Chapter 3
Gracyn
H angover headaches are downright agonizing. I groan from the relentless pounding behind my eyeballs. The sound of unforgiving sheets clings to my legs, and it takes a moment to gather my thoughts.
These aren’t my soft T-shirt sheets.
And where are the voices and beeping coming from?
I widen my eyes and jerk to a sitting position in a hospital bed, but the sudden rush makes me dizzy, forcing me to lie back. A surge of nausea hits, and I frantically search for something to throw up in.
“Gracyn,” Mom says, jumping to her feet from the corner chair.
“Trash can,” I snap with my hand over my mouth, pointing with my other hand. She rushes and grabs it, holding it up just in time for me to empty my stomach. I take back what I said earlier. Throwing up with a hangover headache is the worst.
Why does my head hurt so badly?
It’s not until I touch my forehead that I realize it’s bandaged. “What … what the heck happened to me?” I search my memories, but there’s an unexplained void of blackness. Like someone took an eraser to my brain, leaving behind a dust of black confusion.
My mom’s brows cinch. “What do you mean?”
Did I stutter?
“Why am I in the hospital, Mom?” I swallow back panic, slowly lifting the sheet and taking stock of all my body parts. Dressed in an ugly blue hospital gown with paisleys, all my limbs seem to be in working order.
“Honey,” she says, lifting the back of my bed so I’m in a sitting position. “A car hit you when you were walking in the middle of the street. With just a hotel robe on .” I don’t miss the hint of disapproval in her tone toward the end.
Say what ? Again, I search for any recollection. Met up with a guy named Brooks. Drank. Danced. Gambled, I think. Drank. A lot. I remember a hotel room. A taxi ride. The memories are sporadic, and I don’t know if they’re in the right order. But I definitely don’t remember a car hitting me.
“I don’t…” I pause, all the unanswered questions clouding my mind. “When?”
“This morning around five.”
Rubbing my temple, I think about being with Brooks last night. I just don’t remember him leaving. Or myself, for that matter. “Was I by myself?”
“Witnesses said you were. Do you not remember anything? You told the paramedics your name and gave them all your information.”
I shake my head, leaning back into the pillows and stare up at the ceiling. Was I drugged? Oh god. Did Brooks drug me?
The door swings open, and a middle-aged doctor with a head full of gray hair walks in, taking long strides. His youthful face doesn’t match his hair. He smiles at me. “Look who’s awake. How are you feeling?”
“Like a bus hit me.”
The doctor looks at his chart. “Nope, not a bus. A four-door sedan,” he deadpans. Mom scowls at the man. She doesn’t find his dry humor amusing, but it gets a smirk out of me. Shining his penlight in my eyes, he instructs me to follow it. “Can you tell me your name?”
“Gracyn Rae Carmichael.”
“What day is it?”
I glance at my mom. We didn’t go over this. “Um. Sunday ?”
“You’re not sure?” he questions, angling his head, and I nod. “Do you remember coming to the hospital this morning?”
“No. The last thing I remember is being in a hotel room. At least, I believe that was the last thing. My thoughts are jumbled, and not being able to remember is making me question if they’re even real.”
He hums and nods before he starts questioning me. “When’s your birthday? Who’s the president? What’s your grandmother’s name?” By the time he’s done, he knows more about me than my best friend. It’s a relief when I can answer all of them. “Let’s get an MRI done. You landed on your head pretty hard. Definitely have a concussion and have a wicked gash that needed ten stitches in your forehead, but let’s make sure nothing else is going on.”
When the doctor leaves, my mom’s eyes fill with tears. “Don’t cry, Mom. At least I still remember you.” Humor always breaks up tension, right?
She wipes her tears away and softly slaps me on the shoulder as she sits by my side, grabbing my hand. “That’s not even funny.”
No, but I can see she’s relieved that I do.
Later that morning, I’m rolled around the hospital, stuck in a tube and tortured with knocking sounds. Nerves shot and exhausted, I’m passed out before I reach my room.
* * *
“I can’t believe your blood alcohol level was that high,” Mom scolds as we’re driving home.
Seems it accounts for some of the memory loss. Not all of it, though. That’s been ruled amnesia due to the head injury. The doctor rattled off a long description of what was happening, but the only part I focused on was there was no brain damage. I just lost a few hours of memories that I might never get back. Fun times.
“I wasn’t driving. What’s the big deal?”
“Gracyn. You could’ve died.”
She’s scared, and she’s trying her hardest to deal with the emotional turmoil eating at her. So, I get it, and now is not the time to argue that I’m an adult and not a kid anymore, that I’m allowed to drink.
Letting out a winded sigh, I lean my head back and close my eyes. Exhaustion stops me from fighting. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
She leaves me to my clouded and muddled thoughts. I keep trying to piece the night together, but I can’t even remember what hotel I was at to find my stuff. My mom said she’d call the Aria, because that’s where the accident happened.
Sleep is the only thing I want to do when I get back to her house. Hopefully when I wake, the cloud of black in my head won’t be there.
* * *
I’m lying in bed, dreading getting up when I hear, “Someone needs to tell her.” My stepdad‘s voice is hushed, but he couldn’t ever be quiet enough for it not to carry. He has one of those voices. Deep and authoritarian. The perfect judge’s voice.
“She’s been through so much already. I just don’t want to tell her today.”
For a few minutes, they go back and forth before I roll out of bed. It sounds important. When I stroll into the kitchen, both their mouths snap shut, and they just stare at me.
“This house isn’t that big. And you guys can never be quiet.” When I was younger, I always knew my punishment before they entered my room because they would debate it for an hour before they would give it to me.
My mom chews on her inner cheek.
“Have you remembered anything?” Dad asks.
I shake my head. I’ve tried. But zilch on the memory front. “So, what should I know?” I ask, heading to the fridge to grab water. When I glance back at them, they both stare at each other. “Spit it out, already. How much worse could it be than me getting hit by a car, losing my memory, and not being able to remember what hotel I was at?—”
“You’re married,” Dad blurts out.
The water bottle slips out of my hand, falling to the kitchen floor. My mouth falls open, and I lean in, bewildered. “I’m sorry? I have temporary brain fog and I don’t think I understood you because there’s absolutely no way in hell that I’m married.”
My dad plays with his wedding ring, twirling it around and around, something he does when he has to do something he doesn’t want to do. “Someone gave me a copy of your marriage license this morning. The court clerk suspected a mistake and feared someone was pretending to be you.”
Panic raises my voice an octave. “That must be what happened.”
“I had the same idea. But we pulled security tapes.” He lets out a long-winded sigh. “It was you.”
Oh. My. God.
It mortifies me to ask this. “To who?” I can assume, but at this point, it could be Ronald McDonald, and I wouldn’t be certain. But holy hell, I don’t freaking remember a wedding.
“Brooks Handley.”
I bury my face in my hands to shield myself from the disappointment in their faces. I’ve always been a headstrong, stubborn individual, earning every gray hair my mom has. But I’ve always argued that I was in control of every situation. I can’t argue that now.
“Did I look like I was being coerced or held at gunpoint? Or drugged. I must’ve been drugged.”
The times I remember with Brooks, holy smokes, it was addictively hot. But how it got from having mind-blowing sex to getting married is a black hole of mystery. My body fights the exhaustion, wanting me to go back to bed.
“Darling, who is Brooks Handley?” Mom murmurs.
Good question. I wonder how she would take it if I said she knows as much as I do.
His name.
Flushed with embarrassment, I hang my head. “We met in a coffee shop. Yesterday.” When they say nothing, I lift my head to see if they’ve both passed out. My dad’s eyes are wide as saucers, and shame fills my chest. Being a judge, he deals with this stupidity daily. I’ve heard it all, and I always wondered how people could be so irresponsible.
Now, I’m that person.
“I met up with him last night, and I guess we had a really good time.” I let out a sarcastic laugh with tears threatening because I don’t know what else to do. What else is there to say? “I’ll take care of it. Please don’t tell anyone. Especially Ray.” I’ll go from being a bride to a widow if my real dad finds out what happened.
A chuckle escapes my dad. “You hit your head harder than I thought if you expect Ray not to find out.”
My motto is living up to expectations— go big or go home .