Chapter 6 #2
I roll my eyes, but only because I know she can’t see me. “Okay.”
“So, what’s the plan?”
How do I admit I have no plan? That part of me is still hoping my grandmother was right and the universe will intervene, magically fixing my brain, maybe even show me what I’m supposed to be doing with my life, too.
I know my grandmother would love to hear about my renewed faith, but unfortunately, Sara is too pragmatic.
She needs dates and milestones, something concrete and quantifiable.
“Go to this appointment tomorrow and hopefully figure out how to get my memories back,” I reply, trying to sound confident.
She hums to herself. “Hope isn’t a strategy, Marn.”
I sigh. That has been Sara’s signature phrase since the moment I met her. “And then I should probably get a hold of my bank to see if I have any money. I haven’t been able to access my email or get online to check.”
Silence fills the line and I can almost hear Sara’s brain working.
“All right,” she finally says. “I know what you should do.”
I smile. This is Sara’s forte. According to her, everyone needed a plan, and if you didn’t have one, she was more than happy to come up with one for you.
“Okay, let’s hear it.”
“You move back here,” she says. “You can stay with us in the spare room and start looking for a job in Los Angeles. I bet Probus would even have you back!”
My stomach drops. It’s not just the idea of working at Probus again that makes me cringe, but retreating to California, moving back in with Sara, returning to a life that I had already been looking to escape.
“I can’t,” I say. “At least, not right now. All my doctors are here and I need to work out a plan with them to get my memories back.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll accept that excuse. But only because I need you to remember why you cut all your hair off.”
I groan. “It’s so bad. There are bangs, Sara.”
“FaceTime me so I can see.”
“I can’t get into my phone, remember? I’m using a prepaid one until I can get to an Apple Store.
Which is somewhere in Boston, but I have no idea how to get there!
” Suddenly, I can feel tears start to burn my eyes again.
“And to make everything worse, I think the head injury sent all my emotions out of whack, so now I’m crying all the time and…
and…” My voice falters as I hold back a sob.
“And your hair will grow back, and your brain will heal, and everything will be okay,” Sara finishes for me, her tone so assured I can’t help but believe her. “In the meantime, we have so much to catch up on.”
We talk for another hour. Sara deftly avoids all mention of her and Garrett’s attempts at starting a family, though it’s clearly implied in each anecdote: the house they just put an offer on in Calabasas.
The large SUV they’re getting when they trade in Garrett’s sports car.
We could probably have talked all night, but halfway through a story about Garrett’s demands for a man cave, I hear another voice behind her.
“Oh shit. I have to go. I have a meeting and totally forgot,” she says.
There’s a flurry of hurried goodbyes, then she hangs up.
I let my head fall back into the sofa cushions and try to recall everything she told me, parsing out the information that can help piece together the past year.
First, I quit Probus. That should be good news.
But if I finally got up the nerve to leave, why did I take another office job?
Is there some local beverage company out there that’s livid because one of their sales managers hasn’t shown up for work all week?
Second, Matt is still crazy about me. We might have even been talking about getting back together.
Except, if that’s true, why did we break up to begin with?
It’s just a reroute.
I understood why Sara thought of it that way. Before Matt and I had even gone on our first date, she talked about us getting married as if it were an inevitability. Somewhere along the way, I think I had started to believe that, too.
So why didn’t this hurt more? Shouldn’t I be spending days in bed, nursing my heartbreak? Instead, there’s just a dull ache, like an old bruise pressed long after it had started to heal.
I look back down at my phone. The obvious answer would be to call Matt and ask him every question currently swimming around my brain.
But it’s barely noon on a Monday, which means he’s at work.
Or he’s still in Toronto, which means he’ll have his phone on silent while attending some panel discussion about computer languages or something.
He might even be on the panel himself. In any case, I have enough experience with calling Matt in the middle of a workday to know it only leads to his voicemail.
So instead, I text.
MARNIE
hey, it’s Marnie!
having issues with my other phone so this is my new # in case you need to reach me
hope the conference is going well—let me know when you’re back and we can grab that coffee! xo