Someone To Kiss My Scars: A Teen Thriller Page 3

  Music blared out of the speakers hanging in the rafters as seven cheerleaders ran onto the shiny wooden floor, shaking pompoms as they screamed, “Go Grizzlies!”

  “Oh, my God!” Jazz scoffed. “These girls are serious athletes. They play volleyball and basketball, yet they become silly cheerleaders for boys’ games. How many guys do the same for the girls’ games? Hmmm? Take a guess.”

  “None?”

  “Bingo! The least the boys should do is lead cheers for the girls’ games. Don’t you think?”

  Hunter smiled at the mental image of the guys’ basketball team in cheerleader outfits pumping up the crowd. “Yes, I do. At least 98 percent of the time.”

  “Give me five!” She held up her hand, and he slapped it.

  He liked talking to her. He never knew when she would make him laugh. He couldn’t remember a time when he had talked to a girl. “It’s fun talking to you.”

  “Thank you. You’re pretty cool yourself.” She smiled at him and took off her large, round red glasses.

  Hunter was struck by the beautiful almond shape of her bottle-green eyes and the thick long lashes that framed them.

  “You have pretty eyes,” he blurted out.

  “I know.” She put her glasses back on. “These glasses accentuate my best feature, or what I consider my best feature. Everything else about me is nonstandard and subject to jokes by the cheerleaders and their friends who are all standards. Meaning they don’t have too many freckles or zits, their bodies indent significantly above their hips, and their BMI is in the normal or below normal range. None of which, I am sure you noticed, applies to me.”

  He studied her. She was a large girl, tall with a pronounced bosom, yet her hands were small for her size. Her lips, though, were luscious and painted hot pink.

  She removed her glasses and then put them back on. “Which way do you like better? On?” She put them on. “Or off?” She took them off.

  “Either way. I like their color. But there’s such a size difference!”

  “I know. I’m farsighted. Like seriously.”

  “I really didn’t notice. You look fine to me.”

  “Well, thank you. You look fine to me, too. However, all those girls down there are going to think you’re more than just fine and wonder why you’re talking to me instead of them. Drew and Molly have boyfriends, but Tatiana is available.”

  Hunter glanced back at the floor where the cheerleaders were hopping around and cartwheeling to their chants. They all looked about the same, though two were shorter than the others. “I don’t know them. Besides, I don’t think I’m the kind to initiate conversations with strangers.”

  “You don’t think you are? Why wouldn’t you know?”

  “Because I haven’t been around my peers very much. I’ve been homeschooled.”

  “Until now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure. Just what my dad told me.”

  “He told you?”

  He looked at her, thinking he might say, Yeah, because I don’t remember, but caught himself. The odd look she gave him told him he should pretend he didn’t hear her.

  The music stopped, and the cheerleaders ran and cartwheeled back to the bleachers. “Where are your parents?”

  Hunter lifted his arm and pointed to Joe. “My dad’s sitting over there. He’s wearing the green baseball cap.”

  “And your mother?”

  He looked at her, wondering if he should say anything other than She’s gone. But she seemed so friendly, and he had no one else to talk to.

  He took a deep breath. “My mother and little brother died in a car wreck on an icy road four years ago.”

  Her mouth fell open. “I’m sorry. That must have been tough.”

  Now what would he say? Make up some story about how tough that time was, when he had no memory of it? He thought she would see through his lies and wonder why he had no feelings. He’d be a jerk in her eyes.

  “I don’t remember anything about it.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. Like a big hole in my life. Actually, everything before moving to Alaska seems to have disappeared.”

  “Trauma can cause memory loss. People with PTSD either can’t stop thinking about the bad event or can’t remember it. Maybe it’s better not to remember.”

  “What if you couldn’t remember most of your life?”

  “Sometimes I think that would be a good thing.” They locked eyes until Jazz lowered her gaze to her feet with a heavy sigh. “There are a lot of things I wish I didn’t remember.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She looked up at him and smiled. “Thanks.”

  The new principal at Clear Creek School, Mr. Blake Bentley, then stepped out onto the basketball court to loud applause. He was a tall man in his late thirties, wearing jeans and a Grizzlies t-shirt.

  He raised his microphone. “As most of you know, I graduated from this school twenty years ago. I spent too many years Outside going to college and starting my family, but I am so glad to finally come home.”

  Hunter whispered, “What does he mean by outside?”

  “Alaskan for Lower 48.”

  Hunter shook his head.

  Jazz smiled. “You know, the states outside of Alaska.”

  Blake continued. “I hope we get crowds this big and noisy at all our home games!”

  “We would if you were still playing,” one of the old-timers hollered, causing the crowd to laugh.

  “I don’t think I can keep up with our current varsity players. I’d like you all to come cheer, not laugh.”

  Mrs. Christian, the President of the Parents’ Association, stood. “I still remember that half-court shot you made to win the game!”

  Several shouted, “So do I.” Many clapped.

  Blake then smiled. “I think your memory is a little off. I made a half-court shot to tie the game at halftime, then missed the same shot at the end of the game. We lost by two points.”

  “You won the game!” shouted Mrs. Christian. “We all remember it.”

  Many shouted in agreement.

  “Well, I sure like it better that way!” He’d walked to the jump circle. “Where was I when I shot it? Over here?”

  “A little behind the line.”

  “More to your right.”

  Blake moved at their direction until Mrs. Christian stood again. “That’s the spot! Right where you’re standing!” She led the applause and cheers.

  “OK!” shouted Blake. “At each home game during halftime we’re going to have a contest. Two dollars to enter. Whoever makes the first shot from this spot will get half the pot. The rest will go to the sports program.”

  Most stood and shouted their approval.

  “How interesting,” Jazz said. “He remembers the event as his failure, and they remember it as the best thing he ever did. How can people remember things so differently?”

  “At least he remembers something.”

  “He’d like to remember it differently, though. I wish I couldn’t remember some things, and you wish you could. You would think memories wouldn’t be so complicated. Things either happened or they didn’t. Right?”

  “Or they get lost and disappear. How do we make memories anyway? And where are they kept?”

  Jazz’s face lit up and turned red. “That’s it!”

  “What is?”

  “That’s going to be my science project! I’ll do something with memory—how they’re formed. Where they’re stored. Thanks, Hunter.”

  He furrowed his brows. “What did I do?”

  “You gave me the brilliant idea.” She held out her hand. “Friends?”

  Hunter smiled and shook her hand. “Yeah. Friends.”

  “That’s a beautiful smile, Hunter. You should use it more often.” She smiled back at him, pushing her cheeks into her glasses.

  “I like your smile, too.”


  “Cool.”

  A basketball bounced across the road, jerking Hunter back to the present. He slammed on the brakes and felt his stomach lurch into his chest. Where would a ball come from? He looked for someone walking along the shoulder but saw no one as his truck rolled slowly down the road. A house appeared through the trees to his right. He saw an old basketball goal stuck above the garage attached to the wall.

  A big truck coming toward him in the opposite lane blared its horn as it plowed into the ball, popping it. The sound scared him, and he twisted his wheel, taking his truck over the shoulder toward the driveway leading back to the house.

  For some reason the ball seemed important to him, but he had no idea why. He kept trying to remember a connection . . .

  His hands twisted around the steering wheel as he stared blankly in front of his truck. Sometimes he thought he was going crazy. He felt he couldn’t control his brain or his thoughts. At any moment people would do things and say things inside his head. Was that ball real or not? How could a real ball just bounce across the road on its own?

  After looking one more time at the house, he pulled back onto the highway and soon turned on to the road toward his school.

  Some things he had no trouble remembering, while with others he drew blanks. Yesterday in English class, Ms. Tucker had asked them to remember a special place from their childhood then describe it using all five senses. He’d tried and tried to think of a place, but no image formed in his mind, so he’d made something up. She’d also asked them to describe the face of a friend at school without looking around the classroom. He’d described Jazz’s face easily but couldn’t recall a friend he’d had before meeting her. Then she’d assigned the significant object, and everything he’d found yesterday afternoon meant nothing to him.

  Except his folder. But all he could describe were the stories it contained, not why they were important or when he started them or why the war was over gender rather than something else.

  His chest felt hollow as an overwhelming fatigue chilled his body. He saw the upcoming curve approaching, and a thrill of awareness shot through him as he pressed the accelerator, sending his truck faster toward the trees bordering the road. I can just keep going straight and end this now. He felt no fear, just a numbness as his eyes lost focus.

  Why couldn’t he be normal? He pressed harder on the pedal. Why couldn’t he remember anything in his past? Why did he have to witness so much pain? Why was his brain assaulted by other people’s stories when he could remember nothing of his own?

  He felt hypnotized by the roar of the engine and the increasingly larger trees heading toward him. He closed his eyes and imagined he was flying.

  His phone buzzed. He flinched but kept driving. It buzzed again. He shook his head, realized he might not make the curve, and felt his stomach lurch into his chest as he braked hard and turned the wheel.

  He slowed down and looked at his phone showing a message from Jazz. Where are you?

  He then recalled what Jazz had told him months ago. “There are a lot of things I wish I didn’t remember.”

  He’d never asked her what those things were. Why hadn’t he? Because he was so consumed with his own problems he couldn’t make room for anyone else’s. How selfish was that?

  She cared about him, was always happy to see him. Would she keep smiling after he was gone?

  He turned into the curve and headed toward school. He needed to be a better friend to her.

  Chapter Four

  Jazz waited for Hunter inside the front doors of the K - 12 school, home to 150 students from the small town of Clear Creek and ten miles in either direction on the nearby highway. Her big boots stomped on the metal grating just inside the door as she paced, wondering what was keeping him. Her flatworms had regenerated their heads and tails and still remembered what she had taught them prior to decapitation. Memory can exist outside the brain! How cool was that? She couldn’t wait to tell him.

  “Girl, you need to get to class,” said Patty, the secretary, in her loud, thick drawl. She was a large woman with a big smile, born in Texas, who lined her eyes in dark blue, wore big hoop earrings and gaudy silver necklaces. Today she wore jeans, boots, and a bright yellow top with white fringe and turquoise pieces sewn into the fabric. She loved the kids, and most loved her back, including Jazz.

  “I need to show something to Hunter. It’s so cool!”

  “Mr. Roberts approved you being out of his class?”

  “He knows. He said it was OK.”

  She had advanced to the state science fair a month ago and now wanted desperately to go to the international fair next year, her last chance before graduation. Maybe she could win a scholarship or some money for college. Mr. Roberts, her science teacher, had given her a corner of the school lab to run her experiments even through the summer. She’d been hired as extra maintenance help at the school, so she would have access to the building through August.

  Jazz straightened up and put her hands on the glass door as she saw his truck roll into the parking lot.

  Jazz watched Hunter park his truck and run toward the front door. As usual he looked flustered and a little clumsy when he ran, but God was he cute! She loved his long, floppy hair, his thick eyebrows over his dark brown eyes. And his mouth was gorgeous—so full and soft. He was the only guy in school who didn’t think she was weird for loving science and who smiled at her like he meant it. He was her only real friend. Before he came in August, the only people who cared about her were the teachers and Patty.

  Just as he reached for the entry bell, Jazz pushed the front door open.

  “Hey, Hunter!” She knew from the heat she felt in her cheeks she was blushing behind her big smile.

  “Hey, Jazz. Sorry I’m late. I know you wanted me here early.”

  “It’s OK. I have something to show you.” She grabbed his arm.

  “I’ve got to get to class,” he said, panting.

  “Patty said she’d give you a pass. C’mon!” Jazz pulled him down the hallway.

  “I said no such thing!” yelled Patty as the two kids ran past her.

  “You know you will!” shouted Jazz over her shoulder.

  Jazz dragged him down the hall to the science wing, opened the lab door, and walked to the far side of the room near the fume hood and a short lab table against the wall—her domain. One of the fluorescent tubes flickered on the ceiling. She looked up and shook her head. “That won’t do. Can’t have another variable in here. I’ll talk to Mr. Roberts later to have this fixed.”

  She carefully removed a cover from a small shelving unit to reveal a series of petri dishes containing small brown worms. “Ta da!” said Jazz.

  Each dish lay inside colored tape strips, labeled with names and dates. A clipboard with the color-code key hung from a hook.

  Hunter bent closer. “Worms? Did you make them?” He wrinkled his nose.

  “Kinda. I trained them with food and bright lights until they remembered what to do in different environments to find their food. So if those memories were stored in their brain, which is similar to ours, you would think that if their heads were amputated, the new regenerated brain wouldn’t remember their training. But they did!” She threw out her hands in excitement.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah! As a group they didn’t do quite as well as the trained, uncut controls, which were not decapitated, but the ones that regrew their heads did as well as those which regrew their tails. And both groups of regenerated worms found their food faster than an untrained group. “

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning memory is not confined to their brains!” She lifted up onto her toes and felt warmth radiating throughout her body. “If it were, the ones that grew new brains wouldn’t remember the training. Don’t you see? So many people think memories are stored in the brain, but they may be stored in other parts of the body or outside it.”

  “At least in worms. What about in humans?”


  “Could be the same. I haven’t figured out an experiment for them yet.” She moved closer and straightened the collar on his shirt. “But I’m looking for volunteers to help me.” She touched his nose with her finger. “How about you?”

  “Sure. Unless you plan to chop something off me.”

  She moved closer, enjoying the tease, locking her eyes onto his. “First, I train you, then I chop.” She picked up a ruler off a table next to her and slapped it into her hand. “Do you respond better to punishment or reward?” She walked toward him, shaking the ruler. “I used bright lights and raw liver on the worms.”

  He backed away, chuckling. “So which one of those is the reward?”

  “The liver, obviously. But for you . . .” She thought of so many things she wouldn’t dare say to him. “How about fresh chocolate chip cookies after school? I could come by your place.”

  “Cool. I’d like that.”

  He was so much fun. “When are you going to show me more stories about the Tremarians? I haven’t read any for a while.”

  A pained look crossed his face. “I had to start writing something else.”

  “You had to? Why?”

  “I’ll explain later. How about when you bring the cookies?”

  “OK.” She noticed his frown and felt a chill. “Are you all right?”

  “Sure. Well, not really.”

  “What’s wrong?” She almost reached out for his hand, but pulled back and clasped her hands against her chest.

  “I realized this morning I never asked you about the things you didn’t want to remember. When we first talked. In the gym months ago. I told you I wanted to remember my past, and you said there were things you wanted to forget. What are they? And I’m sorry for not asking you before now.”

  She felt her eyes widen and her heart race. How could you remember that? “So many things, Hunter, but none of them involve you.”

  His shoulders slumped.

  Jazz felt a rush of fear. Had she offended him? “What made you think of that now? I mean, I love that you care enough to ask, but what brought that up?”

  Hunter bit his lip and frowned. “I haven’t had much sleep. I tried to find something from my past in my dad’s room, but the few things I found meant nothing to me. And I think he’s lying to me about . . . why we came here.” His chin quivered.