“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.” Cadence says as he rings the doorbell. We’re standing in front of a two-story house straight out of a magazine.

“Well, you didn’t have to come with me.” I tell him. He gives me a side glance that says otherwise.

Before he can respond, a little girl opens the door. She’s probably five or six, dressed in princess pajamas, with messy black hair, and red patches on her pale skin. This must be the little sister mentioned in the paper.

“MOOOOMMMMYYYY!!!!” She yells before dashing away.

“Why would she open the door if she wasn’t going to say anything to us?” I ask Cadence. He just shrugs at me.

“Brooklyn, I’ve told you not to open the door to strangers.” A woman’s voice says from somewhere in the house.

An older version of the little girl comes to the door, the little girl peering at us from behind her legs. Before we can even say a word, she breaks into sobs just looking at us.

“Ummm… are you, all right?” I ask.

A scrawny man in a business suit appears behind them.

“Honey, who’s at the– What are you doing here?” He asks staring at Cadence and me. He wraps the woman in his arms and the little girl clings to their legs.

“Maybe it’s a bad time…” I offer.

“No, why are you here? Haven’t you done enough?” The man says, he doesn’t raise his voice, but it has a chilling intensity to it that’s nearly worse than yelling. The woman is still sobbing uncontrollably, and the little girl starts crying too. The woman hugs the child to her to try to console her.

“Just leave, we have nothing to say to you.”

“I-I just wanted to—”

“LEAVE! It’s your fault our little girl is gone! All your fault!” The man yells, and the woman sobs louder.

“My Margaret, my poor little Margaret.”

“I’m sorry for your loss. I just…”

“It’s not her fault! You can’t blame her for this.” Cadence yells back. “She didn’t make Margaret do anything!”

“Please, just-just leave.” The man says, waving for us to go. “You’ve done enough.” The woman buries her face in his shoulder as she cries.

Cadence looks ready to argue more, and I grab his hand to pull him away. I don’t want to disturb them any more than we already have.

“Let’s just go, Cadence. Let’s just go.” His face is just as red as it was when he faced off Analise.

“I’m really sorry we bothered you.” I tell the family as I pull Cadence away.

“What the heck Cadence?”

“Margaret wasn’t a little angel, she didn’t even get along with her parents. She hated them.”

“But still Cadence, why’d you yell at them? They’re in mourning.”

“They just want someone to blame, and since Evan’s still unconscious and Darryl is dead, it’s you.”

“But that doesn’t mean you need to get angry at them.”

“They’re acting like they’re the only ones affected. They didn’t even go to Darryl’s funeral, nor did they bother to check on you or Evan, Mama Etta sent flowers and paid her respects to both Darryl and Margaret. Mom and Dad attended both funerals and we all spoke at Darryl’s funeral. Auntie K, that’s Darryl’s mom, even went to Margaret’s funeral and has visited Evan. Heck, we’ve all been visiting Evan as much as we can, even you, when you don’t even remember him,” Cadence’s eyes are glistening, as if he might cry at any moment. “And how do they act, like they’re the only ones that lost someone.”

“But still that’s not reason to—”

“Just drop it Lyric. I was defending you, you know.” Cadence doesn’t say another word as he gets in the car.

I purse my lips. “Cadence, look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have talked you into this, I just wanted to---”

I’m not even sure what I wanted or what I expected. Even if they’d greeted me like Mama Etta, how was I to broach such a tender subject? How would I have asked them if they knew anything about the accident.

Cadence might not be entirely wrong getting mad at them for wanting to blame us for the accident, but they weren’t necessarily wrong to get upset that we showed up on their doorstep.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

I just wanted to know what happened. I just want to help Evan find peace, maybe unlock my memories. It’s weird that no one knows why we were there that night.

“Cadence… I’m sorry, I just…”

“No. None of this is your fault! I just can’t stand how they act so self-righteous, like they’re the only ones that lost something.”

“Cadence, I’m still here.”

“But you aren’t the same! You aren’t you anymore.” Ouch, I knew everyone was probably thinking it, but still I didn’t expect him to just say it outright.

“Seriously, you don’t think that I don’t know that?! It’s not like I can control this! I want my memories back more than anything.”

“Do you know what it was like?” He asks, clenching his fists around the steering wheel. “You were unconscious for a day, we didn’t… we didn’t know if you’d even wake up, and then you did, and you didn’t… you didn’t…” Cadence chokes back a sob.

I remember waking up. The feeling of disorientation. Being introduced to Reid, and Serenity, and the boys. Maybe it was selfish of me, but I hadn’t really thought about how it must’ve felt for them.

“You… you didn’t know us. You didn’t recognize us you just… you greeted us like strangers.” Cadence continues, and I feel a pang in my heart.

I’d been trying to regain my memories for me… for Evan… but maybe I owe it to them to try to remember. They’d tried so hard to help me those first few months, and I’ve only been focusing on my guilt that nothing has worked.

“This was a bad idea, we should’ve never come here.” Cadence says, his knuckles turning white on the steering wheel.

Maybe it was a mistake, but we can’t stop now.

“No, we’re trying to get my memories back, that’s the whole reason we’re here. And maybe it’s not working but it could.”

“We should just stop… you should stop. This investigation, it’s getting you nowhere. And it… won’t.” He sounds defeated.

“We’ve barely investigated anything! We still don’t even know what happened, why we were out there, what we were looking for.”

“It doesn’t even matter anymore Lyric! You aren’t the same, Evan’s in a coma and might never wake up… and Margaret and Darryl are dead. Gone.” Cadence’s voice cracks on the last word.

“It doesn’t matter why you were there—It won’t… it won’t change what happened.”

He’s making me mad. Doesn’t he realize that I know all this? It won’t bring those that died back, and it might not wake up Evan, or make me remember anything, but still I want to know, for my own sake. Regardless of the reasons, going out that night nearly killed us all. What was so important that we risked our lives for it?

“Don’t you dare put that on me! Don’t you think I already know that! I know I’m not the same, but that’s why we should figure out what happened.”

“Lyric, this isn’t going to fix anything. Finding out what happened won’t return you to normal!”

Normal. That word makes me clench my fists. I’m not even sure exactly what I say back, because I can barely hear him over the blood rushing through my ears. Suddenly we’re both yelling at each other. I’m not even sure what we’re arguing at this point. But I’m tired of it already. I don’t like fighting with him.

“STOP IT ALREADY BEATS!” I yell. There’s quiet. My heartbeat thundering in my chest, the squeal of tires as Cadence suddenly pulls the car to the side of the road. He turns to stare at me, his eyes wide.

“Y-you called me Beats. Do you-do you remember?” His gaze is so hopeful that I feel like my heart is splitting into pieces. All my anger immediately falls away.

“No… I’m sorry, I don’t know why, it just kind of happened.”

“Beats… you… that was your nickname for me,” Cadence is crying, really crying this time, big fat ugly tears, his cheeks all blotchy. “You-you called me Beats all the time, b-but especially when you were wanting something or in the middle of an argument. Like it was your way of letting me know that you weren’t really mad… even when you were. You-you really don’t remember?”

I reach into the glove compartment to grab a napkin to hand to him. His nose is dripping. He takes it and blows his nose loudly.

“I’m sorry Cadence. I don’t remember, I wish I did.” I feel tears pricking my own eyes. I reach over the console to give him an awkward one-armed hug.

“It’s fine Leary, I-I shouldn’t have snapped like that, at you… or Margaret’s parents for that matter. I just… they’re gone, and Evan… and you… I…”

“I’d say we should go back for you to apologize but I think that would upset them more.” I say jokingly, but Cadence doesn’t crack a smile.

“I really shouldn’t have snapped at you. I meant what I said though. It wasn’t your fault what happened.”

“Then who’s fault was it Cadence? It wasn’t their fault either.”

“I’m not saying it was… it just… it was a freak accident, that’s it.”

“Cadence… why do you sound so guilty…”

“I don’t know anything, that’s what pisses me off. You wouldn’t tell me where or why you were going. You said I had to either come or I’d miss out, and I couldn’t get you to tell me anything… couldn’t get any of you to tell me anything. I was supposed to be there that night. I was supposed to go, and I didn’t. If I’d gone then maybe—”

“Then maybe you would be dead or comatose too.” We’d broached on the subject at the scene of the accident, but it seems like Cadence is still holding on to that guilt. “Stop being like that, okay.” Cadence slams a hand on the steering wheel.

“But I should’ve been there… or I should’ve talked you out of it.”

“From my understanding, I’m pretty darn stubborn.” I say, trying to lighten the mood.

I let out a long sigh. If just this little bit of investigating ends in an argument with the person I’m the closest to, I’m not sure I want to continue, but I think I need to.

“We should probably stop this, shouldn’t we?” I ask him.

“No, maybe it would be for the best to find out what really happened that night. To figure out what all of you were hiding.”

“Weren’t you the one that was trying to talk me out of investigating in the first place, and just a few minutes ago too?”

“Well, yes, but now I’m not. Even if you don’t remember exactly… you called me Beats. That has to mean that maybe you’ll remember eventually… and maybe you’re right. I wasn’t really that sure before… but this investigation of yours might be the key you need to unlock your memories, and I’ll help this time. I promise—” Cadence turns to look me full in the eyes, his are red rimmed and swollen. “No more bailing.”