The Forgotten Locket by Lisa Mangum Page B

where to begin. I barely understood what was going on myself, let alone knew how to explain it to someone else.
     
    “Yesterday you said that you couldn’t remember your past. Is that part of it?” he prompted.
     
    I nodded.
     
    “So tell me what you do remember. Maybe that will help.” He led me to a pair of chairs close by the fire.
     
    I sat down and leaned into the warmth, watching the flames dance to the crackle and spit of the burning logs.
     
    Between the flickering motion of the fire, the heat, and the rare feeling of sitting still for a moment, I was able to open my mouth and let the words spill out. I told him everything I could think of, everything I could remember. It wasn’t much. And it made even less sense when I tried to string it together into some semblance of a timeline or a story.
     
    Orlando listened to me intently, without a single interruption or pause for clarification.
     
    When I finished, I leaned back in the chair, the sweat on my forehead not entirely from the fire’s heat. Exerting that much pressure against the dark block in my mind left me feeling like I had run a hundred miles. My head throbbed in time to my heartbeat.
     
    “Can I have something to drink?” I asked. My mouth felt sticky and dry at the same time.
     
    Orlando took a few steps and plucked the cup from among the jetsam on the counter. He handed it to me. “This should also help with your headache.”
     
    “How did you know I have a headache?” I asked. The cup felt oddly heavy for all that it held no more than an inch of liquid.
     
    “Because I have one too,” he said.
     
    “Sorry,” I said. “I know it’s a lot to take in.” I sniffed at the cup, identifying a combination of rosemary and lavender. I took a sip. The liquid felt a little like oil on my tongue, but it was soft and cool sliding down my throat.
     
    He watched me take another sip, a considering look in his eye. “May I ask you something?” He hesitated, waiting for me to nod. “How do you know Lorenzo? Do you trust him?”
     
    My hand reached to my throat where my locket used to be. I thought hard about Orlando’s questions. Yes, there was a part of me that trusted Lorenzo—or at least thought I should. But the more I examined the dark part of me that told me I wanted to be close to him, the more false it felt. It didn’t feel real. It didn’t feel like me. It was a paper-thin want rather than a solid reality.
     
    I remembered Lorenzo’s face when he asked me for my locket and his kiss that felt more like a bruise than a caress. I remembered the taunting sneer in his voice when he fought with Orlando. I remembered the darkness in his eyes when he broke the angel statue and left us behind to clean up the mess.
     
    I clutched the cup in my hands until my knuckles hurt. “Do you?” I countered quietly, but curious. “He said you were both known as the Sons of Italy. He also said you should have stayed in prison. What was that all about?”
     
    The blood ran from Orlando’s face, draining the blue from his eyes and leaving them gray. He lowered himself back into his chair like an old man. His expression shuffled from anger to shame to resignation. “That part of my life is over,” he said quietly, looking away. “What’s done is done.”
     
    I touched his arm and made him look at me. “Lorenzo said that too. What does it mean? What have you done?”
     
    He thinned his lips to a hard line. “It doesn’t matter. But I don’t trust Lorenzo, and I know you shouldn’t trust him either.”
     
    “I don’t,” I said bluntly. “Not anymore.” At my words, I felt like a great weight had been lifted from my shoulders. The darkness was still there in my mind, but perhaps not quite as dark as before.
     
    I looked down at the cup in my hands. I drank the last drop, and while my headache disappeared along with the liquid, my heart still hurt—and so did my soul. I felt turned inside out and rubbed raw.
     
    “So what am I