Chapter 13 #2
“Stevie, I told you I was here to help if you needed me. Cal…” She looks like she’s about to let him have it but she takes a breath, looking around at all the customers, who are all whispering to each other now.
“It’s okay, Stevie,” she says to me finally.
“Cal, make the drinks. I’ll take orders.
” She steps up to the counter. “I am so sorry about this, folks. We’ll have you out of here in no time and we appreciate your patience. ”
Cal walks down to the barista station, avoiding a few puddles of milk on the floor.
“Move.” He steps into me, forcing me away from his beloved espresso machine.
“Here, this is—” I go to hand him the latte and he all but knocks it out of my hands.
“Just get out of my way, we need to catch up.”
“I can help,” I say to both of them, tears pressing against my eyes.
“Stevie, how about you just take your fifteen,” Kendra says firmly, nodding toward the back room.
But I can’t be here right now, not even in the back.
I can’t be anywhere near here. Taking my crappy drink with me, I move quickly around the front counter, tears blurring my vision.
My sticky shoes squeak shamefully against the floor as the customers part so I can get to the door.
I want to remember my life more than anything, but nothing about this feels familiar. I know they say routine helps, but I can’t even remember why I wanted this stupid job, let alone how to do it. I wanted to prove Dr. Reicher wrong, but how can I if I can’t even remember how to make coffee?
“Sorry!” I say, sucking in a quick breath as I almost run smack into someone trying to come inside. Their hands grab onto my shoulders so we don’t collide.
“Hey, are you okay?” she asks, and something about her voice is familiar. I pick up my head, blinking the tears out of my eyes so I can see her more clearly. Short, dirty-blond hair and freckles under piercing hazel eyes that take me right back to the hospital.
Nora Martin. Perfect. The very last thing I want right now is for someone I know, even the tiniest bit, to see me like this. First unconscious, now crying at work? Talk about embarrassing.
“I’m sorry,” I repeat, pushing past her until her hands fall off my arms. I fly out the door and then turn the corner before walking to the back of the building, where I plop down on the curb.
I set the drink down next to me and drop my head into my hands, finally letting my tears fall now that I’m all alone.
Maybe I came back too soon or maybe I shouldn’t have come back at all.
Even without a brain injury this must have been impossible.
How did I ever like working here? It’s so much pressure and Cal is such a jerk.
All of a sudden there are footsteps coming toward me down the alley, so I snort everything back inside and dry my face as best I can.
A pair of well-worn boots steps down off the curb beside me, the laces broken and knotted back together again in several places. I look above me, and Nora’s head eclipses the sun.
“I’m fine,” I tell her even though she hasn’t asked, turning away to wipe my face one more time.
“Yeah, I was just thinking that. I was thinking, that girl? Crying and running away? She seems fine. She seems great, actually.” She sits down on the curb a couple of feet away and holds out a few napkins.
I look over at her and see a hint of a friendly smirk starting at the corners of her lips as I take them.
She watches me for a second, but when I don’t laugh, she keeps talking.
“What’s this?” she asks, picking up the drink by the lid.
“I have no idea.” I shrug, defeated. “Oat milk something.”
“Sounds delicious.” She takes a gulp out of it without a second thought, and then just as quickly spits it out onto the pavement with a dramatic cough.
“Oh my God.” More coughing. “I think I just did the cinnamon challenge,” she says, making me laugh even as a couple more tears roll down my cheeks.
“My God…” She pauses and looks up to meet my eyes.
“You could’ve at least pretended to like it,” I say.
“Yeah, you might want to try it before saying that,” she jokes, her mouth cracking open into a wide smile, revealing a small gap between her two front teeth.
“Aren’t you supposed to be nice to people when they’re crying?” I ask, drying the last of my tears.
“Eh, I don’t know.” She shrugs. “Probably, but I already saved your life and it’s also not super normal to give someone a sandwich in exchange for that. So…” She giggles, leaning out of the way of my attempted shove.
“It was my mom’s idea,” I admit. I knew it was a weird move. “Was it good, at least?”
“I actually didn’t eat it,” Nora replies, sounding a little guilty. “I went vegan a little bit ago.”
“Oh. That’s what your mom meant.”
“Oof. Sorry you had to meet her.” She cringes.
“Your mom? Yeah, she was… uh.” I wrap my arms around my knees at the thought of her.
“Easygoing? Tenderhearted? Charismatic?” Nora fills in.
“All of the above,” I answer, and both of us share a knowing smile. Nora seems to be about the opposite of whatever her mom is and not at all the awkward girl who walked into my room that night. “Hey, I didn’t really get a chance to like… talk to you at the hospital. You kinda…”
“Yeah, sorry I disappeared.” She pauses for a little while, kicking her boot into a few scattered stones. “I just realized it was probably a bad time. For you guys.”
I think of that night, my dad getting emotional as he told me what Nora did for me, how she carried me over a mile through the woods.
“How did you do it?” I ask. She definitely looks stronger than most girls, but she’s still at least a couple of inches shorter than me. “How did you get me out of there?”
She shrugs, staring at the brick wall across from us. “I never had another option. I was either going to get you out of there or…” She bites the inside of her mouth, the skin of her cheek hollowing. “I just… I couldn’t leave you.”
Being here at the coffee shop hasn’t done anything to jog my memory, but maybe routine isn’t enough. Maybe if I saw the place where it happened. Maybe I could at least remember why I was there in the first place.
“Can you show me sometime? Where it happened?” She doesn’t answer me right away, like she’s deciding. “Please,” I add, and finally she nods.
I hand her my new phone from my pocket and she hesitates for a second before finally inputting her number. I half expect her to ask me about it, my lost memories, my recovery. Everyone else seems to have questions, but she doesn’t.
I take a deep breath of fresh air, feeling surprisingly better after sitting here with her, and even though I don’t like talking about it with strangers, even though she hasn’t asked, there’s this urge to tell her.
“Maybe it’ll help because right now… I can’t remember the last two years of my life,” I admit.
She doesn’t look at me like I’m some kind of alien, or ask me a thousand questions.
She looks almost like she understands. “You know, I think you’re the first person I’ve talked to, like really talked to, who didn’t know me before.
Who doesn’t know all these things about me that I don’t even know myself. It’s kinda nice.”
She opens her mouth, closes it, then opens it again. “I… I’m glad,” she says, checking her watch. I check my phone too and notice that my fifteen minutes are almost up.
“Oh my God. I can never go back in there.” Kendra and Cal and all those customers flash in front of my eyes. “I need to leave. Move to a new country under a new name. You want to come with me?” I ask, turning to Nora.
She laughs, but her smile slowly disappears before she speaks.
“I wish I could…” She pauses for a long time, her eyes scanning every part of my face again in a way that makes my cheeks heat up, then clears her throat.
“But I’ve gotta get back to the farm,” she finishes, standing up and turning her back to me.
“Wait, don’t you want a drink?”
“I think your concoction just about did me in. I’m glad you’re okay, Stevie,” she says over her shoulder, then walks quickly around the front of the building.
I glance down at her phone number lit up on my screen and then up to the empty space where she just disappeared around the corner.
I know I’m supposed to be getting back to normal but being with Nora, this girl who I’ve never met before, feels more normal than anything I’ve tried so far.
I feel like I can actually talk to her about stuff without any danger of stirring up the past, because, well, unlike everyone else I know, we have no past to stir up.
We’re a completely clean slate.
Maybe a nice and simple friendship like that could be good for me, let me start living my life without giving up the way Dr. Reicher suggested. Maybe I need that just as much as I need to remember.