Page 18 of Pretty Nightmare

Nathan St. James was the boy next door.

Which would be fine. Because that’s actually where the story starts. Mostly.

But I already wrote that fucking story. Word. For. Word. I saw it in the journal McKay found. Nathan St. James was the boy next door. That’s what it said. Very first line.

I didn’t panic when I first figured this out. Because I had the tapes and Donovan didn’t take them back after McKay and I listened to them all that night when the truth came out.

Those were me and Donovan talking in our own words. That was my voice. That was his voice. And there was enough information in them to corroborate the story I wrote down in the journal McKay found. Angelica was on those tapes. Wendy was on those tapes. Nathan. Me. Donovan. McKay. Maggie. The jobs. The mistakes.

All of that happened. I have proof.

So why would someone—and let’s be clear here, there is only one someone capable of doing this to me—why would they prevent me from accessing anything but the sanctioned story of Indie and Nate?

That’s why I want to go backwards. That’s the missing piece here. It’s Nathan.

Something about him is wrong. I just don’t know which part.

Was it the way we met? Was it the way we spent our days? Was it the love? What? Which part is the lie?

There has to be a lie in there somewhere. That’s the only way this erasure makes sense.

And I need to know this. I will not die before I get these answers. And this is a tricky thing. Because no one knows when they’re gonna die. It might happen today. I could… I dunno. Trip and fall down the fucking porch steps and hit my head so hard, my brain swells up like Adam’s did when I hit him with the candlestick. Or hell, someone could hit me with a candlestick.

I will not die without figuring out the boy next door.

I refuse.

Because I miss him. And I want him back, even if it’s just in a memory. And now that I know someone has fucked up my head about Nathan, I can’t trust any of those memories.

Except the one where I kill him, of course. That one seems to be one-hundred-percent accurate.

I try not to think about that too much because I know there’s no way to change what happened that day. There is no way to take it back and make him real again.

But it hurts to think about Nathan. And every time I try to write in that journal and his name comes out the end of that pen, it kills me.

It kills me.

But no matter how hard I try, I can’t go backwards. Not even in my own mind.

And that’s just not right.

It needs to be fixed.

I place a small digital recorder on the table in my new living room and wait.

Donovan shoots me a quizzical look. “What’s all this?”

Getting him over to this part of the house was a process in patience. Adam and McKay are outside in the pavilion watching TV with Maggie. We had dinner out there, then I asked Donovan to come inside and help me clean up. And after we finished, he was just about to head back outside, and probably leave for Pearl Springs, when I stopped him in the hallway and asked him to come with me. And that’s how we got over here.

“This as in”—I cock my head at him—“this room? Or the recorder?”

“What’s going on, Indie?”

I huff out a little breath. “Well, this is my new space. Do you like it?”

He looks around the room, takes it all in. “Hmm. It’s OK, I guess. Kinda hot in here.” He tugs at the collar of his button-down shirt to prove his point.

“I know. I just turned the AC on this afternoon. But it’ll get better soon.”