The Forgotten Locket by Lisa Mangum Page A

words. To the spaces between the words. Can you feel them? Can you hear them? Are you listening?”
     
    The rhythm of his words matched the rise and fall of his chest, echoed the steady beating of his heart.
     
    I nodded again, not daring to speak. I didn’t want to interrupt the smooth flow of sound against my ear. I didn’t want to start falling again.
     
    The words he spoke washed over me in a waterfall. The relentless rhythm of his voice surrounded me and swept through me. The words melted into each other endlessly, effortlessly.
     
    The music of his voice seemed to seep into my body. The cadence threatened to rock me to sleep even though I’d never felt more awake. I was acutely aware of everything that was happening to me, around me, inside me. Slowly, the beat of my heart, the flow of my blood, and the breath in my lungs drew into alignment, each element working perfectly with the next.
     
    I felt cool and smooth. Weightless. Balanced.
     
    I felt, if not exactly whole, at least closer to being healed.
     
    Turning my face upward, I let the tears that had pooled in my eyes slide down my cheeks without bothering to wipe them away.
     
    With a sound like an avalanche, the block in my mind cracked, crumbled, and was washed away. I took a deep breath, feeling free, body and soul.
     
    And at the touch of his lips to mine, I remembered.
     
    I felt like the river had split again, but this time, a branch had entered me, washing me clean. Wave after wave of memory welled up, an endless, bubbling spring of faces, names, events, emotions, and moments that I knew I would never forget. All those small, individual memories that made up me.
     
    I remembered the birthday party when I had turned six. My family had set up a mini–bowling alley in the basement, and we had invited Jason and his family over to celebrate together. Jason had bowled a strike on his first frame and then refused to play anymore; he didn’t want to ruin a perfect score.
     
    I remembered the first time I’d tasted crème brulée: the sound of my spoon breaking through the crust of caramelized sugar, the taste of the smooth vanilla custard with a hint of passion fruit layered in.
     
    I remembered each individual day when I first met Natalie. Valerie. Leo.
     
    More: Reading Heart of Darkness. Dancing alone in my room, dressed in my pajamas and striped socks. Waiting up with Hannah to watch the ball drop on New Year’s Eve. Hanging stockings on Christmas Eve. Crying when my pet turtle, Lightning, died.
     
    I remembered lying in the grass on a sweet summer night and counting the stars.
     
    I remembered a black door, a brass hinge, and the sound of silver chimes ringing through me. The chains that linked me with Tony, V, and Zo. The light in Valerie’s eyes as she vacillated between sanity and madness. The photograph that protected Natalie.
     
    I remembered everything.
     
    I opened my eyes, feeling like a veil had been torn away. I felt the weight of my life return to me and settle on my shoulders, on my heart. But it didn’t feel like a burden to be carried. It felt like a mantle of power. This was my life in all its glory, the good and the bad. This was who I was. I had made the choices that had shaped me. And now that the puzzle pieces of my life, my memories, had been restored, I could go forward, making new choices that would shape my future.
     
    Among the wild cascade of light and sound in my mind, though, there was one memory that gleamed the brightest, that felt the sharpest and clearest and cleanest.
     
    And he was standing before me, his arms still around me, his mouth still close to mine.
     
    His name was Dante.
     
    He was the part of me that had been missing.
     
    Now he was back, and we were together. Finally. Forever and always. The way we were meant to be.
     
    I was whole. I was home.
     
    And I was never going to let him go.
     

Chapter 9
     
    Abby?”
     
    I smiled at the sound of my nickname. It felt so good to be wearing