Chapter Three
So much for seeing the sunrise.
It was almost ten o’clock, and having spent her entire life as an early riser, missing out on mornings was still something she hadn’t gotten used to.
In her defense, she hadn’t actually fallen asleep until after two a.m. Her brain wouldn’t let her.
She’d spent hours replaying the memory of Evie breaking up with her, hoping more bits and pieces would slide into place, but they didn’t.
All she had was that one clip of a conversation.
She lay there in her bed, gazing out at the bright sunshine.
She could hear faint sounds of the lake through her windows—seagulls cawing, the gentle buzz of a small boat—and she tossed off the covers, got up, and opened her door so she could step out onto the balcony.
It was already warm. August had come in hot and sticky, but things had eased up a bit.
It was humid, though, she could feel it in the air, that thickness, like breathing through wet gauze, and she glanced down to see Jazzy sitting on the dock and Lizzie aboard the pontoon boat she and Justine must’ve towed with them—and she suddenly knew that.
That the boat was theirs. They’d bought it on a whim, but she could hear Justine’s voice in her head, laughing as she admitted she hadn’t wanted to spend the money, but she was so glad they had because they were on the damn thing every weekend in the summer.
Rowan smiled. Some things did filter back, slowly but surely. Thank God.
A quick shower later, she donned her bathing suit under some shorts and a T-shirt, braided her auburn hair so it fell in one rope between her shoulder blades, and headed down to the kitchen, following the delicious scents of freshly brewed coffee and frying bacon.
“Good morning,” she said to Justine, who was standing at the stove, the way Rowan would always picture her.
“Morning, sunshine,” Justine said with a smile, poking at the bacon with a long-handled fork. “How’d you sleep?”
“Late,” Rowan said with a laugh, finding a mug in a cupboard. She reached for the coffeepot. “Side effect of the noggin crack.” She tapped a finger against her skull.
“Hey, if sleep is what helps you recover fully, then you sleep.” Justine tempered the order with a soft smile.
“I know.” Rowan poured. “I just sometimes feel like I’m wasting time, sleeping so much, like I’m missing things.”
“I get that.” Justine flipped the bacon slices. “But I bet it’s not going to be like that forever, right? Just until your body is fully recovered.”
She was right. It was exactly what the doctors had been saying—not to fight the sleeping, and eventually, she’d feel like normal again. “I was hoping to see the sunrise.”
“It was gorgeous,” Justine said, then grimaced. “Sorry. Hey, maybe set your alarm one morning? You could see it, then go back to sleep.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Rowan said, watching as Justine cracked an egg into a small frying pan filled with glimmering olive oil.
“Hungry?”
“I am.”
“Greek egg?” Justine stepped back as the egg spattered the oil.
And just like that, Justine’s famous Greek eggs, which she’d introduced to her at a holiday weekend they’d spent together not quite three years ago, came flooding back into her brain, as if a dam had broken. She gave a little gasp. “I remember these!”
Justine turned to look at her, and her eyes went wide. “That’s right, I cooked these for you for the first time inside your lost memory window, didn’t I?”
Rowan nodded, grinning like a fool, the way she always did when a memory came back. “You did. Three Christmases ago. You stayed for the weekend.”
They stood there smiling at each other for a moment before Justine had to tend to the egg, spooning the hot oil over the top. With her eyes, she gestured to the round loaf of bread on the counter. “Slice up some of the sourdough?”
“You got it.” Rowan felt almost normal when these things happened, like her life hadn’t spiraled out of control, like she wasn’t walking around with a brain like Swiss cheese, full of holes and empty spaces where memories should be.
She continued to grin as she sliced bread.
Justine scooped her egg into a bowl, added some of the hot oil, and topped it with salt, pepper, and oregano.
Then she added a little more oil to the pan and let it heat up. “You only make one at a time.”
It was a statement, not a question, and Justine nodded. She glanced at Rowan, still smiling. “Bits and pieces, huh?”
“Bits and pieces,” Rowan said with a nod.
Justine wrapped an arm around her shoulder and gave her a squeeze.
“Smells amazing in here,” Stevie said, coming through the sliding glass door.
“Grab a seat,” Justine said. “Rowan and I have breakfast covered.”
Half an hour later, everybody was sitting around the enormous dining room table eating Greek eggs and dipping sourdough bread into the seasoned olive oil as it mixed with the yolks from them.
There was a span of a good two or three minutes when the only sounds in the room were hums of approval as they ate, and suddenly, Lizzie burst out laughing.
“Listen to us. We sound like cavemen.” She grunted at her dish and lowered her voice to a guttural sound. “Food good.”
Laughter went around the table because she wasn’t wrong. “I mean, I don’t even care to see any of you,” Stevie said. “I’m only here for Justine’s Greek eggs. Fuck all of you.”
More laughter. Becca burst out with an insulted gasp while Lizzie threw a napkin at Stevie, and Rowan simply sat there smiling. Her friends. Her people. She loved this group of women. She was so happy to be there, with them, and yet she still felt a hole. Not in her memory, but in her heart.
I don’t love you anymore.
She swallowed hard and shoved the sentence away into a dark corner. She’d have to deal with it at some point—she should probably tell Stevie about it—or maybe she could keep it tucked away until she got back and could talk to her therapist about it.
“What are we doing today?” Becca’s voice pulled Rowan back to the table and the people seated around it. With a glance at Lizzie, Becca asked, “Are we taking the boat out?”
“Hundred percent,” Lizzie said with a nod, chewing a bite of bread.
“Tubing!” Becca said, throwing both hands in the air.
“We can do that. Raging river rapids or lazy lake floating?”
Becca seemed to ponder that before making a decision. “Can we do a little of both? I just wanna be in the water. It’s already stupid hot out.”
“Hundred percent,” Lizzie said again.
They made a plan, then cleaned up their breakfast mess, rinsing dishes, filling up the dishwasher, then scattering to various corners of the house to get supplies, agreeing to meet out on the dock in fifteen minutes.
Rowan headed up to her room after realizing she’d put on her bathing suit but had completely neglected sunscreen.
As a ginger girl, she’d need it if she didn’t want to become red as a fire engine out there in the sunshine.
She slathered herself, then put the sunscreen in her small tote bag, along with a hat, a towel, and a bottle of water.
The house was empty as she headed down the stairs, so she went straight outside and down to the dock.
As she approached, she could hear Stevie’s quiet voice.
“Can’t help them along. She’s gotta remember on her own.” Stevie turned to see her. “There she is. Ready?”
“Yup. Let’s do this.” She grabbed Stevie’s hand and stepped onto the boat.
She took a seat in the front, ahead of the driver’s seat.
It had always been her spot as a kid, too, when her grandpa had taken her out on his boat.
In the front, you couldn’t hear what anybody was saying.
The wind was too much. But she liked it that way.
She wouldn’t be forced into conversation.
It wasn’t quite the same on this boat, because it wasn’t a speedboat, and they wouldn’t necessarily be flying across the lake, but still. The front was her favorite spot.
The boat was good sized, with plenty of seats for everybody.
Two inner tubes were tied to a ledge on the back, there was a half roof that offered a bit of shade, and a cooler sat on the floor near the passenger seat.
Rowan knew it would be filled with beer, water, and maybe some seltzer or soda.
A bag of various munchies sat next to it.
Stevie untethered the boat, then jumped aboard as Lizzie started the motor, and its gentle hum could be felt through Rowan’s feet on the floor of the boat.
They chugged slowly sideways, away from the dock, until they were far enough away to begin to turn, and soon, they were chugging out toward the center of the lake.
Rowan slipped on her sunglasses and inhaled deeply, her lungs filling with fresh air, the scents of water, seaweed, and fish layered within it, reminding her where she was.
Nobody talked for long moments, and she wondered if each of them was settling, relaxing, the way she was.
She adjusted her position, leaning back and lounging, her legs stretched out and her head back, and when Lizzie pushed the throttle a bit, the front of the boat lifted slightly, and they picked up speed.
The wind in her face, the blue sky overhead, the sun shining down…it was all perfect. Rowan felt her body relax—not just her muscles, but inside, the inside of her relaxed—and for the first time since her accident, she felt almost like herself again.
They stayed out on the water for several hours.
Some of them took turns tubing. Rowan normally would have, but the bouncing made her nervous, given her head injury.
“Probably a good idea not to jiggle my brain inside my skull any more for a while,” she said when Becca tried to prod her into taking a turn.
“Oh, good point.” Becca frowned. “I didn’t think of that. Sorry.”
“No need,” Rowan said with a smile. “It won’t be forever. Just till I’m fully recovered. But you have my permission to take my turn.”