Chapter 11
THE NEXT DAY, I WALK through the screen door out onto our back deck to find my mom reading a paperback in the afternoon sun.
“You’re still reading smut, I see,” I say, trying to hide my smile.
“It’s a romance!” she says defensively, holding the book closer to her chest.
“I’m sure. Let me see the cover,” I insist, knowing it’s going to be some scantily dressed lady in the arms of an oiled-up beefcake. I don’t get the appeal, but she always says one day I will.
“No.” She laughs as she closes the book and sets it facedown on the armrest of her Adirondack chair. I kick my Birkenstocks off and plop down in the one next to her. “What have you been up to? How’s your head feeling today?” she asks.
“It’s pretty good, actually. I took an Aleve this morning, but it’s definitely feeling better every day. I was just looking through my laptop, trying to learn something about myself.”
“Oh? Anything interesting?” she asks, shielding her eyes from the sun.
“Not really,” I reply. I was disappointed to find that my search history had been erased. I can’t imagine why I would do that, unless I was trying to hide something. “It’s weird scrolling through my Instagram, though. Seeing myself doing things that I don’t remember doing.”
“Yeah, I imagine that would be a little unsettling.”
“So since that didn’t really help, I think the next step is starting back at the coffee shop,” I tell her.
“Really? You don’t think it’s too soon?” she asks.
“The sooner I can get back to normal life, the more likely I am to get my memory back. That’s what the pamphlets say, anyway. Sitting around here, looking at old photographs… it’s not enough.”
“I just don’t want you rushing into—”
Ding dong. Ding. Ding. Ding dong. Ding…
Someone is going ham on the doorbell, and they’re not stopping. We look at each other for a second and then behind us inside.
“I’ll get it. You just get back to your steamy romance,” I tell her, and she smacks me on the butt with it as I squeeze by.
When I open the front door, I’m greeted by two somewhat-familiar faces grinning back at me.
“Oh my God!” is all I can say as I look back and forth between my two best friends.
Savannah’s hair is… so perfectly straight now.
I always thought her curls were so beautiful, so her.
They were an entity entirely on their own.
She seems… smaller now. Her makeup has changed too.
It’s heavier, thick black eyeliner against her pale skin, her freckles painted over with foundation.
If I hadn’t known her my whole life, I honestly might be a little intimidated by her.
Rory lost her braces and well, she, uhh… filled out. The deep V of her thin T-shirt really accentuates her ultimate victory over puberty.
I’m still having trouble forming words so I just lift my arms up, and they both step into me for a hug, all of us holding on to each other tight.
“You guys look different.” I laugh, giving them one more squeeze before letting go.
“Stevie, don’t speak to Rory’s cans like that,” Savannah says, dodging a slap in the arm from Rory.
“Oh my God! Do not call my boobs cans, Van.”
Van? That’s new.
Savannah cocks her head at me. “So you like, really don’t remember anything?” she asks, brushing her silky red hair backward.
“Not from the past two-ish years. It’s really weird. Kinda scary,” I reply.
“We’re sorry we didn’t visit more,” Rory says, crossing her foot behind her other leg to rub her calf. “It’s just, well, we came once and you were kinda… in a coma.”
“I mean it’s not like you knew we were there, anyways. Plus, hospitals skeeve me out. You know?” Savannah asks, twisting her face up to show me just how gross they are to her.
I nod, even though it does sting a little. I thought they would’ve been there all the time, but I guess she is right. It’s not like I knew either way.
“Hi, girls! I didn’t know you were coming over,” my mom says as she steps in off the deck.
“We thought we’d come surprise her,” Rory replies, throwing her arm around my shoulders.
“You want me to make you all a snack or something?”
“That’s okay, Mom. We’re just going to hang out in my room. Come on, guys.” I head upstairs and the two of them follow me.
“Thanks anyways, Mrs. Green,” Rory says over her shoulder.
They both flop down on my bed while I turn my desk chair around to face them. The two of them look like they feel more comfortable in my room than I do.
“I saw on Instagram about UNC,” I say, pointing to Rory’s baby-blue T-shirt. “I can’t believe you’re actually doing it. You’ve been talking about going there since like seventh grade.”
Rory beams, glancing down at her shirt. “Thanks! Yeah, I can’t freaking wait.”
“I’ll have to come visit you. It’ll give me a good reason to get the heck out of Wyatt once in a while.” I let out a sigh. “You guys… I can’t believe I’m going to Bower. Why am I going to Bower?” I ask, looking between the two of them.
Rory shrugs. “Honestly, I don’t know. It made no sense to us, either, but you made it seem like you wanted to stay close to home.”
We never talked about it?
Savannah rolls over onto her back and hangs her head off the bed, looking at me upside down.
“So, you like… really don’t remember the past two years…” She pauses, raising one eyebrow. When I shake my head, she continues, “Then you don’t remember losing your v-card after prom?”
“What?” I drop my jaw, my eyes widening so much, it feels like they’re going to pop out of my head. I had sex?! I’ve never even kissed anyone!
“And if you don’t remember that, then you definitely wouldn’t remember your pregnancy scare. Right?” Rory asks. Savannah drops her face into my comforter.
“My what?” I yell, breaking out in a sweat all over my body. Does my mom know? She would’ve blown a gasket. Is that… is that why things feel so off between us?
“Rory,” Savannah says into my mattress, and that’s when I notice her whole body shaking with laughter. I take a breath, letting all my muscles relax. Rory bursts out giggling, and Savannah lifts her head up and meets my eyes.
I’m not finding it funny right now, but I force out a laugh anyway while I blink the tears out of my eyes. I wouldn’t have expected that kind of joke from them, considering the circumstances. It feels a little too far.
“I can’t believe you bought that. Puh-lease, Little Miss Goody-Two-Shoes?” She squints at me. “You didn’t even go to prom.”
“I didn’t?” I ask, the room still spinning a little from their joke.
“No, you had to work,” Rory answers.
“Oh, at that coffee shop?” I ask. “My parents told me about that, but I can’t believe I really missed senior prom. Damn.” I was never the type of girl to spend her nights dreaming of prom, but still, I never thought I’d not go.
“Yeah, well, you’ve missed a lot of stuff this past year. Dances, parties, and basically every weekend when we ask you to hang out,” Savannah says lightly, but there’s a pointed edge to it I’ve never heard before.
“Oh.” I pick at the wood of my chair. “What was I doing? I couldn’t have been working that many hours.”
She shrugs. “That was always the excuse you gave us. If I didn’t know you, I’d have guessed you were sneaking around with some boy…” She narrows her eyes at me suspiciously.
“Look, I might not remember the last two years, but I’m pretty sure if I was, you guys would be the first to know,” I reply with a laugh.
What I’m really thinking is that I literally have never had a crush on a single guy in my life.
I’ve never told them that, though. I mean, it’s always felt so…
not normal. Almost embarrassing, like there might be something wrong with me.
But maybe that finally did change. I hope so, at least.
“Really? Because we never really bought into the whole I have to work thing. You would’ve been working like sixty hours per week, which isn’t even legal,” Rory says.
“Guys, I don’t… remember. I don’t know what to tell you.” I shrug, at a loss for words, and almost a little frustrated. It’s like they care more about getting answers than what happened to me. But I shake it off and try to move on. “Who’d you guys go with? To prom?”
“Van’s dating Jake Mackey,” Rory sings.
“You are not,” I say, surprised, remembering the scruffy guy in our class with a comically lifted pickup truck. “Does he have to boost you up into his truck or do you bring your own stepladder?” I ask, but neither of them laughs.
“You’re just jealous.” Savannah rolls her eyes. “He’s actually really great and really hot now.”
“I was just kidding.” I shrug, but nobody says anything for a little while and the silence is getting painful, so I spin around slowly in my chair to avoid their eyes for a second.
But then it gets worse because the two of them start talking quietly behind me about something that happened this past weekend at Truck Night.
Truck Night, the monthly gathering where country boys measure dicks by showing off their big trucks.
So I obviously don’t know anything about it.
Nor would I want to. I can’t believe Savannah and Rory go to that now.
We used to make fun of the fact that something like that even exists.
My attention drifts to the top of my desk, where the stack of booklets sits from the hospital. I think of my mom and our talk outside the meat shop yesterday, how she didn’t have many answers for me. She didn’t know what I was doing in those woods, but Savannah and Rory… they have to know. Right?
“Hey, guys.” I spin my chair back around to them and see they’re now sitting up on my bed facing each other. “When I had my accident, I was in the woods on the Martin farm. Do you have any idea what I was doing there?”
They both shake their heads.
“All I know is that you told us you were going to work when you left the Dinor that morning,” Rory says.
I slump, disappointed. But they have to know something more than I know already.
“Well, what about in general? Is there anything major or important that happened the past couple of years? Anything I should know? Other than me almost getting pregnant,” I add, to let them know I can take a joke, that they don’t need to walk on eggshells with me. Not that they seem to be.
“I don’t think major,” Rory says, looking across my bed at Savannah.
“Well, I don’t know… though you probably wouldn’t consider this important,” Savannah says, shaking her head.
“What? Tell me. I want to know everything.” I scoot to the edge of my chair, leaning toward her.
“There’s this guy you kinda, sorta have a huge crush on, and he definitely likes you back,” she says to me, and then looks at Rory. “Dinor boy?”
Rory smiles and nods. “Oh yeahhhh. Ryan.”
“Are you serious? I… really had a crush on him?” I ask. It almost feels like a relief. At least something went right in the last two years. Maybe I’m not as messed up as I thought.
“Oh my God, big-time,” Savannah answers.
“Well, is he cute?” I ask, interested to hear more about this missing part of my life.
They look at each other and then back at me, both raising one shoulder simultaneously and nodding. Cool. So obviously cute, but not rock-your-world cute.
“He works at the Dinor. We should go soon to see him. You can use your new lease on life to finally make a move. Unless you’re too busy hunting down your other mystery guy, of course.”
“I have a checkup at the hospital tomorrow. How about next week?” I reply, before I can chicken out. They exchange a look I don’t quite understand, then nod excitedly.
Good. I said I was going to go back to my normal routine to get my old self back. Maybe this is a good place to start. Even if it means jumping in headfirst. Even if the idea of going to see this boy scares the crap out of me. Even if I don’t know why.