In My Lover's Mind

Anticipation

The fire crackled gently, filling the silence in the air. Where to start? What did I want to know most? Victor was right, I had no way of knowing how helpful any of this would be. Helpful or not, there was one thing I wanted to know though.

"How did it feel when you found out?" I asked.

He let out a small laugh and shook his head. "Imagine how you would feel if you picked up a book one day and found out you were a character in it. Not even the main character. Just one of dozens."

"I suppose I'd be a little surprised," I admitted. "I'm not asking about me though. How did you feel?"

"Right, sorry," he sighed. "I guess it's easier for me to deflect things onto you than relive it myself."

"Victor, if it's too much-"

"No, it's fine," he insisted. "It's probably about time I talked to somebody about this. Who better to talk to than you? I think I told you the short version before, so I guess I'll give the long version now.

It was a typical day. Tommy and I spent most of it arguing. We had some kind of big fight right before bed. Funny thing, it really pissed me off at the time, but I don't even remember what it was about anymore."

"I'm guessing it probably seemed really minuscule compared to what happened after," I suggested.

"God, if that ain't the truth," he muttered. "Anyway, like I said, I was pissed. I tried sleeping it off, but I couldn't. After I heard the clock around two-ish, I gave up. Figured I'd walk around the house for a while and see if it would help me calm down. I'm not even sure how long I walked around for. I must have run out of places to wander to though, because, somehow, I ended up in one of the studies."

"Right, you don't really go in there much, do you?"

"I'm not really the bookish type," he admitted, shrugging. "Not like I had anything better to do though. Anyway, I go in there and there's this big book sitting on top of the desk. You can probably guess what it was. I don't know if Tommy forgot to put it up or if he just assumed I'd never go in there, but either way, it was there.

It looked more like an album than an actual book. I guess that's what made me curious enough to look at it. I flipped to a random page. I don't even remember who I landed on. At first, I thought it was some kind of genealogy thing. Maybe Tommy was tracking my ancestors or something, who knew? Then I turned to the first page."

My mind flashed back to my first time seeing the book. The first page. The first person listed there.

"Jack," I said simply.

"You got it." His voice had a hint of bitterness. "I thought it had to be a joke. Maybe I'd read something wrong, or maybe it was Tommy's fantasy book of people he wished I was. I read through some more of the profiles though and, slowly, things started to make sense.

There were always gaps in my memory. I'd wake up one day, go to bed, then wake up three days later. Or three weeks later. Or anything in between really. When I did finally have some conscious thoughts, they didn't make sense. I had scraps of all these memories, but none of them were things I would do.

Wandering around the garden? Cooking? Library books? None of those were things I did. I used to think that maybe they happened when I would blackout drinking, but it still didn't explain why I was doing things that were so out of character."

"Not to interrupt, but exactly how much were you drinking to think you were blacking out that often?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.

He smiled playfully. "Well... Let's just say you were right earlier. I am drinking a lot less than I used to."