I Will Remember You

Just Leave Me Alone!

“Why do you insist on coming with me?” I whined as I walked out the door of my hotel room. The guys had been nice enough to let me have my own room to myself but required it to be on the same floor as theirs. I was currently trying to dismiss the annoying Russian that had attached himself to my side.
“I am bored and you need me,” he replied without a second’s hesitation. I had to admit, I envied him. He was always so sure of himself and everything he said. Whereas, in the half day I had known him, he had me second guessing everything I said and did. He questioned almost everything I said and it bothered me. He couldn’t just let me say something without over thinking it.
“I do not need you,” I snapped, putting some emphasis on the ‘not’. He grinned and continued walking beside me, shortening his strides so I could keep up with him. “Why don’t you go bother someone else?”
“I only bother you,” he shrugged and I clenched my fists, ready to punch him if I needed to. “Where we are going?” he asked.
“Shopping,” I answered and quickened my pace, hoping by some miracle that he would decide this wasn’t going to be any fun. I actually wasn’t going shopping, but I figured most guys hated to shop and he would turn around and go back to the hotel and his team. He simply nodded his head. I sighed. “Okay, I lied,” I admitted and he nodded his head again, as if he expected this. Was I that obvious? “I’m going to the cemetery,” I muttered, looking down at the sidewalk.
“I know, that is why you need me,” he replied easily and I turned my gaze up to look into his eyes.
“How?” I asked in astonishment. He shrugged and my moment of adoration for him vanished to be replaced again with annoyance.
“You went shopping already,” he said, his eyes trailing up and down my small body. I was in fact wearing a completely new outfit. I had on dark skinny jeans, a brown leather bomber jacket, high heeled ankle boots, and a white v-neck. “And that is why you came in first place.”
“Oh, well, thanks, but I think this is something I need to do alone,” I mumbled, looking at the ground again.
“Raya, you should not do this alone,” he whispered, the intensity in his voice making me look up again, tears in my eyes now, thinking about what I was going to see. I nodded my head and dropped my eyes back to the pavement. “Why?” he asked after a few silent minutes. I looked up at him in confusion. “Why do you do this to yourself?”
“Do what?” I asked curiously. He glared at me, as if the answer should be obvious.
“Put yourself through pain and not talk about it with anyone,” he answered. I looked away again. “Raya,” his tone was demanding and I didn’t like it.
“I don’t know, okay!” I yelled, causing a few people to stare at us.
“Calm down,” he said, shushing me.
“No! I will not calm down!” I shouted. “I’m confused,” I whined.
“About what?” he asked.
“Everything!” I exclaimed, throwing my hands up in the air. “I’m trying to hide everything because I feel like I have no one to turn to. The only people who really knew me were my parents and now I find out they’re gone. Nothing is familiar, not even my appearance. You can’t understand how much things change in two years unless you have your memory erased and wake up one day two years older than you remember being,” I ranted. I don’t know why I just blurted out everything that was bothering me to someone who was almost a complete stranger to me, but I felt better. A lot better, which surprised me. “No one can understand,” I whispered. I felt a hand grab my arm and was spun around to face Malkin.
“You can always talk to me,” he whispered, the sincerity in his eyes drawing me in. I couldn’t look away, I couldn’t say anything, I couldn’t breathe. My body suddenly became incapable of everything and a buzzing rang in my ears. My skin felt like it was on fire. We stood there for another minute before I nodded my head and continued walking down the sidewalk.
“You’re going wrong way,” he said, amusement clear in his tone. I whipped around to see him smirking at me.
“I used to live here, I’m pretty sure I know where I’m going,” I snapped. And just like that, he was back to the annoying Russian boy that I couldn’t stand.

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Mariya H. Markov
Loving Mother and Wife
August 2nd, 1970-May 25th, 2007

Nikolai V. Markov
Loving Father and Husband
November 18th, 1968-May 25th, 2007

Even after staring at the tombstones, it still didn’t sink in that they belonged to my parents. I stood there for at least five minutes, just taking it all in. I closed my eyes as a wave of memories flooded my mind. My parents and I walking into our new house after living in a small apartment for the first five years of our life together. My first bike. My father and mother crying when they dropped me off for my first day of high school. Then some I didn’t remember so well. Opening the door to a police officer. Hearing the news that my parents had been in an accident. Crying in his arms for hours and hours until my best friend’s mom came over to take care of me. The funeral. The first month at my aunt’s. My boyfriend, Ross.
I hadn’t realized I was crying until a scream escaped my mouth.
“Why!” I cried into the cold Chicago air. “Why,” I whispered and fell to the ground shaking. My silent tears changed to loud sobs as I wept at my parents’ graves. “I miss you so much,” I choked out. “Why did this have to happen?”
“Raya,” a voice said from my right. The accent was Russian and it was deep. For a wild second, I thought it was my father. I looked up through my watery eyes to see Malkin. He had a pained expression on his face. I just stared at him, tears still flowing quickly from my eyes. He must have seen the hope in my eyes, because a sad smile graced his features. That was the thing about losing someone, you never really gave up hope that they’d just show up and be like “Surprise! I was here all along!”
Malkin didn’t move until another sob escaped my lips. In a flash he was on the ground beside me, pulling me into his arms. I let out another involuntary cry and he held me tighter, making shushing noises while my tears soaked his jacket. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him closer. His hands rubbed my back comfortingly as my crying slowly subsided.
“I want to go home,” I choked out after several minutes. I pulled back a little so I could see Malkin’s face.
“I book you a flight,” he muttered and pulled us both to our feet. I shook my head as he got out his cell phone.
“No, I want to go to my parents’ house,” I explained, wiping at my eyes. He looked up at me with a surprised look on his face.
“Why?” he asked. Just that simple word struck up a feeling of annoyance in me, almost overriding the feelings of despair and loneliness.
“What do you mean why?” I asked. “Shouldn’t it be obvious? I mean, if you lost your memory and then found out your parents died two years ago and you can’t remember it, wouldn’t you want to go see their house? Isn’t that pretty much what anyone in my situation would do?” I shot, my temper firing up.
“I don’t know,” he replied, not breaking our eye contact. I looked away. “Why do you want to go there?”
“I-I,” I stuttered, his question taking me off guard. I hadn’t really thought about why I wanted to go there, if I really did at all. It just seemed like the logical response. I hadn’t thought about the emotional aspect of it. “I guess I won’t really believe they’re gone unless I see our old house,” I mumbled, glancing up at his face to see him still gazing intently at me. “When I picture my mom and dad, I always see them in the house. It was such a big part of our lives since they worked so hard for it,” I explained and tears started pouring out of my eyes again. Malkin pulled me into his arms again, placing his head on top of mine since he towered over me.
“We will go,” he said and pulled away a minute later. “You know how to get there?”
I nodded my head in response and started walking in the direction of our house.
“Thank you for this, Malkin,” I mumbled after a short silence between us. He wrapped his arm around me in a side hug.
“Please, call me Evgeni or Geno,” he said and let me go. I nodded my head and we continued walking in silence.

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Almost an hour later, we finally found my old house. It looked almost exactly the same as I remembered, but also completely different. There were two brand new cars in the driveway as opposed to my parents’ old beat up pick up, a basketball hoop was now visible in the back yard, the front door was painted red instead of olive green, and all of the lights were off. When my family lived there, someone was always home seeing as both of my parents worked from home. There were always tons of flowers and plants because my mother loved to garden. When we lived there, it looked like someone actually lived there. Now, the house was orderly and dark, giving the impression that perhaps ghosts were the only residents. Had it not been for the cars in the driveway, I would have thought that to be the case.
We stood there on the sidewalk outside of my childhood home for about ten minutes in silence. Tears were silently flowing down my face and I did nothing to stop them. The silence was broken by the sound of footsteps approaching. I turned to my right to see the figure of a girl jogging towards us.
“Can I help you two?” she asked when she reached Evgeni and I. I turned to look at her closer now.
“Addy?” I asked, my mouth hanging wide in surprise. Her usually wild, curly, brown hair now looked sleek and controlled in its ponytail. She was taller than I remembered but just as thin. Her small smile turned into a frown and her chocolate brown eyes filled with confusion as soon as her name slipped through my lips. “Adelina Brown?”
“Yes, how do you know me?” she asked and my chest gave an unexpectedly painful lurch. My best friend didn’t even recognize me.
“It’s me, Raya Markov,” I whispered, my eyes filling with tears yet again. Her mouth dropped open in surprise now.
“Oh my God, Raya, is that really you?” she whispered back, extending a hand out to touch my cheek. I nodded my head and fought to keep a sob down. She pulled me into a tight hug. “God, I can’t believe it,” she whispered in my ear. We pulled away and her hand wound up and slapped me across the face. The stinging hadn’t even fully kicked in before Evgeni was in front of me, his figure menacingly towering over both me and Addy.
“Evgeni, no,” I whispered as he fired off insults in Russian. I tugged on his arm and peeked around to see Addy’s scared face staring up at him. When she saw me she glared. My heart gave another painful throb.
“How could you just cut me out of your life, Raya?” she yelled at me from the other side of Evgeni. Why couldn’t the stupid boy just let me talk face to face with her?... “I was always there for you and you just up and leave me here! You didn’t have to run from everything that reminded you of them, Raya. You didn’t have to cut ties with this place completely. You could have at least kept in touch with me. Do you know how horrible and guilty I’ve been feeling these past two years, do you!” her voice increased in pitch and the hit to my face felt like a gentle tap compared to the pain her words inflicted on my heart.
“Raya, let’s go,” Evgeni muttered to me and turned around to try and pull me away. I fought back and broke free of his grasp so I could talk to Addy. She was fuming. I had never seen her this angry.
“Ad, I can’t answer any of those questions for you because, honestly, I don’t know them anymore,” I replied, looking her in the eyes. She pursed her lips and waited for me to continue. It really was stupid of me to cut her out of my life and I wished I could remember why I did. Addy was one of my only friends in Chicago and she was the only person other than my mom that I could tell anything to. “I lost my memory of the past two years. I can’t even remember what happened to my parents. I woke up in the hospital asking for them and was told they were dead,” I explained and the anger in her visibly faded. “I keep getting flashes of images and memories, but nothing is really sticking yet.”
“Oh my God, Raya, I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed and pulled me into another hug. “Let’s go home and we’ll talk, maybe being here will bring back some memories for you. And we can talk to my mom,” she offered and began dragging me towards her house.
“Wait,” I said, suddenly stopping. Evgeni was still standing where we had been a few seconds before. I ran over to him. “Aren’t you coming with us?” I asked and he shook his head. Then I did something I never thought I would. I pulled him into a hug then stood on my tip toes and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you for everything,” I whispered and then I ran back to Addy, leaving him standing there with a blank expression on his face. “Okay, let’s go,” I said and we wrapped our arms around each other and walked down the sidewalk just like we always used to do.
“Who was that?” she asked. I shrugged my shoulders.
“He was the one who erased my memory,” I mumbled. I could tell she was confused but she didn’t push it. She knew how I was. I hated being pressed for information. Pretty much everyone that knew me understood this and just let me let out whatever I felt they needed to know. “He plays hockey for the Penguins,” I elaborated, though, I didn’t really know why.
“Oh, really?” she asked excitedly. Addy’s father lived two hours away from Pittsburgh and he took her to some of the games. That was how we had become friends, our love of hockey. “Who is he?”
“Yeah, that was Malkin,” I said, a small smile creeping its way on to my face unexpectedly. I tried to stop it, but it just wouldn’t fade.
“Looks like someone has a crush,” she sang, nudging me. I rolled my eyes.
“Please, he’s the most annoying person I can ever remember meeting,” I scoffed. She laughed.
“I’m not talking about you, Raya,” she said seriously. “You should have seen the look on his face when I hit you.”
“Whatever,” I blushed, but couldn’t stop another smile from forming on my lips. She laughed again as we continued our walk. Mostly she talked about everyone in school and I just listened. Addy was always such a blabber mouth while I remained quiet around those I didn’t consider friends.

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“Well if it isn’t my second daughter, returned at last!” Addy’s mom, Linda, exclaimed as soon as she saw the two of us. She ran to embrace me and I felt fresh tears welling up in my eyes. I hadn’t realized how much I missed her.
“Hi, Linda,” I mumbled when she let go. Linda looked exactly the same as I remembered.
“You’ve grown up so much! How come we haven’t seen you or heard from you in awhile?” she asked, taking me into their sitting room. Addy went into the kitchen to get some snacks and drinks. I just shrugged and took a seat on the couch. “Now, to what do I owe this pleasure?” she asked, taking a seat on the chair across from me. Addy returned a second later with glasses of water for me and her mom and iced tea for herself.
“Mom, Raya can’t remember anything of the past two years. You’ve always known more about her parents than anyone, maybe you can help her,” Addy said as she took a seat next to me. I grabbed her hand and squeezed it. I was thankful Addy always got straight to the point. Linda’s face fell and her eyes dropped to her hands.
“Now, Raya, are you sure you want to hear this?” she asked, looking back up at me. Our eyes locked on to each other’s and I nodded my head. She took a deep breath before launching into her explanation. “May 25th was your parents’ anniversary, as you know,” she started and I nodded my head. “So, your father decided to take your mom out to a fancy restaurant that she had been wanting to go to for some time now.”
“Jackson’s,” I blurted out, the name jumping from my mouth before it clicked in my head. I blushed when Addy and Linda turned to look at me with shocked expressions. “I just remembered how excited my mom was that night,” I mumbled and dropped my gaze to their wood floor.
“Yes, so your father decided to take your mother to Jackson’s since the financial situation was finally looking up,” Linda continued, recovering from her shock. I was hardly listening as memories flooded my mind of my mother before she left for dinner. She was wearing a gorgeous, a-line, black dress that stopped mid-calf with a pearl necklace that her great grandmother had given to her for her wedding. The two of us danced around my bedroom as we waited for my father to return from the bank. She squealed like a teenager when he burst through my door and swept her off her feet. I yelled goodbye from the porch as he carried her to the new car they had saved up for two years to buy me for my sixteenth birthday. I was smiling from ear to ear as I watched them. They were so in love even after eighteen years together. “They were on their way back to the parking lot when the men came out of the alley,” Linda said, fighting back tears of her own. “They wanted your mother’s necklace. She was going to give it to them but your father knew how much she loved it and wanted you to have it so he fought with them. One of them had a gun that accidentally went off and hit your father. They shot your mother in the leg as they ran away without the necklace. She didn’t make it to the hospital,” she finished in a whisper and started to full out cry. Addy got up and embraced her mother.
The scene in front of me was too much for me to handle. Both Addy and her mom were crying and hugging each other as if they had found out they were in my position. Meanwhile, I had no one. A girl needed at least one of her parents for something like this. I couldn’t handle it. I burst out into tears and ran from the room and then the house. My feet followed a familiar path and led me to a small park.
I walked up to the slide and climbed up to the top. I continued to cry until I felt someone climbing up behind me. I looked down to see Addy with a small smile on her face.
“I knew I’d find you here,” she whispered when she reached me. I scooted over so she could sit beside me. It was true, this was always where I came when I needed to get away from everything. I don’t know what it was about the slide, though. Maybe the ease in which you can get from one place to another. The ride was always smooth, the complete opposite of life. “Come on, Mom wants to give you something,” she said after a few silent minutes. My response was to slide to the bottom. I closed my eyes as the wind ran through my hair. That was something else great about slides. The thrill you got as you went from the top to the bottom. Even though the ride was usually short, it still felt great while it was happening.
“Look, Raya, I’m sorry,” Addy mumbled as we walked back to her house in complete silence. I shrugged my shoulders. I knew the silence was killing her but I didn’t have anything to say, I was too wrapped up in my own thoughts. We got back to her house a few minutes later and her mom was waiting for us on the porch.
“RAYA, DON’T YOU DARE RUN OFF LIKE THAT AGAIN!” she yelled as we walked up the steps.
“I’m sorry, Linda,” I mumbled and strode past her into the house. She sighed heavily and followed me in, anger gone as fast as it appeared. That was something I always loved about Linda, the way her anger never lasted. She was one of the most easy going people I knew.
“Hey, baby, I think you should have this,” she said from behind me, holding out a wooden box. I took it and my curiosity flared up. “Open it when you’re ready. It’s just a box of memories,” she whispered as she pulled me into a tight hug.
“Your ride’s here, Raya,” Addy said from the doorway.
“What?” I asked, confused. She grinned and pulled me into a hug.
“Call me when you’re ready, okay? My cell still has the same number,” she said and let go then shoved me out the door.
I rolled my eyes and turned to look towards the street. Sure enough, a black car was waiting with a tall man standing by the door. I squinted as I walked down the steps and saw that it was Evgeni. I rolled my eyes again and got into the car when he opened the door without saying a word to him.
“I don’t need taken care of,” I snapped after a minute or two of silence. He turned to look at me, as if I had taken him off guard. He recovered quickly, though.
“Clearly you do,” he said and returned to staring out the window.
“I do not,” I shot back childishly, crossing my arms over the box that was in my lap.
“Whatever,” he said with an amused grin. I glared at him even though he couldn’t see me and turned to look out my window. It was amazing the way he could completely alter my emotions. We finished the ride like that, me glaring out the window and him smirking like an idiot.