META'S POV:
The conflicting narratives were a puzzle I couldn't solve, and the quiet, suffocating tension between my friends only made the pieces more scattered. Dom's face was a study in profound worry; his eyes, whenever they met mine, held a desperate, unspoken plea, as if he were a man trying to defuse a bomb with the wrong instructions. But Lance… Lance was different. He was a stone wall, watchful and protective. I didn't get the impression that he was actively preventing Dom from speaking, but rather that he was a silent advocate for a different, more cautious course of action. It wasn't a conflict of wills, but a quiet, agonizing disagreement between two loyal friends over what was best for Thyme.
And what was best for Thyme, according to them, was a mystery I wasn't privy to. I was a stranger to them in this moment, an outsider looking in on a secret I was desperately trying to understand.
This isolating feeling only fueled my resolve. The logical part of my brain told me to focus on the facts: Thyme was gone. I had a giant, gaping hole in my memory that was undeniably connected to him. Dom had told me to look for clues in my past, but my fragmented memories were a list of fourteen places that felt… incomplete. In each memory, I was alone, but a ghost of an emotion, a whisper of a presence, told me I had been with someone else. I knew, with a certainty that defied logic, that the person had been Thyme.
But this wasn't the time to chase ghosts. I needed to prove my amnesia, to find a witness who could fill in the blanks, and the only person who could do that was my sister, Thanya. I didn't want to confront her. I suspected her of being a part of the plot to separate Thyme and me. But I had no other choice. She was the final piece of the puzzle I had left to turn over.
I pulled into the driveway of our house, the car tires crunching on the gravel. I spotted Thanya just as she was coming in from the garden, her school uniform slightly rumpled, her face flushed from the heat. Her cheerful smile was a stark contrast to the storm raging inside me.
"Phi, why are you home?" she asked, her eyes lighting up as she ran to me, her arms outstretched for a hug.
I sidestepped her, the knot in my stomach tightening. "I came home so we can talk." My voice was flat, devoid of emotion.
Her smile vanished instantly. A flicker of confusion crossed her face, replaced by a nervous apprehension. "Talk about what?" Her hands went to her sides, fidgeting with the hem of her uniform.
"Not here," I said, my gaze sweeping the open-plan living room. "Let's go to your room."
Her eyes widened, and a jolt of panic shot through them before she quickly masked it. "In my room? Why in my room?" Her voice was a tight, desperate whisper.
"There's something in your room that I want to discuss," I said, watching her carefully. I expected her to argue, to deny, to panic. But instead, a sad, knowing smile touched her lips.
"Oh," she said, her shoulders slumping in a gesture of resignation. "I see you already know. Yes, it's better to talk in my room. It's soundproof. No one can eavesdrop on our conversation."
Her words were a cold shock. A soundproof room? This was not the reaction of a girl with a secret; this was the reaction of a co-conspirator. My carefully laid plan to expose her lies was already crumbling. She led the way upstairs, and I followed, every step bringing me closer to a truth I wasn't sure I was ready to face.
Thanya led the way to her room, and I followed, the silence between us heavy with unspoken accusations and assumptions. She entered first, her movements deliberate and slow. As soon as I stepped in, she closed the door behind me with a soft, final click. It was soundproof. The outside world, with all its normal sounds and distractions, was gone. We were sealed in, two combatants in a quiet room, ready to unearth a truth that had been buried for years.
She went straight to her bed, knelt down, and pulled out the box I had seen before. The box. My blood ran cold. The box that held the pictures of Thyme. The box that, in a moment of utter confusion, had convinced me that my own sister was secretly in love with the boy I was falling for. That single misunderstanding, that one piece of circumstantial evidence, had been enough for me to try and shut down my feelings for Thyme, to try and do the "right thing" for my sister. But then my fragmented memories had returned, a jolt of recognition that was too strong to ignore. And now, here she was, holding the very thing that had started this spiral of doubt and self-sacrifice. Was this a new manipulation? A threat? I felt a knot of suspicion tighten in my chest, and I resolved to be cautious.
She placed the box on the bed and pulled out a few photos, her fingers tracing the edges of the worn paper. "You've already seen these photos, right, Phi?" she asked, her voice soft. I was expecting a hostile tone, a defensive edge, but her eyes were full of a deep, sorrowful sadness. Her lips held a faint, pained smile, as if she were carrying a heavy weight she was finally about to set down. It was illogical. Another variable I couldn't account for.
"Yes, I saw them last week when I came home," I said, my voice deliberately flat. I was playing a game of chess, and I needed to keep my emotions from showing.
She looked up at me then, a question in her tear-filled eyes. "When you saw them, what was the first thing that came to your mind?"
A mind game. I thought. Fine. I will play. I decided to be brutally honest. "When I saw those pictures, I came to the understanding that my own sister was secretly in love with Thyme, and I was getting in her way."
The words hung in the air. A flash of genuine shock crossed her face, and then she laughed. It wasn't a happy sound; it was a short, sharp bark of disbelief, edged with a deep, heartbreaking sadness. "I see," she said, shaking her head. "Before I tell you the truth… these pictures aren't the only reason you wanted to talk to me, are they, Phi?"
My breath hitched. We did share a brain. She knew me completely. "No," I responded, the word a cold, hard stone.
"If my guess is right," she continued, her voice gaining a new sense of urgency, "you want to know what your relationship with Thyme was, what happened to cause your car accident, and why you can't remember any of it."
As she spoke, something shifted inside me. I had been so busy building my own case, so lost in my suspicions, that I had misjudged her completely. Of all the people in the world, Thanya was the one who had always been there. The one who stayed with me, even when we were poor and bullied. She was my constant. A wave of guilt, sharp and painful, washed over me. I had let my paranoia turn her into a suspect. I just nodded, unable to speak, waiting for the truth to come.
"You were right about one thing," she began, her voice barely a whisper. "You and Thyme were a couple back in high school. It was a secret relationship, but some people knew. I knew. Dom and Lance knew—they were Thyme's best friends, after all. Even Ratchanee, Thyme's sister, knew about it."
A cold dread settled in my heart. So Dom and Lance were hiding something. They were protecting Thyme. And Ratchanee, Thyme's sister, knew about us but acted like I was a stranger. My mind immediately went to the pictures of the family without Thyme. Was she one of them? Was she an accomplice in the plot to separate us? My thoughts began to spiral, but I forced myself to stop. Not now. I had to stay focused.
"I always supported you, Phi," Thanya continued, her voice filled with a quiet intensity. "Even when I discovered the truth, I kept it a secret. But then an incident happened. A picture of you and Thyme holding hands was spread all over our school's social media. It caused a huge uproar. You were both famous. Thyme was the lead vocalist of a popular band, and you… you were the cold, untouchable 'prince.' With the revelation of your relationship, a lot of incidents started happening. People started to threaten Thyme, trying to get him away from you. You saved him from being hit by a car, but you got into the accident instead."
The words hit me like a physical blow. The anger I had been suppressing, the cold, hard rage I had felt for the people who had separated us, now boiled over into a righteous fury. Was this what they called love? Or was it just possessiveness? Playing with people's lives to get what they wanted? It made no sense.
Thanya's hand went to my arm, her touch soft and calming. "Phi, you need to calm down. I know you're angry at the people who did this to Thyme… I still am. But we could never track them down. Everything they did was so well-organized. At one point, I thought they were some kind of mafia syndicate. But the truth is, you had so many admirers, Phi, that it was impossible to figure out who the true enemy was."
I felt the anger drain out of me, replaced by a deep-seated weariness. She was right. For a brief moment, I had lost control. "Sorry," I said, shaking my head. "What happened after the accident?"
Thanya took a deep breath, and her eyes, filled with a fresh wave of sadness, looked down at the pictures in her hands. She was about to give me the rest of the story, and I had a feeling it would be even more devastating than the first part. I could see the words forming on her lips, a confession she had been holding onto for years, a burden she was about to share with me.
"Our parents discovered your relationship with Thyme, Phi, and..." Her voice cracked, and she stopped, a single tear tracing a path down her cheek. Then another, and another, until her quiet sadness became an unrestrained sob. She buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with the weight of it all.
In that moment, all my cold, analytical logic vanished. The detective persona I had built to protect myself shattered. I saw not a suspect, but my little sister, broken and carrying a heavy burden that was never hers to bear. The truth I had been seeking was right here, in her tears, and I had been too blind to see it. I had been so convinced of a conspiracy that I had missed the most important clue of all: the deep, silent grief of my own family.