Chapter 14
SO HOW WAS ‘WORK’?” RORY asks, taking a long slurp of coffee from a classic chunky mug stamped with the Dinor’s red-and-yellow logo. I can hear the air quotes, like she’s still not sure she believes that’s where I was, but I decide to ignore them.
“It was so bad that I literally am not ready to talk about it yet,” I reply. I consider telling them about Nora, but they probably wouldn’t appreciate me making plans to hang out with her when I’ve apparently been a crappy friend to them recently. “What have you guys been—”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Savannah tries to whisper, while somehow managing to shout. I watch her blue eyes track something coming up behind me, and I turn around to find a boy our age, with a red apron tied around his waist.
“Hey.” He looks right at me, recognition filling his brown eyes, but none fills me. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen another Asian kid in this town, or even in the county. I can’t help but be surprised. “I heard what happened. Holy shit, I’m so glad you’re okay,” he continues.
“Oh, uhh.” I look away, confused. “How did you hear?”
“Small town.” He shrugs, flicking his head to get the hair out of his eyes.
“And this place is like gossip central, so I’m basically Wyatt’s Keeper of Secrets.
” He shakes his head, laughing, but something in my face must make him pause.
“Anyway, sorry. It’s probably not something you want to talk about.
What can I get for you guys?” he asks, holding up his notepad and turning to my friends.
As Savannah and Rory order our usual short stacks of pancakes, my eyes float down to his name tag.
Ryan.
Oh my God. This is him. The guy I supposedly like.
I look at him again with fresh eyes. He is actually cute, and that joke was pretty funny.
I look up at his face again, waiting for some spark to hit or a flutter in my stomach, all the telltale signs I’ve read about and watched in movies.
I try to really take in his angular jaw and sparkly smile and eyes that are…
looking right at me, waiting. Oh, right. “Uh, same. Short stack,” I say.
“Really? Not your usual?” He taps his pen against the pad. “You’ve been getting the same thing for as long as I’ve worked here. Two eggs over medium, bacon, hash browns, and wheat with no butter.”
“Well, I’m glad you remember, because I definitely don’t.” I try to force out a flirty-sounding laugh, glancing at Savannah and Rory across the table.
“Just stuck in my head for some reason,” he says with a nervous laugh, almost like he’s embarrassed, tapping his pen against his temple.
“I’ll take that instead,” I say, smiling. “Maybe it’ll help something stick in mine.”
“This is Stevie, by the way,” Savannah cuts in, pointing to me. “I’m Savannah and this is Rory. We just graduated from Central Catholic.”
“Hi.” He gives a little wave. “Nice to officially meet you guys. I actually just graduated from Wyatt,” he says, mostly to me.
“I’ll have these right out for you.” By the time he disappears back into the kitchen, Rory is basically vibrating in the booth as Savannah’s hands fly across the table to grab mine.
“See,” she says. “You do like him, don’t you!” Their eyes are on me and my cheeks are hot and I can’t think of anything to do but smile to cover my nerves. And she immediately takes it as confirmation. “I knew it. You love him.”
“I didn’t say that!” I pull my hands out of hers and lean back against the booth.
“Well, you didn’t have to. It was all over your face.”
“It was?” I ask, and Rory nods her head dramatically. But I don’t know how anything could be on my face when I don’t really feel anything inside. Maybe… maybe I just need to give him a chance, get to know him all over again.
Still, I do wonder… “If I liked him as much as you two say I did, what stopped me before from like… doing something about it?”
“You? Talk to a boy of your own volition? Slim chance,” Savannah says, “but we’re not going to let that happen again. So when he comes back, you’re going to ask him to hang out with the three of us. I’ll invite Jake, too, so it’s not weird.”
“I am not interested in fifth-wheeling it. Hard pass,” Rory cuts in.
“So we’ll double. Okay?” Savannah’s blue eyes flash at me expectantly, and I let out a sigh but don’t respond.
“God, my life is depressing. Stevie somehow has an almost-boyfriend she doesn’t even remember, and I’m still single,” Rory mutters into her cup of coffee.
Savannah ignores her, eyes still trained on me.
“Savannah, I can’t just ask him. I mean, isn’t he supposed to ask me?”
“Well, clearly he’s just as timid as you are about expressing his feelings, so you’re going to have to step up if you want this to happen,” she replies bluntly.
Maybe she’s right and I should just do it.
I’ve spent most of my teenage life not understanding how everyone except me was developing crushes or falling in love, thinking something was wrong with me because it just wasn’t happening for me.
But now apparently it has. If Rory and Savannah say I had a crush on him before, then I’m sure I can have a crush on him again.
I want to keep pushing forward, and if this was the path my life was headed on before the accident, I need to take it. Plus, Rory and Savannah would never steer me wrong.
Soon Ryan comes back with our three plates piled high with food. I watch him carefully set each one down on the table, the light smell of his laundry detergent swirling around as he leans across me.
“Ow!” I grunt, gritting my teeth as a foot collides with my shin under the table.
Savannah’s wide eyes look as intimidating as ever, but when I reach for the words, I have no idea what to say.
This is all happening too fast. So I just thank him and pick up my fork as he starts to leave. I can try again another time.
“Hey, Ryan?” Savannah speaks up, and he reappears beside the table.
“What can I get for you?”
“Actually, we”—she gestures to me across the table—“want to know if you’d like to hang out with us. Well, me and my boyfriend, and you and Stevie,” she clarifies, and I slink down in the booth a couple of inches, trying not to die from embarrassment.
“Yeah, totally,” Ryan answers quickly, and I look up to find him beaming down at me.
“Really?” I ask.
“The county fair is in town this weekend. I don’t know if that’s your thing or not?” He raises his eyebrows at me. Oh my God. Is he… kind of asking me out now? I try to keep calm.
“I’ve always been a sucker for overpriced games,” I joke. “Savannah?”
She brushes her perfect hair behind her ear and purses her lips as she digs into her pancakes. “Mmm. Rusty rides, mud, and fried food. Love that for me.”
“Friday, six p.m. by the Ferris wheel?” Ryan asks me, ignoring Savannah’s sarcasm.
“Yeah. Here. Let me get your number just in case,” I say, handing him my phone. He inputs his number and hands it back to me.
“See you there,” he says, then turns to check on his other tables.
“Girl.” Savannah smiles crazily at me.
“I know!” I reply, trying to match her excitement.
“What are you going to wear? Ryan strikes me as the type of guy to like something a little more casual, you know?” Rory asks animatedly, even though she isn’t coming.
“Uh, yeah. Whatever you think,” I tell her.
The two of them start telling me what they think I should and shouldn’t wear on Friday, how to do my makeup, and tips on how to be flirty… “but not slutty,” Rory adds.
I know I should be paying attention. I should be interested in this conversation. I should be on cloud nine that this boy I like likes me back.
But I can’t stop thinking about how much easier this would all be if I could only just remember how it felt. I look down at my phone, which is still lit up with Ryan’s contact. A few lines above it I spy Nora’s.
Maybe if Nora can show me the site of the accident, it’ll all just come back to me. My two years of lost memories, my crush on Ryan, the reason I was in the woods that day, the reason things feel slightly off with just about everyone in my life.
I nod my head and laugh and say, “Sounds good” when it’s necessary as we talk our way through the rest of breakfast. But the moment we part ways outside the Dinor, I pull out my phone and scroll right past Ryan’s contact and up to Nora’s name.
Hey, you free tomorrow? I text her.
It’s time to find out what I was doing in the woods that day.