quiet confidences.

It was almost comically easy to get into the swing of classes once she was at the school. The English test was easy- why wouldn't it be? It was all just review from last year.

The walking everywhere felt like it should've been exhausting, but it wasn't; she was somehow already used to it.

Right. Because she had lost half a month.

She tried to remember it, but it wasn't there at all.

She apparently had a part-time job at the school as an office aide, after hours. The secretary handed her a ring of keys and a list of things to do. It felt more like being a custodian.

She sat down at the particleboard desk, and pulled out some of the papers that weren't in her writing. The names on them were all scratched out with a heavy black pen. She heard a knock on the door.

Right, Klaude!

She got up and opened the door for him.

" Thanks, Vida," he said as he walked in, and stretched. " For a second, I thought you forgot."

Forgot.

She caught his sleeve as he was walking by.

If it was Klaude, then...

" Hey, I wanted to talk to you about something. A-About this morning."

His expression was indecipherable and he had frozen up a bit.

" I. Yeah. That's. That's cool. What is it? Hot gossip about the hell twins?" he seemed nervous. Maybe she had made the wrong decision. Suddenly she was panicking internally. But she had already brought it up.

" The. The car crash. I-I was in the hospital, and all that, right?" she asked, tense.

He looked away from her.

" I'm sorry, Vi. I really... I really didn't..." He sounded a little choked up.

" They told me I might have memory problems. The doctor, I mean. And it's gotten worse and I just. Don't know who to talk to about it. So I thought I would ask you, since we're friends, and I feel like it would be awkward to talk to Honora about, um- whose name is scratched out on all of my papers?"

Klaude looked incredibly distraught.

" Do you need to see a doctor, Vi? Can't you recognize his handwriting?" Klaude held her shoulders and seemed to be examining her.

" What?"

" They're David's. You had his stuff since we... They're David's."

Oh.

But hadn't... Hadn't it happened before school started?

Klaude shook her and she snapped back to reality.

" Be honest, Vi, please. You don't have to fuck around to make me feel better. How bad is it?"

She put her hands on his arms to steady herself.

" I woke up this morning and I couldn't remember the past half month. I remember going to the first day of school three times and different stuff happened each time. I remember David crashing the car."

Klaude's face drained of color; he was suddenly looking pale and washed out.

He hugged Vida and started crying after a moment.

She felt tears soaking into the shoulder of her shirt. Joy Division. She had worn Joy Division today.

It didn't feel real.

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