The Power of Forgetting Read Online Free PDF

likes or
dislikes someone and shows it with how she moves around them…. I
feel a cringing feeling as I think of Hanson again. Out there in
the Ice fields, all the normal rules were misapplied. Janey was
another one of his seductions. That was why she was so antagonistic
towards him later. Like Lorraine was to me. I crawled away from the
very thought of that woman. She was out for all the boys in our
circle at college and wasn’t particular on being exclusive to one
at a time. I think… but I have no proof that she was running me,
Hanson and another lad all at the same time. That wasn’t the only
thing to say about her. But the rest only makes sense, with the
rest of the things that I felt at last I ought to tell Marcia and
Davey.
     
    We are sitting
together, the three of us. Marcia has placed a plate of snacks in
the middle of the small table. I nibble at them absently.
    ‘You said there
was something else,’ Davey picked up a spring onion and looks at me
expectantly, ‘hadn’t we better wait for Janey?’
    ‘She knows
about this…’ I said, ‘it’s less uncomfortable for her if I let you
know what has been the real difficultly all this time.’ I wasn’t
sure how to proceed so I just let my eyes lose focus and bit into a
cheese cube.
    ‘Jared….
Jared?’ Marcia’s voice is quiet insistent.
    ‘What?’ I stare
at her.
    ‘Please talk to
us,’ she said in a puzzled way, ‘are you back now?’
    ‘Where had I
been?’ I asked her and putting some crisps on my plate.
    ‘You are
drifting,’ she said, ‘perhaps we better do this on another
day?’
    ‘No! I mean no…
I need to say now.’ I look at her fully for the first time since
she arrived at the flat. She seems startled. ‘What is it?’ I asked
her then.
    Marcia moves
round and sits next to me and takes my left hand in both of hers;
‘You are very…. well distracted, after what happened earlier. I was
hoping that we could find a way to cheer you up?’ She looks
doubtful, a little edgy even. I sense that this may be Violette’s
doing. But I can’t get annoyed. Not really after the way I’ve
reacted in the past to Marcia and Davey…. They are both patient
people. Marcia was always a good friend. I think we haven’t found
our level yet, and this uncertainty is making things difficult for
everyone in our little foursome. It’s a fragile vulnerable time for
all of us. Janey and Davey are still dodging around each other. And
strangely so are Marcia and I. Relationships that are so important
that we all feel a little wary of pushing things too fast. I think
the girls are the ones who’ve decided to be more laid back on that
front…no pressure, all of that. I think Violette had been giving
out advice from the point of view of one who knows she can get her
own way, and knows when to push it and when to let it go. I guess I
don’t mind the fact of Marcia being the decision maker in all of
this. She is far more sensible about everything than the rest of
us. Davey is still getting used to the idea of have a girl around
who actually likes him. Our world back here in the place that is
not Sandglass is rather uncomfortable. I suppose it like being
released from prison; it takes a lot of adjusting to. Some of us
were out there for years. Only Davey had the crash course; the rest
of, including I suppose Hanson, were there in our time for at least
ten years. It takes it out of you. Like a dream, there is more
time, but we are still young. Does my old self that inhabits this
younger body know how to behave? Jules is the only one who had been
there longer than I had, and he was close to cracking by the end.
It took all of Violette’s powers of patience and understanding to
put up with a lot of things that have happened since. Some of them
don’t fade, but come back periodically. It’s like getting some
virus in your system. You never really get rid of it. You learn to
overcome. I was dead, or at the very most unconscious… how was I to
learn how to