Chapter Fifteen
Fifteen
Nolan’s room is chaos. The entire family is there, including Aunt Sheila and the guy Alice has finally nailed down as Uncle Joe, plus what looks like every nurse and resident on shift today.
People are bustling around, calling things out to each other, Babs is wailing loudly with happiness, and Alice tries to disappear into the background.
Her mind is spinning. She should be figuring out her next step here—she needs to act quickly.
He’s awake; that means it’s time to come clean.
To tell the Altmans about the misunderstanding, to plead for their forgiveness that she let this charade get so out of hand.
It was always the plan to tell them right when he woke up so that their elation would keep them from realizing how weird her obsession with the family is, how fucked up it is that she (technically never) lied to them.
But now that it’s happening, now that “when he wakes up” is the same time as “right now,” it feels impossible.
It’s so busy and frantic in the room; what did she expect?
That it would be quiet and soft, only the family there, maybe just Babs and Marie, actually, and she’d say, “Okay, so, fun fact about me…” and they’d all say, “Whatever, honey!” and that would be that?
What the fuck kind of plan was this? Why the hell did she convince herself this was going to work?
“Holy shit,” she hears one of the young doctors whisper to another. “I’d have bet serious money this guy wasn’t waking up.”
“Dude, I know,” the other whispers back. “Never would’ve seen this coming.”
Oh right. That’s why.
Because the good thing has never happened to Alice in this hospital.
Every test to “rule something out” always came back positive.
Every operation that had a good chance of success failed.
Every condition they could have survived, they didn’t.
Her mom died. Her dad died. At one point or another, both of her parents had better odds than Nolan did after nine days, and they both died.
Alice didn’t think he would wake up.
But he did. And it’s not that she’s upset about it—she’s thrilled for him, for the family—but she’s quickly realizing that she is well and entirely fucked.
She looks over and sees Van wiping a tear off her cheek, and her heart clenches.
The plan was shitty twenty minutes ago, but as of ten minutes ago, this is a full-fledged catastrophe.
Ten minutes ago, Alice had her tongue in Van’s mouth, her hands under Van’s sweater.
Alice was literally groping Nolan’s sister ten minutes ago, only feet away, and now Van is crying with joy that he’s awake and what Alice is about to tell her is going to absolutely ruin everything.
No way can they come back from this enormous lie.
No way can Alice see any of the Altmans ever again, nor would they want to see her.
The girl who lied to them, who manipulated them during the worst nine days of their lives, the girl who abused their kindness and ended up pitting Van against her comatose brother.
No way will Van ever want to kiss her again.
“Van,” Alice says, because she’s already losing what nerve she has, but she has to do this before Nolan sees her and asks who she is. “I have to tell you something.”
Van is turning to look at her, but at that moment, Nolan says, “Marie, when did you dye your hair back?” and the whole family stills.
Alice looks sharply over at Marie, who has the same jet-black hair as everyone else in the family.
Is it dyed? It looks natural, but what does Alice know?
She’s not a cosmetologist. Although there were those couple of pictures of Marie from high school on the wall when she had bright blue hair, weren’t there?
“What?” Marie asks. Maybe they all heard him wrong.
“Your hair,” Nolan says, blinking as a resident shines a light into his eye. “It was blue.”
“Nolie,” Babs says, her voice weirdly high. “Marie got rid of the blue for her sophomore musical. That was…years ago, honey.”
Nolan blinks, clearly confused. “It…was?”
“What the hell,” Van whispers. She’s not taking her eyes off the bed, but her hand finds Alice’s, and she squeezes it so hard that Alice starts to worry about permanent damage.
But it’s the last time they’ll ever hold hands—not to mention the first—so Alice swallows back her wince of pain and returns the pressure as best she can.
“Nolan,” his dad says, leaning down over him. “What’s the last thing you remember, son?”
Nolan shrugs, still prostrate in the bed. “I don’t know. Being at work. Talking to Angela about the Howerman case.”
“Angela?” Babs says, looking at her husband with what Alice thinks might be panic. “Wasn’t she…doesn’t she work in L.A.?”
“Yeah,” Nolan says slowly. He looks like he’s aware there are some puzzle pieces missing, but he has no idea how many or what it means. “She has the office next to mine.”
“In L.A.,” Steve says, and Nolan nods.
“Obviously, yeah. In L.A. Is that not…Aren’t we in L.A.?”
Van’s grip gets even tighter. Alice can feel the sweat on her palm. “Fuck,” she mutters, and Alice figures that’s pretty apt.
“Nolie, honey, what year is it?” Babs asks, and Alice doesn’t need to hear his wrong answer to know what’s going on.
Nolan is missing almost five years of his life. He thinks he still lives in L.A. He doesn’t remember moving back to Portland. Doesn’t remember Marie graduating from high school.
Doesn’t remember ever seeing Alice before, not even the four times he said hi, the three times he said hey, and the two times he said how’s it going.
The men and Aunt Sheila try to play it cool while the doctors and nurses spring back into action, but Babs has to step outside to wail, Marie tucked under her arm.
Van looks like a statue. A sweaty, terrified, squeezing statue. “Van,” Alice says softly. “Van, honey, look at me.”
Van does, slowly, but as soon as her eyes hit Alice, something crumbles in her face. “Oh no, Alice,” she breathes, her free hand coming up to grip Alice’s arm as hard as she’s squeezing her hand. “Oh god. He doesn’t remember you. Oh my god.”
“No,” Alice says quickly. “No, no, I don’t care about that.
Don’t worry about that. I just—are you okay?
Do you need to sit down or something?” She looks desperately around the room.
Aunt Sheila has pushed both Steve and Uncle Joe down into the chairs the nursing staff have shoved aside, and the room is humid and loud and claustrophobic.
“Let’s go outside for a breath,” Alice says, and Van wordlessly follows her out of the room. Alice takes her to their balcony, and Van doesn’t even let her close the door behind them before she’s folded herself into Alice’s arms.
Alice takes her weight with a little grunt, adjusting her feet and wrapping her arms low around Van’s waist, holding her up the best she can.
She tries not to think about how Van had done the same thing to her fifteen minutes ago in the bathroom—shifted her feet to hold Alice up, pressed her hands tight to Alice’s back.
Van huffs out loud, harsh breaths into Alice’s neck, her fingers digging into Alice’s shoulders. She doesn’t say anything, and Alice doesn’t either, but her mind is racing in panicked circles, back on her hamster wheel of doom.
He’s awake, yes, but they’re not elated. Van is crying into her shoulder, and Babs is sobbing all over Marie a few feet away. Steve looks like he might have a heart attack, and even Aunt Sheila is in a stunned sort of silence.
Alice has to tell them now, but now is turning out to be worse than ever.
—
“Amnesia?” Isabella’s voice is louder and higher pitched than Alice has heard it since they were in kindergarten. “Are you mucking kidding me? He woke up but he has amnesia?”
Alice shakes her head, picking at the plate in front of her.
She’d texted Isabella something garbled that must have seemed distressing, because Bella had strapped both kids in the car and driven down toward Portland Grace without hesitation, leaving Henry to finish his afternoon mushroom forage alone.
They’re at a burger restaurant nearby, between the highway and the river, both kids suitably distracted by the unfailing combination of screen time and pre-dinner French fries.
“Girl,” Isabella says, her eyes wide. “I’m sorry, but what is your life?”
Alice almost laughs. “I don’t know,” she admits, picking up a fry and then dropping it back down again. “I can honestly say I didn’t see this coming.”
Bella shakes her head, like she didn’t either.
“This is some soap opera shiitake,” she says, taking a bite of her burger.
“Honestly, I feel like I’m letting you down right now.
I should have been prepared for this. I don’t think my mom has ever missed an episode of General Hospital and those idiots are constantly getting amnesia. ”
Alice had forgotten about her aunt’s soap obsession. Her own mom had said it was stupid, but if they’d all been over at Bella’s house when General Hospital was on, Alice’s mom would end up glued to the TV, enraptured, until the end of the episode, just like her sister.
“Any advice?”
Isabella tilts her head, considering. “Depends. How appealing is killing yourself off and then coming back as your own evil twin?”
Alice does laugh this time. “Honestly, sounds better than some of my other options.” But considering those options has her groaning and dropping her head onto her arms, folded on top of the table.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” she moans.
“I can’t believe I have to come clean while they’re dealing with fucking amnesia. ”
“Do the doctors think it’s permanent?”
Alice doesn’t pick her head up but she does roll it to the side so she can look at Isabella. “They don’t know. I’m starting to think they kind of don’t know shit, actually. Or—sorry! Ships. They don’t…they are totally ignorant about ships.”