13. Soleil
SOLEIL
Dear Diary,
I woke up late and discovered there was a man in my bed this morning.
At first, I was startled.
I felt warm muscly man arms around my torso. We were spooning. I was the little spoon.
But my body remembered him a few seconds before my brain did.
Maybe because I was sleepy. But I knew this feeling of being held by this person. I felt safe. I felt loved. I also felt thoroughly fucked.
Soft beams of sunlight danced through the part in the curtains of my bedroom window. I tilted my head down to kiss his hand and saw that he had something written in blue ink on his arm.
Morning, beautiful. I’m Dean, and I love you. Watch the video on your laptop or read your journal.
And that’s when I realized—I didn’t have to watch the video or read my journal entries.
Because I watched the video yesterday morning.
I read my journal entries yesterday. I remembered being told that I have short-term-memory loss because I slipped and hit my head on the ice.
On February sixteenth. I remembered that yesterday was April twenty-third because that was the peak of the Lyrid meteor shower.
I remembered seeing shooting stars in the sky last night and then feeling shooting stars in my body in the back of Dean’s truck.
Dean. I remembered him telling me he loves me.
Dean’s arm twitched. I realized a tear had fallen. I turned to face him.
He was so handsome. I hadn’t seen him this unshaven before, and I liked it. His light brown hair was all mussed up. It was hardcore fuckhair, but let’s just say it was messy from sleep.
“Morning,” I said quietly.
“Hey,” he said. His eyes barely opened, but he had a soft smile and he instinctively leaned in closer to kiss me.
I kissed him on the lips and said, “I can still feel you inside me.”
His eyes widened. He pulled his head back, narrowed his beautiful hazel eyes as he studied my face. His face looked tense, like he was holding back a grin. “Yeah?”
I nodded. “I didn’t have to watch the video,” I told him. “Or read my journal.”
He sat up and scrubbed his face with both hands and then said, “Say more. You slept for hours and then woke up?” It was so stinking cute how he was clearly excited but trying not to be too excited so he didn’t get me too excited so I wouldn’t get disappointed but he also wanted me to be happy.
I told him what I remembered.
And I had to remind him that we were currently under the same roof as my dad because he was, like, really excited, if you know what I mean.
He pulled himself together, and we got dressed and went to the kitchen to tell Dad together.
Daddy was even cuter than Dean. I know he has guilt. I hope one day he’ll get over it. But he looked so relieved and excited and hesitant and scared and grateful. All at once.
It was a lot.
Dean made us fresh orange juice, and Dad made us oatmeal. Noah brought over high-protein breakfast sandwiches from Peak Brew. Then I called Jessie, and she brought us lavender-matcha lattes from The Cosmic Cup.
Dad was able to get the doctor who’d been assigned to me at the hospital on the phone this morning, and that doctor got in touch with a specialist in Vancouver.
We were on a Zoom with him this afternoon.
We’ve scheduled a trip down there for some tests and imaging.
The word neuroplasticity was thrown around as many times as the words cautiously optimistic.
They said I probably wouldn’t remember today tomorrow.
That a forty-eight-hour short-term-memory window with anterograde amnesia at this point was triumphant progress and we should be grateful for that.
For progress, not perfection. That there might be a chance, over time, that my short-term-memory window will increase, incrementally.
Today I remember yesterday. Maybe tomorrow I’ll remember the last two days.
Possibly, the day after that I’ll remember the past three days.
My retention window will expand. All because the skating created new neural pathways.
And also possibly because Dean fucked some new neural pathways into my brain and there was magic comet stardust involved—I don’t know.
I don’t care. I just want to be able to remember how lucky I am every day, or at least for as long as possible.
But realistically, eventually the retention window will stabilize.
It could be around forty-eight hours or seventy-two hours.
We’ll have to wait and see. But it will give me the opportunity to make plans for the next day and to remember conversations and experiences from the day before.
I’ll still keep my journal. We’ll still keep recording things.
I’ll sketch and paint and collage my memories too.
I’ll be the town memory keeper.
I won’t take anything for granted. I might even learn the damn rules of ice hockey long enough to understand a game. Or maybe it won’t matter, as long as I show up to Dean’s Icebreakers games in his jersey. But I know for certain that I will never forget how to skate and I will keep getting better.
It has been a long day. A good day. My first second day since the middle of February.
I’m so tired, and I have to go to sleep now.
Progress, not perfection.
Today was a good day, and tomorrow will be a good day too, no matter what.
Because I know I’m going to wake up next to Dean Rafferty. Because he chose to be here with me. And I know that I’m going to choose him too. Every day.