Chapter 4 #2
A woman approached the head of the bed. Probably her mother. She had the same brown hair, only cut more severely near her chin. Her eyes bore into me like she was contemplating stabbing me with a cafeteria fork. “Ava can’t have guests.”
I didn’t want to cause Ava any distress. But moms were moms and this one definitely seemed overprotective.
“I understand, ma’am,” I said, but that didn’t stop me from speaking to Ava anyway. “I wanted to see you again. There’s a—”
The mother cut me off. “Please leave.”
My gut clenched. I wasn’t going to be deterred until I took my shot.
Ava gazed up at her mom, then back at me, like she was trying to work this out.
“Are you my boyfriend?” she asked.
Of all the things I thought she might say, this wasn’t even on the list. She turned to her mother. “Did you mess with my journal?”
“Of course not,” her mother said.
Now I was worried. The animosity coming off these two could have melted the ice caps.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Ava swung her legs over the edge of the bed and patted the spot next to her on the mattress. “You are my boyfriend. Come over here and let’s make out.”
“Ava!” her mother said. “I never should have let you watch TV!”
This conversation was a surprise a minute. I wasn’t sure what else to do, so I walked in and sat down next to her. She lifted my hand and held it in hers, soft and warm.
“Ava, stop it,” her mother said. “Stop this instant. You don’t even know that boy.” She snatched up the bed remote and pressed the red call button.
DeShawn took a step into the room. “Tucker, let’s go.”
Ava leaned in until our shoulders brushed. “No. I want him here.” She tilted her face up to me, and I was knocked backward by the look of pure hope in her expression. “Are we madly in love?”
If Ava wanted to involve me in some scheme against her mother, I was all in.
“Absolutely,” I told her.
“I thought so.” Ava grabbed my face with both hands. Her lips met mine.
First kiss.
I was too flabbergasted to do anything but kiss her back. I’d never kissed anyone before. My tendency to fall on the floor in a blur of muscle spasms generally meant girls didn’t deem me worthy of locking lips.
Ava smelled faintly floral. She deepened the kiss, tasting of chicken salad from the hospital lunch. My body tried to react too fast, and I had to will it down. We had all these spectators.
Still, I was high, practically floating. Her lips were warm, and her hands held onto me like I was the last anchor in a storm.
The mom’s shrill voice could have shattered glass. “I will not stand for this!”
DeShawn’s tone conveyed his concern. “Tucker, we have to go.”
Lighter footsteps rushed into the room, but I refused to open my eyes. This was too perfect, too unexpected. I wasn’t going to let go of this moment until they dragged me away in chains.
“Is everything okay in here?” A female voice, probably the nurse who got called.
“This boy came in here and started kissing my daughter.”
“That’s not exactly how it went down,” DeShawn said. “But Tucker, we gotta go.”
“Call security right now,” the mother said.
“That isn’t necessary,” DeShawn shot back.
We reluctantly broke apart. Ava kept her hands on my face. Her eyes were the pale blue of a summer sky.
I refused to look at anyone else. “Are you going to the support group meeting?”
She touched her mouth, as if she was as surprised as I was at what she’d done. “What’s a support group?”
“Where all the teens our age sit and talk.”
Her eyes widened. “Yes, yes! Where do I go?”
“Next door to the disco room.”
“What’s the disco room?”
Whoa. “It’s where we met. It has music. And lights.”
“Ooooh. Let’s go again!”
But my elation dropped. If she didn’t know about the disco room, then she had lost more than my introduction. How much amnesia did she have?
DeShawn walked up, towering over us.
I had to work fast. “We were there last night. They turned on the strobes. You had a seizure.”
“That’s enough,” the mother said. “Escort him out of here or I’m calling 911. Clearly there isn’t any sort of security here.”
DeShawn put his hand on my arm to pull me up. “Tucker, we have to go. Now.”
Ava stood with me. “I’m going with him.”
“You’re not wired to walk around,” her nurse said.
“You need to be in here on the video monitor,” her mother said. “That’s why we admitted you. It’s for your safety.”
Ava turned to the nurse. “I’d like to see a…” She looked frantically around the room. “Someone. I’m sad. I cry a lot. I need to go to a support group so I can talk. Get… support. I need a…” She frowned again.
“Social worker,” I whispered.
“That’s right. A social worker,” she said. “I need a social worker to send me to the support group because I’m sad. Depressed! I should take an SSRI, which may cause dry mouth and have side effects I should tell my doctor about.” She seemed elated to have thought of all this.
Her mother rounded the bed. “No more television.”
Ava lunged toward the nurse and grabbed her arm. “Please call a social worker. I need to talk.” She bit her lip. “I need help away from this mother.”
Her mother went still. “Ava? What are you doing?”
Ava stood straighter. “You said I was here to get help. I’m getting it.”
“You’re here to get a doctor’s opinion,” her mother said.
Ava turned back to the nurse. “Please, a social worker. My mother… hurts me.”
“Ava! Stop it!” Her mother’s face contorted with fear.
The nurse paused, wide-eyed. “I’ll get someone up here right away.” She looked back and forth between the mother and Ava. “I think I’ll wait here for her to arrive.” She pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped a hurried message.
DeShawn tugged on my arm. “Come on, Tucker. Now.”
This time I let him lead me away. When we were in the hall, I asked him, “Do you believe all that?”
He shook his head. “I believe you are about to get your butt thrown out of here.”
“I think she’s in some sort of trouble.”
“Ava doesn’t remember who you are. Let them sort this out.”
“I lose some memory when I have seizures. I forget things for a while. It comes back.”
“That’s not going to happen to Ava,” DeShawn said. “When she has a seizure, her memory loss is permanent.”
“Permanent? Like gone, gone?”
DeShawn grimaced. “Gone for good. Now, come on.”
I barely registered the walls as they blurred past, giant portraits of smiling kids in colorful frames. Ava lost everything with a seizure.
How could you live that way?
Would she have another one today? Would she lose the memory of kissing me?
I’d never forget it. Her blue eyes. Her joy. For the first time in my life, someone had pinned their hopes on me.
I decided right then and there, her seizures didn’t matter. Because after losing my parents and brother, there was one thing I knew about memories. As long as you were alive, you could always make more.