Free Plasma Frequency Magazine: Issue 12 by Arley Page B

and scooped something from the corner —her clothes, Brian saw—then stepped past him into the hall.
    He closed the door and turned toward her. She was staring at the floor, shifting her weight from foot to foot. "Let's get out of here. Come on."
    "No." She shook her head, eyes locked on his feet. "I can't leave yet. I can't."
    "Danielle, it's over. It's done. Whatever you were doing here —"
    "No. It's not over." She raised her eyes, jaw clenched. "I'm not leaving until he takes my memory."
    "Of what? Dani, what are you doing? " Even as he asked, he realized he didn't want to know. He never wanted her to answer him. Never.
    But after hesitating a moment, she sighed and leaned against a wall, her eyes fixing on the ceiling. "It's... it's like porn, I guess. People who need money, we come here and we...we do...things...and Harris sells the memories. But the money's good, I can buy back your senior year after—"
    "You do things." Brian's voice sounded faint in his ears. "What things?"
    "I don't know. I honestly don't. I mean, I know I fake it because I only get acting fees from appearing in the guys' memories and not royalties from sales on my own, but that's it. Some of the sellers, the men especially, they like to buy back copies of the memories so they know, but not me. I—it's hard enough having the hints. Seeing what I'm wearing when he takes the probes out. Remembering who was in the room when I walked in, and talking through a basic script. Feeling the sore spots..."
    "Sore spots." Brian could feel his hands shaking .
    Danielle finally met his gaze. She reached out and touched his face. "Hey. It's OK. It's not—it's not so bad, really. I can't remember it, so it didn't happen, you know?"
    It didn't happen. It didn't happen. We can't remember meeting, so it didn't happen. "Dani...God, Dani, you didn't have to do this. You—"
    "I did." She straightened to face him full on. "I'm the reason we're in this mess, Brian, you've made that plenty clear —"
    "I didn't —"
    “ —and there's no way we were going to get out of it, not with your salary and me selling three or four pieces a year. We'd never make enough. We'd never be able to get your transcripts unlocked, we'd never have a house or kids or any of it, we'd never remember how we met or even get any of the stuff we wrote down about it, and you expected me to sit around painting trees?"
    "You could have talked to me. We could have figured something out."
    "We could have yelled at each other, you mean." Her eyes darted away from his face again. "It doesn't matter anymore. Let me just sell this last memory and we'll finally be above water, and we can remember. That's what counts, right?"
    He wanted to say no, that what mattered was who they were now. He wanted to say yes, that maybe if he 'd remembered something crucial about her he would have known this was coming. He wanted to say that he'd never be above water, not now. But he didn't know which he wanted to say more, so he said nothing.
    After a moment, she said, "I'll meet you at home, OK? Go ahead and make an appointment with the loan officers." She hesitated, then kissed his cheek. "I love you."
    "Yeah." He watched her go back into the room, then made his way back toward the car.
    They had enough. They finally had enough. He'd make the appointment, and as soon as the end of the week, he might remember talking to Danielle, giving her a nervous first kiss, making love to her for the first time...
    It'd be double if I did that.
    How many.
    Sore spots.
    You took it like a pro.
    It didn't happen.
    It didn't happen.
    It didn't happen.
    Brian drove home to wait for his wife, trying not to wonder what she'd forgotten.
     
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
    Rachel Kolar is a graduate of Kenyon College whose work has appeared in  Leading Edge, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Tales of the Talisman, and The Colored Lens. She, her husband, and their two children live in the Baltimore/Washington area. When not writing