Cece stared at Oliver blankly. Her mind had stopped working. It was happening a lot nowadays. She was finding herself in a loop of forgetting and remembering as though her memory was being unwritten and rewritten. She noticed it herself two days ago, when abruptly Gavin asked her about her childhood.
"Were you a naughty child?"
Cece was taken aback by the sudden query. She had received the call to talk about the contractual love story, but as she started with the premise, she received an odd question.
"How do you like the story? I am supposed to tell you about my story and take your inputs seriously," Cece said impatiently. She did not want to engage in an useless argument.
"I can't imagine you to be a wild child. In my imagination, you are a pretty child, a sweet one, docile and obedient. Were you like that?"
It was not that Cece did not want to answer. She could not. So she just rolled her eyes and shrugged all the questions off her shoulder. "What do you care? Just tell me if you're okay with the story."
She had started writing the story, stayed in touch with Gavin, while in her mind the dilemma went on. Things messed up further as Gavin pressed.
"Or do you not know about your childhood? Could it be—" he took a dramatic pause and asked another question, "You don't have any memory of your childhood, do you?"
Cece always assumed it was the trauma that made her forget the parts of her past. Her mother once told her about an accident in her childhood that left a scar on her forehead. Strangely, she had no memory of that either.
What was weirder though, was the fact that she never thought about it until now. A part of her mind had just shut itself down involuntarily.
"Why did you ask me about my childhood out of the blue? What were you expecting, Gavin?"
Gavin remained quiet for some time, before he said, "I had an inkling, but didn't think it would be true. I had a childhood. It was not good, and that shaped me into who I am. I just didn't think that you wouldn't have one."
"You mean the memory of childhood, I don't have it," Cece said, emphasising on each of the words. She wanted to believe them wholeheartedly.
Gavin didn't press anymore, but the question remained in her mind. Oliver just brought her back there.
Cece stared at Oliver blankly.
"Sorry, I didn't know it was supposed to be a secret. You started hanging out in front of all of us, then you left together, everybody knew about you two actually."
She repeated the words absentmindedly. "We left together. Everybody knew about us. They did, didn't they?"
Oliver laughed nervously. "Yes, I mean, you looked very much into each other. You were just looking at each other, and your faces glowed, you especially look like you're drunk. I don't know, maybe people who fall in love at first sight look like that. You two made me question that day. I went home alone on my cycle and thought, "Do I look like that?"
Oliver chuckled sadly. "You know, I hate your ex. After all this time, he is still chasing you like his life depends on you. It's gotta be something."
"You are overhyping Gavin. We are not lovers, or exes, or anything, really. He is kind of my boss. I have already told you that, and you should remember that."
Cece felt her cheeks heating. She finished her coffee and stood up in a rush. "Let's go. I have to go back and start writing."
"You know, you're acting weird."
Cece glowered at Oliver. She had to resist the temptation of yelling at him. Poor fellow, he didn't even know what he had gotten himself into. She quietly said, "You know what is weird? He called YOU my ex."
Cece decided to walk home alone. She completely ignored the requests coming from behind her, Oliver's pleas of dropping her home. Cece chose not to hear him anymore. Her head was filled with noises. Some of which came from the strange dreams, some of which came from all the frustrating and annoying conversations she had been having.
She made a call when her breathing returned to normal.
"Hello, stranger!" Mia's chirpy voice sounded so very distant that Cece had to remind herself who and where she was.
"Hey Mia, sorry to bother you. I just need some information," she said.
"Are you going to ask me to look somebody up for you? Because this time I can't."
Cece inhaled deeply and said, "No, I just need you to remind me of something." She took a pause to put the words correctly in her mind and continued, "Someone, actually. Do you remember a guy named Oliver from the university?"
"Oliver? The tall, very thin guy with thick glasses? Of course I do. What about him?"
Cece felt relieved. She may not have her memory intact, but she could trust Mia's. Mia had a photographic memory.
"That's the guy. Can you tell me a little about him?"
"Well, we all thought he was the generic nerd until he had that glow up. One day he was the scared, nervous boy from around the corner, and the next day he was this dashing Asian prince charming with a massive fan following. His parents were loaded, and he inherited that wealth. He has a brother too, Will. What do you need his information for?"
Cece conjured up a perfect excuse, which was mostly based upon the truth. "I just met him. I couldn't recognise him at first, but then he started talking about his university days, and about Gavin and I, so I thought maybe I should ask you about him. I still can't recognise him."
Mia laughed and tsked. "Poor guy, of course he remembered everything about you and Gavin. He was in love with you. That night when you and Gavin left together, we started gossiping about the two of you. His face looked so sad that eventually everybody stopped talking about you. He was obviously heartbroken. That was another reason why the girls in university hated you. You broke Oliver's heart."
Cece felt her heart beating so fast that it might explode. She continued talking nonchalantly, pressing her left hand on her chest to suppress the overwhelming emotions inside her. She walked faster. "I thought the girls were after Gavin."
"Well, some of them were, but Gavin was your average mysterious hunk everyone was interested in, but after sometime it just fizzed out. I guess it was because everybody saw the two of you falling for each other." Mia smiled lightly as she reminisced about the past days.
"And Oliver?"
"Everybody loved him. So when he went back from that party completely and utterly heartbroken, he gained more fans in the university, and you gained some haters. Some of them even spread lies about you after, you know…"
Mia left the sentence hanging, but Cece knew it. It was not the report of the arrest itself that brought shame to her. It was the viral videos and rumours on social media. Her throat felt constricted, chest heavy. She couldn't breathe anymore. She whispered on the phone, "Yeah… I remember everything. Anyway, thanks for talking. I'll hang up now."
"Listen, I know you're travelling but you need to stay in touch. I worry about you sometimes, you know?"
"Sometimes?"
"Yeah, when I am drunk. Rest of the time I know you'll find out a way to deal with things," Mia said in a serious tone, however she knew it was a joke. The best way Cece could think of was to run away.
She ran away from her problems, she ran away from her life, she ran away from Gavin when she saw him, and now again there was a tremendously strong urge to run away from these newfound facts.
Cece came home and took a shower. Her new home was a cosy space. The old tenant left their furniture, which she cleaned after moving in. She should have been scared to use a dead gir;l's belongings, but she felt at home.
She dropped her tired body on the bed wearing nothing but the towel. Wetness spread from her hair to the bedsheets pretty soon. She stayed there unmoving staring at the wall for a long time. When the clock struck midnight, she pulled her laptop from the bedside table and started typing.
She didn't think anymore. She continued typing until her shoulders started hurting, and her fingertips felt chaffed. Her eyes watered out of pure exhaustion. Her hair dried itself in the process leaving stains of water in its trail.
Once done with the story, she read it once herself. There were some minor grammatical errors, some typos, which she took another fifteen minutes to rectify. She read the story once again. It was the best beginning she had written in a week, and she was content with the outcome.
She remembered her half naked state when her towel started threatening to fall. She sat upright and tied the towel tighter. Then something came to her mind, and she took off the towel completely. She was alone, and stark naked, and there was no one who cared about it.
The phone rang exactly at that point, making her jump. Gavin's number flashed on the screen like a warning sign. She frowned at the screen before accepting the call.
"It's one thirty in the morning, Gavin. What is so important that you couldn't wait?" she snapped at him through the tiny device in her hand.
"This story, where did you get this story from?"
"Which story? What are you—" Cece cursed herself internally when she saw what she had done. She had typed the whole story on the shared document, of which she herself had given access to Gavin two days ago.
"Tell me, Celia, how did you write this story?" He sounded impatient, urgent.
"Why do you ask?"
"Because," he said in a tone even more grim than usual, "This is not a story. It is somebody's first hand experience, and you should not know about it."