexterously slid her hand under his and said, “Well cool. Now I’ve seen it. Let’s go.”

  He chuckled and slid his hand further up her leg.

  “Hey!” She yelled and grabbed his hand and threw it off of her. Before she could say anything else, his face descended on hers out of the darkness and he was kissing her. Her open mouth snapped shut in horror and he tried to pry her lips open with his mouth. She shoved his face away. “Take me home. Right now.”

  She could hear his heavy breathing and he chuckled low. “You don’t mean that. I paid for your dinner!”

  He put his hand back on her upper thigh, moving his whole body closer and kissed her again, more roughly. Cassie elbowed him in the gut and shoved his chin up and away from her. She was about to punch him in the throat when a car pulled into the parking lot, shining it’s high beams directly at them.

  “Take me home now.” Cassie said again, more forcefully.

  Craig watched the car with the high beams for a couple of minutes. Cassie thought about exiting the car, but wasn’t sure if that would be better or worse than staying in. Before she could make up her
mind, Craig swore vilely, turned the car back on and left the parking lot. The other car followed them out of the lot.

  “You said yes to this date, you know,” he said angrily. “You can’t do that and then just change your mind. It’s bull and completely unfair.”

  “I can change my mind at any point in any relationship. And agreeing to a date is hardly the same thing as agreeing to...whatever that was!”

  He mumbled under his breath in anger. Cassie couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like the same car followed them all the way to her dorm, where she exited Craig’s car without a word behind her.

  "Oh Jenna, it was awful!"

  Cassie sat on her bed. Across from her, sitting on a beanbag chair, her roommate, Jenna ate a yogurt, listening, her bright blond curls pulled back.

  She shuddered. "Ugh. Remind me to never date a Craig again!"

  "What happened?" Jenna asked, around a spoonful of yogurt.

  Cassie sighed but dove into her story. She sat on a brightly colored, brown and pink blanket with swirls and flowers. It matched her. She had silky brown hair, high cheek bones that were always rose-pink, and deep azure eyes. Most of the time, she liked people, although friendly, some even accused "flirty," she did not like dating. It never ended well, though this was a new low.

  When she finished her new worst-date-ever story, Jenna stared at her in open-mouthed horror.

  “Oh my gosh. Do you think he was gonna…” Jenna didn’t finish the sentence.

  Cassie shrugged. She was disgusted, but not as worried as she should have been. She was overly confident in her self-defense abilities, having taken a rape aggression defense course the previous year.

  "Do you think it was a cop?" Jenna asked.

  “The lights? I don't know. Maybe. I don’t really have any idea who it was. I saw a man alone when we drove past, but it was pretty dark."

  "Darn. He should have been arrested," Jenna said, glaring.

  "Unfortunately, I don't think he had done enough to warrant that. Or, I guess fortunately? Ug, my business class is going to be so awkward now!"

  "Oh yeah!" Jenna laughed, "Isn't Matt in that class, too?"

  Cassie groaned, remembering an enthusiastic boy who’d been trying desperately to do more than just study with her, despite clear disinterest on her part, "Don’t remind me!"

  "Hey, well it's only ten, you want to do something?" Jenna asked, changing the subject. Cassie wasn’t always in the mood to hang out; she wanted to take advantage of it while it lasted.

  "Definitely! I’m surprised you’re not out with the girls! What’s going on tonight?" They lived in dorms on the edge of campus. There were about 75 girls in the three-story building. Bedrooms lined the perimeter of the building, with a laundry room, kitchen and common area in the middle. They had a resident assistant: just another college girl hired to kick boys out of the building by midnight, to the chagrin of many of the girls. But that was the reason Cassie kept living here while others moved into real apartments. She didn’t want to deal with the other girls’ boyfriends’ hanging around at all hours of the night.

  "Kari had a date, but Emily and Hannah are in Emily's room watching a movie, I was just gonna grab a snack and join them. Wanna come?" Jenna asked apprehensively.

  Cassie was either hot or cold, with episodes of depression. One week she would want to spend all her time with people and have lots of fun. She’d attend parties and go on dates, acting the part of a social butterfly. But then the next week she’d spend all her time in the library or shut up in her room, feeling lonely. Most the time she felt the real Cassie was the fun one, but when she was feeling particularly depressed, she wondered if the weeks she spent with other people weren’t just an attempt to try to forget her loneliness; maybe the real her was a depressed recluse.

  It was because of these bouts of depression that she didn’t have many deep friendships. The trouble with Cassie was, you could never count on her. Jenna was the only girl who stood by her, waiting for her to come back. But Jenna’s group of friends was game to include Cassie whenever she wanted society.

  "Definitely." Cassie said, causing Jenna to grin. Ignoring the homework she felt she ought to do, Cassie knew she needed to do something with friends if she didn’t want this incident to bring her down too much.

  "Let’s hurry and maybe they’ll start the movie over,” Jenna said as they headed out the door.

  As Cassie closed the door to the tiny dorm room, her window silently slid shut.

  That night, Cassie had a strange dream. She woke up suddenly from it feeling flushed. The circumstances were normal enough. She sat at a café in a foreign country, surrounded by people speaking gibberish, but with words here and there that she knew the meanings to. At her table, three other girls sat chatting. They were friends, but she didn’t recognize them. The girl sitting next to her spoke to her in English, and Cassie laughed with her. It was so realistic, but also faded.

  She tried to shake the unsettled feeling the dream left with her, but she didn’t manage it. Finally, after tossing and turning for a few hours, she got up early to finish an essay she’d started.

  Cassie headed off to class accompanied by a feeling of dread. Since she spent half of her time hiding from the world, she was an above-average student. Ever since she could remember she’d been considerably ahead of all her classmates. In fact, she’d graduated a year early with almost a full year of college credit. She normally loved attending lecture, but she had her business class that afternoon. Not only was Craig in it, but so was Matt. They’d gone on a single date before Cassie had turned him down, though not as dramatically. Cassie wanted to find a partner, so she went on dates, but she never developed any lasting feelings for anyone. Men had three reactions to her indifference; they became very cold to her, kept on trying, or became a friend. The first was by far the most common reaction, and while she didn’t really hold it against them it did make her life more difficult. Increasingly, she wondered if there was something wrong with her.

  She brightened when she remembered the third category. Zach was in her first class. He was a very nice, unattractive boy she'd become friends with their freshman year. He was just a friend, and didn’t expect, or even want, anything more. Even now, they still lived close to each other. He lived in another dorm near her. Wait until Zach hears about last night! Maybe he’ll walk with me to and from class.

  She walked under a line of cherry trees. They were still bare even though it was halfway through March. It was a long and biting winter, more so than normal for Pennsylvania, leaving Cassie especially excited for spring.

  "Cassie! Hey, Cass!" Zach jogged up behind her.

  "Hi Zach!" She smiled, "What's new?"

  "Oh, not much. I did the reading." He grinned; Zach was notorious for not doing the reading.

  "Overachiever," Cassie said teasingly. They walked into their classroom.

  "How did your date with Craig go?" Since they were early, she shared her story. When she finished, Zach was appalled.

  "Do you realize what could have happened!?" He demanded loudly.

  "Shh, Zach. Relax!" She glanced around nervously. Several people were looking at them. "Yes, I do. But I am somewhat good at self-defense. I probably would have been okay."

  "Probably?" He glared, eyes wide. He was still making no attempt to be quiet. "You need to report him!"

  "For what? Kissing me against my will? Because that's all he did. I don't know what else would have happened, and I'm glad I don't. But there's nothing to report."

  “That’s called sexual assault, Cassie! And you absolutely should report it!”

  Cassie grimaced. Zach was overreacting. She knew what could have happened and that unnerved her. But it hadn’t, and in the light of morning she doubted it would have."What I'm worried about most right now is my class with him."

  "He's the one who should be worried!” Zach said angrily. "He's the one who tried to—”

  "Zach, please!" Clearly telling him was a bad idea, she thoug
ht. And maybe bringing him near Craig is a worse one. Guess I’ll be walking alone. Try as she did to cheer him up and ignore the incident, he fumed through their whole lecture.

  After class, he asked her to meet him for lunch. She agreed and they were about to part ways when he stopped her. He put his hand on her shoulder and said, "Be careful with yourself. If something happened to you, I'd... well it would be terrible." He looked a little awkward.

  She was touched, "Thanks Zach." She hugged him. "I will. I'll see you later."

  His happy grin didn’t register with her; she was distracted by a figure she saw over his shoulder in a clump of maple trees. Taking a step away from Zach, she looked into the shadow of the trees. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought it might be the man in the other car from the night before. The one who'd startled Craig. And he was staring at her.

  As she shamelessly stared back, trying to decide if it was the same person, he started, seeming to notice her looking at him. He looked away. Feeling curious, she walked across the grass toward him. He abruptly turned around and started to walk away. At first, she followed, but as he noticed her following, he dashed into the nearest building. She froze mid-step. What would I have said anyway? Hi, I’m Cassie. Did you save me from date rape last night? After regarding the building for a few moments, she turned and headed to her next class feeling puzzled.

  Later, after two more classes, she headed off to a late lunch with Jenna and Zach. It was windy and her silky brown hair, easily caught in the breeze, was difficult to manage. It swirled with the wind and stuck to the lip gloss she wore. Annoyed, she wiped it off with her hand. Abruptly, she felt nervous. Watched. She glanced around, looking for the boy from earlier. Then, feeling paranoid (and seeing no one), she faced determinedly forward and walked into the food court.

  She arrived first, bought herself a sandwich and some ice cream and then went and found an empty table, conspicuously located near the restaurants, making it easy for her friends to spot her.

  She had just unwrapped her sandwich when a good-looking boy sporting brown curly hair sat down at her table. She might have stopped him, but there were still four seats. Plenty of room for when Jenna and Zach arrive. So she smiled at him.