The Secret I can't Remember

Chapter two

For a moment, Ethan forgot how to breathe. His phone remained in his hand, the message glowing against the screen while the noise of the cafeteria continued around him. Students laughed at nearby tables, chairs scraped against the floor, and someone behind the counter called out an order. Everything looked normal, but Ethan no longer felt part of it. His attention was fixed entirely on the four words staring back at him: She's lying to you.

Slowly, he raised his eyes toward Maya. She was still watching him, but the calm expression she had worn when she first approached the table had disappeared. Her fingers were wrapped tightly around the strap of her backpack, and there was something uncertain in her eyes. It was subtle, but Ethan noticed it immediately. He had always been good at noticing small changes in people, and right now Maya looked like someone who had just been caught standing somewhere she wasn't supposed to be.

"You know who sent that, don't you?" Ethan asked.

Maya's eyes moved briefly toward his phone before returning to his face. "Sent what?"

Ethan turned the screen toward her. "This."

She read the message. For a fraction of a second, her expression changed completely. Fear flashed across her face before she quickly looked away.

"I don't know," she said.

"You reacted."

"I reacted because you're staring at me like I'm supposed to know what that means."

"You told me you were looking for me. You came here knowing my name. You said this was about Daniel. Now someone is sending me messages telling me not to trust you. So forgive me if I'm having trouble believing that you're just some random girl who happens to know things about my missing best friend."

Maya was silent. She seemed to consider her answer carefully before finally saying, "I knew Daniel."

Ethan felt a familiar tightness in his chest. Hearing Daniel's name from someone he had never met should not have affected him so strongly, but it did. "How well?"

"Well enough."

"That's not an answer."

"I know."

"Then give me one."

Maya glanced around the cafeteria. "Not here."

Ethan almost laughed. "That's what you said before."

"And I meant it."

"Then where are we supposed to talk?"

"Somewhere no one can hear us."

Noah, who had been quietly watching the exchange, finally leaned back in his chair. "Am I supposed to leave?"

Ethan looked at him. Noah raised his eyebrows and gave him a look that clearly said he had noticed the strange atmosphere between them.

"Give us a minute," Ethan said.

Noah stood and picked up his coffee. As he walked away, he leaned slightly toward Ethan and muttered, "Whatever this is, it looks complicated."

Ethan waited until Noah was gone before turning back to Maya. "Start talking."

Maya reached into her backpack and pulled out a photograph. She placed it carefully on the table between them. Ethan looked down, and his entire body went still.

It was another photograph from three years earlier. Daniel stood in the centre, holding his camera with the familiar grin Ethan remembered so well. Ethan was beside him, looking irritated at whoever had taken the picture. But this time, Maya was there too. She wasn't hidden in the background. She was standing directly beside Daniel, close enough that Ethan knew they had not simply happened to be in the same place.

Ethan picked up the photograph. "I don't remember this."

"I know."

"When was it taken?"

"October seventeenth."

He looked at her sharply. "Where?"

"The old building."

Ethan's fingers tightened around the photograph. The same building. The same night. The same night that had been haunting him for three years.

"Why were we there?"

Maya looked at the photograph for a moment before answering. "Daniel wanted to show you something."

"What?"

"I don't know."

"You were there."

"I know."

"Then how don't you know?"

Maya's eyes met his. "Because I never got to see it."

Ethan stared at her. "What happened?"

For several seconds, she said nothing. Then she quietly admitted, "I left."

"When?"

"Before midnight."

"Why?"

Maya looked toward the cafeteria windows. Outside, clouds still covered the sky, turning the campus grey. "I was scared."

"Of what?"

She looked back at him. "The person who was there."

Ethan felt his stomach drop. "What person?"

"I don't know who they were."

"But you saw them?"

"Yes."

"Then describe them."

"I can't."

"You can't, or you won't?"

Maya's expression hardened slightly. "I can't."

Something in her voice made Ethan stop questioning her for a moment. She did not sound like someone trying to avoid the truth. She sounded like someone who was genuinely afraid of it.

Maya reached into her backpack again and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. She pushed it across the table. Ethan unfolded it and immediately recognized the handwriting.

Daniel's handwriting.

His best friend's handwriting.

There was no mistaking it. Ethan had seen it thousands of times, on school notes, birthday cards, assignments, and scraps of paper passed between them during class.

The message was short.

If something happens to me, don't trust anyone who says they were there that night.

Ethan read it once.

Then again.

He looked up. "Where did you get this?"

Maya did not answer.

"Where did you get it?"

"I found it."

"Where?"

Her eyes remained fixed on his. "Room 214."

The number hit him like a physical blow.

For a moment, Ethan was back inside that dark hallway from the photograph. He could almost hear footsteps behind him. He could almost hear Daniel's voice. His mind reached for the memory, but it slipped away before he could grasp it.

"You've been there recently," he said.

Maya nodded.

"Why?"

"Because I thought there might still be something there."

"Did you find anything else?"

She hesitated.

"Yes."

"What?"

Maya reached into her bag one more time and removed a small black memory card. Ethan stared at it.

"What's that?"

"Daniel's."

"How do you know?"

"I saw him put it inside his camera that night."

Ethan leaned closer. "Do you still have the camera?"

"No."

"Where is it?"

"Someone took it."

"Who?"

"I don't know."

There were too many questions now. Every answer seemed to create two more. Ethan looked at the memory card again, trying to understand how something so small could possibly contain the truth about a night he had spent three years trying to remember.

"What is on it?"

"I don't know."

Ethan looked at her incredulously. "You found it and you haven't checked?"

"I didn't have anything to read it with."

"Then why bring it to me?"

Maya gave him a faint smile. "Because I knew you would."

Ethan frowned. "What does that mean?"

"Daniel used to say that you noticed things other people didn't."

The mention of Daniel changed something in her expression. For the first time, Ethan saw genuine sadness in her eyes.

"You two were close," he said.

"We were."

"What happened between you?"

Maya looked down at the photograph. "Nothing."

Ethan shook his head. "That's not true."

She looked up.

"Nothing happened between us," she said quietly.

He studied her face. There was something she was keeping from him. He could feel it, just as clearly as he could feel the growing certainty that Maya knew much more about Daniel's disappearance than she was willing to admit.

Yet she was also the first person in three years who had given him something real. A photograph. A message written by Daniel. A memory card that might contain evidence from the night everything went wrong.

For the first time since Daniel disappeared, Ethan felt as though the locked door in his memory might finally have a key.

He reached toward the memory card.

Maya stopped him.

"Not here."

Ethan looked at her. "Why?"

"Because if the person who sent you those messages knows about this card, they'll know you have it."

"You think they're watching us?"

Maya shook her head. "I don't think."

Her voice dropped to a whisper.

"I know."

Ethan slowly looked around the cafeteria. Nothing appeared unusual. Students continued talking and eating. A group near the windows laughed loudly over something on one of their phones. A lecturer walked past carrying a stack of papers. Everything looked ordinary, but Ethan suddenly found himself wondering how many people in the room were actually paying attention to them.

He turned back to Maya. "Where do we go?"

"I know a place."

"Where?"

"The old photography building."

Ethan stared at her. "The building where Daniel disappeared?"

Maya nodded.

"We can read the card there."

For several seconds, Ethan said nothing. He knew he should be cautious. Every instinct he had was telling him that following Maya into the same building where Daniel had disappeared was a terrible idea. Yet another part of him, the part that had spent three years searching for answers, knew he could not walk away now.

"Why would you take me back there?" he asked.

Maya stood and adjusted the strap of her backpack. Her eyes remained on him.

"Because that's where you left something behind."

Ethan frowned. "What?"

Maya's expression became strangely sad.

"Your memory."

She turned and walked toward the cafeteria doors.

Ethan remained seated for several seconds, staring after her. Then he looked down at the photograph of himself, Daniel, and Maya from three years earlier.

For the first time, he noticed something he had missed before.

Daniel wasn't smiling at the camera.

He was looking at Maya.

And the expression on his face wasn't friendly.

It was fear.

Ethan quickly stood and followed her.

Neither of them noticed the man sitting alone near the far window. He had been watching their table since Maya arrived, his untouched coffee growing cold in front of him. When Ethan and Maya disappeared through the cafeteria doors, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

He opened a conversation with an unnamed contact and typed a single sentence.

They're going back to the building.

The response arrived almost immediately.

Then let them.

The man stared at the screen.

Another message appeared.

This time, make sure Ethan remembers everything.