When They See Us (Book 1.0)

Chapter Thirty-Six

Adelaide

We get into the car and head to the restaurant to meet Daniel and Juliet. Macy has not let go of my hand the entire ride, and I noticed she turned to her nasty habit of biting the sleeve of her sweatshirt for comfort.

When I reach towards her to pull it out of her lips, she takes my hand and kisses it instead. "Sorry, I'm just really nervous."

I reach to rub her cheek. "I know Mays, let's just get there and hear what she has to say." She nods and gets quiet again.

The moment we pull into the parking lot, she takes a long, deep breath before getting out of the Jeep and reconnecting our hands. As soon as we walk into the restaurant, we notice them and proceed to their table.

Daniel stands to his feet and embraces Macy and I. Julia smiles at me from the corner of the booth and extends her hand for a friendly shake. Macy gives me a strange glance before shaking her head awkwardly.

"Hi, I'm Juliet... You know that already... I'm sorry," Juliet rambles nervously, drawing her hand back. I scoot into the booth first so that I can be in front of Macy's mother. Macy took a seat next to me. As soon as I notice her leg fidgeting under the table, I place my palm against her thigh to settle her nerves.

After sitting down, we order, and then slowly ease into the conversation. Juliet described what she'd been up to for all these years, and Macy, who had been reluctant to speak at first, eventually chimes in.

"So you don't remember anything?" Her head is lowered as she fidgets with my fingers under the table.

Juliet shakes her head. "I... in the beginning, everything was a blur. I remember waking up in a hospital handcuffed to a bed. Funny huh? I didn't try to kill anyone but myself, and they had me handcuffed."

"Because you were a danger to yourself," Macy says under her breath, and I grabbed her hand, squeezing it.

"Yeah... I heard and understood all too well when the craving came back in the hospital. Macy, I may not remember what happened before that, but I'm sorry I never came back."

"Yeah, why is that?"

"Macy..." I look at her, pleading with my eyes for her to not make a scene in public.

"What? I'm curious... Four years later. how come you remember Daniel but not me?"

"I didn't remember Daniel. He noticed me in the center and told me about my previous life."

Macy releases my hand and wipes her face. She continues to shake, and her withdrawal symptoms return.

"You are lying!"

"I'm not honey. Just calm down and let me explain." Macy looks towards the front door, but she doesn't bolt just yet. Juliet interprets this as her invitation to proceed. "The overdose did enough damage to my brain to make me forget all that had happened before it. The doctors informed me they didn't know when or if I would ever be able to recover my memories. All they said was that I had a daughter and that you had been taken by child protection services. They told me you saw everything...

...I looked around the hospital room that day, not knowing what went wrong but thinking that if I could have taken my own life, it might have been better for my daughter. I wanted you to be safe, to not have to ever see something like that again. I didn't feel like it was safe for me to be around you, so I decided to seek treatment. The memories never returned, but my addiction did, so I stayed there. When Daniel arrived, I had only been clean for four months. I had no contact with the outside world, and I was failing in my attempts to recover at every step of the way.