Remember Me - Part 17: Meeting Miranda Randall and I stood in the foyer, waiting for the first part of Steph’s plan to unfold. “Remember,” Randall said, “Don’t lay it on her too thick, or the whole thing is over.” “Got it,” I said. Then we saw Steph making her way back to the foyer with Miranda trailing behind, still holding her Solo cup. The plan was to have Steph go into the living room, grab Miranda and tell her she needed to talk to her ASAP. Then, Steph would take Miranda out to the crowded foyer, proceed to tell her that one of their friends’ boyfriends was hitting on her and she wanted to ask Miranda what she should do, but right after mentioning the guy’s name, Steph would tell Miranda she was feeling some pain in her stomach and she’d excuse herself to the bathroom after telling Miranda to wait for her. While Steph was in the bathroom, I would make my move. We saw her talking to Miranda, whom had her hands across her chest. Steph was making all these hand motions, and then she grabbed onto her stomach. Miranda put a hand on Steph’s shoulder, but Steph waved her hand as if she didn’t need any help. Steph held up one finger and scurried off to the bathroom adjacent to the staircase. “Good luck, bro,” Randall said as he smacked my shoulder again. “I think I’m gonna need another drink. Be in the parlor. Tell me how it goes.” I swallowed. “Thanks.” I had told Steph not to say anything about me to Miranda, and to give me at least ten minutes, so she was going to wait a minute or so in the bathroom until I had Miranda’s attention in order for her to sneak out and hang in the parlor. The timer had started, and it was time for me to finally meet the girl of my dreams, literally. I walked a little slower than usual, making my way over to Miranda, whom stood with her arms re-folded across her chest after placing her cup on a small half-table against the wall. I could hear my heart thumping in my ears and a knot twisted in my stomach. When I was less than five feet away from her, I took a deep breath in and let it out. “Hey, Miranda,” I said. I didn’t know how I pulled it off so smoothly. She turned to look at me with her striking, blue eyes. “Um, hi?” she said as she raised her eyebrows. Her voice was satin smooth. “How are you?” I asked. “Uh,” she paused and looked around, as if she thought I was talking to someone else. She narrowed her eyes, and in a slightly annoyed tone, asked: “Can I help you?” “What,” I asked calmly, “I can’t ask you how you’re doing?” She put one arm down, resting her hand on her hip. Her other hand, an open palm, “I don’t see why you would.” She was making my attempt at making small talk very difficult. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I just wanted to come over and say hi some time tonight when I knew you were free. I saw you earlier with your friends, and I thought you looked really good,” I said as charmingly as I could. I pulled the ‘saw you with your friends’ lie right out of my ass. I didn’t know if she’d been with her friends or not. I only assumed because Steph said she’d saw Miranda earlier. I hoped I was correct. “Oh,” she said, just a tad nicer now. “Well, I’m fine, thanks.” “That’s good,” I said, “Are you having a good time?” “Mhm,” she said, not looking at me directly. “Have you tried the punch? Man,” I laughed, “that stuff is--“ “I don’t drink,” she said coldly, now looking at me. “You know that.” Fuck. Fuck me. Fuck my amnesia. “Oh, yeah, sorry. I-I forgot.” “Right,” she said. “Steph is in the bathroom and she’ll be out in a minute, so I think you should go,” she said with a pinch of aggravation. “Miranda, I--“ I stammered. She started walking away. I risked the possible rest of a conversation with her by lightly grabbing her shoulder. “Wait.” She flipped around. “What? What could you possibly want?” she belted. “A chance to know what happened,” I said with a little sadness in my voice. She narrowed her eyes again. “I understand how you felt after I got amnesia,” I began, “and I’m so, so sorry. I can’t even imagine how hard it must’ve been for you--but I got better.” She tried to say something, but I kept talking, afraid she would try to leave again. “Miranda,” I said, a little welt building in my throat, “I remember everything we did together. Everything.” Even though I didn’t, I knew I one day would. I knew I would one day get my memory back, and it would suck ten million times more than it did now, being able to remember my true-felt feelings for her and knowing she wasn’t mine anymore. Knowing that she was with another guy and all of our love and memories were lost in the past. How would I live with that? “I remember how I met you in English class, and how you were so excited that I had the banana card. And how you said we ‘should be good partners’ even though the pairing had nothing to do with it,” I said, kind of laughing. “Remember how you told Mrs. Davis we already knew what she was trying to teach us, and we got a zero?” “What on Earth are you talking about?” “Oh, c’mon, you know,” I said. “You couldn’t have forgotten.” She looked at me blankly. I thought she was trying to spite me at first, pretending she had forgotten. But then I realized that she might have genuinely forgotten. She might have broken up with me and decided she never wanted anything to do with me ever again, and she just stopped thinking about me. All these years, it might’ve been easy to forget all those things we did. I felt alone, like she and I were the only ones in this whole house. Like the only thing keeping her here was the fact that she had, in fact, been a part of all the projects and adventures we did. But, she was slowly fading away from me because she urged herself to forget it all. It broke my heart. I felt like an empty soul pouring false knowledge out of my heart in hopes to win her back, but I was losing. I took an even bigger risk and held her hand. It was soft and warm, pancaked between mine. “Miranda,” I said slowly, the pain evident in my voice, “the treehouse. Our treehouse. Our Memories...” She yanked her hand away and shouted, angrily: “What the hell, Locke?” “It’s me,” I choked, “God, Miranda, please!” “I don’t know you anymore,” she said. “And I don’t know who you think you are, coming up to me and talking to me about some fantasy treehouse shit. What the fuck are you on? Are you drunk?” “I’m not drunk,” I cried, “I just wanted to tell you I still care about you!” “Still care about me? What, after, like, three years? Huh?” She shrieked, “and after you fucking cheated on me?” “I didn’t cheat on you--it was a misunderstanding!” I still didn’t know what exactly had happened, for sure, between Miranda and me, but I just went with it. “I would never, ever cheat on you.” I paused just for a second, “Miranda, I love you.” I regretted the words as soon as they passed my lips. She made a horribly disgusted face and then picked up her Solo cup and threw the liquid on me. Water. Slowly, she spit through her teeth: “I never want to see your fucking face again.” And she left.