Chapter 5
Ava
I was free.
With that boy’s help, I’d stumbled upon magic words.
Social worker. Mother hurts me. I would use those any time I had to.
Because even if I didn’t know exactly why, my notes in my history book told me not to trust that woman.
That she would tell me I was someone I wasn’t.
She would write a diary and say the words were mine.
She would destroy my own notes so I always forgot how I felt about her.
Trust only this handwriting.
When I got home to my paper flowers, hopefully I would learn why.
I’d been careful since the social worker took me to her office. I paid very close attention to how she leaned in, when her red lips pinched, and when she scribbled in her book.
I didn’t tell her about the hidden notes or the words on my body. Whenever I opened my mouth to speak about them, my belly trembled. So I said I couldn’t remember things, but my mother made me afraid.
That was the truth.
The social worker decided I needed to be around kids my age, so after closing her notebook, she walked me to the support group meeting.
“I hear you’ve been watching a lot of television today,” she said. “Did you find something you liked?”
This was my new favorite subject. Mother didn’t want to talk about it. She would have prevented me from watching anything after I kissed the boy, but while the tech person moved my wires to a backpack, I kept the nurse button in my hand. I had a weapon.
“Everything,” I said. “Grey’s Anatomy is amazing. They were having a marathon! I didn’t even know about marathons, but I love them!”
The social worked laughed. “Much better to watch them than run in them.”
I had no idea what she meant by that, but I said, “It’s a lot easier than talking to real people. That makes my head hurt.”
“That’s expected,” she said. “You have very little functional memory. If you feel uncomfortable in the group, let the counselor know.”
I knew I wouldn’t. The boy who kissed me would be there. “I’ll be fine.”
Her red lips smiled at that. “I like your spirit.”
We paused outside a door, and she cracked it open. “We have one more!” she called.
“Come in!” said a voice inside.
Four people sat in chairs, but I ignored everyone else when I saw the boy I kissed. I rushed forward. “Boyfriend!”
He jumped up to move an empty chair next to him.
We sat down, although the social worker stayed by the door. Her lips pinched as she watched us. That was bad, but I didn’t care. I reached for the boy’s hand and held it. His fingers squeezed mine, and my body warmed over.
I wished I could remember his name. Things had happened too fast for me to keep up.
But I remembered the kiss. It was better than TV. When he did it, I felt perfect inside, like I was sprouting happiness in my body. No trembling. No fear.
I wanted to do it again.
A gray-haired woman spoke. “Ava, I’m Morena, the counselor. Ria just told us that she’s sixteen and plays the flute.” She turned to a boy slouched down in his chair. “Jared, what about you?”
“I’ve had two surgeries already. I’m over it.” He pointed a finger at his head and made a strange sound with his mouth, like peckow. “No help. Keto. VNS. Four failed meds.”
Ria snorted. “Four failed meds? I’ve had fourteen.”
“This isn’t a contest.” Morena wrote something on her paper then smiled at my boyfriend. “Would you like to take a turn?”
“Sure. I like bowling.” He pointed to his shirt. “And I pretty much live for video games where I get to kill off zombies.”
Bowling. Zombies. I couldn’t picture those things. They weren’t words I knew.
“Very good,” Morena said. “We are all so much more than our diagnosis.”
“Diagnosis?” He grabbed his head with his free hand, startling me. “Is something wrong with me? Am I dying? Should I find Jesus?”
Ria let out a giggle.
Morena smiled. “You have a great sense of humor.”
I grinned. “He’s my boyfriend.”
Morena shuffled through her papers. “You two know each other?”
I lifted our joined hands to my cheek. “Of course. We’ve been making out like Meredith Grey and Dr. McDreamy in the residents’ bunk room.”
He laughed. “You like Grey’s Anatomy?”
“Love it!” I said. “I watched a marathon. Didn’t run in one, though.”
Jared and Ria burst out laughing. I looked at them, then at Morena. “Is that funny?”
The social worker moved forward from where she’d been watching at the door and handed Morena another piece of paper. “Here’s a little background on Ava.”
Morena scanned it. “So you had a memory loss event last night, Ava?”
This got everybody quiet.
“I admit nothing,” I said. People liked saying that on Judge Judy.
My boyfriend turned to me with a broad smile. Yes. I said the right thing.
Morena turned to the social worker. “She has amnesia?”
My body buzzed with energy. “I’m right here,” I said. “I can tell you myself.”
The social worker’s lips pinched the tightest I’d seen, but it no longer made me anxious. I was a fighter. The notes I left in my history book said so. I had to fight.
She tapped the paper Morena held. “Memory loss, declarative. She was tested this morning. All procedural intact. She can walk, talk, seems normal. Only episodic memory is gone.”
“Jabber jabber jabber,” I said, each word like a shard of glass aimed at the woman.
Every scene from the TV shows I’d watched that day were like treasure troves, words and emotions I could fire like the guns the cops carried in Law and Order.
“I’m fine. Look at me. My boyfriend is right here. I’m all good.”
Jared perked up. “Dang.” He and Ria were paying full attention.
Morena tucked the new paper into her clipboard. “Ava, do you remember anything before last night?”
“Of course I do.” I flipped my hair with my hand like a shampoo commercial, forgetting the wires, and had to disentangle my fingers. “Nobody can tell what I know or don’t know.”
Morena’s gaze clashed with the social worker. The social worker subtly shook her head no.
A fighter instinct rose in me, heat curling through my belly. No one was going to tell me I was weak. I wrote on my skin. I found the shower curtain. I read about who I was. I was smart and fierce, and none of these people would take me down.
“All right, Ava,” Morena said. “What did you do yesterday?”
“The same crap we always do.” I glanced at my boyfriend. “Right, honey?”
His grin made my stomach swoop just like the kiss. “Absolutely. You got here yesterday morning, checked in by the fish tank. Told me the blue one was your favorite.”
I had no notes about him, but it didn’t matter. Here he was. Perfection in jeans and an orange and brown shirt. His smile told me he would help.
“Nope, it was the red,” I said. “Blue was your favorite.”
“I stand corrected,” he said, his grin even bigger.
“And it took forever for them to wire you up. We tried to arrange being here at the same time, but I got here several days ago.” He lifted my hand and kissed the back of it.
My belly positively vibrated with joy. We were fierce together.
“I’ve purposefully held off having a seizure so I could be here with you. ”
Morena pulled her pencil out. She was going to take notes, too. This was a test. “Ava, have you met me before?”
I looked her dead in the eye. “Nope. The only person I know is my boyfriend.”
Morena lifted one of her eyebrows. “So, you really are her boyfriend?”
He sat up straight. “With all the rights and privileges thereof.”
“Ava, it’s okay to acknowledge your condition,” Morena said. “Has this happened before?”
“It hasn’t happened now.” The more I spoke with confidence, the better I felt. This was the way to live. Not scared in a bathroom shower. Old Ava told me in the notes that I learned quickly. I would turn eighteen in a couple of months. Then I could leave home no matter what Mother said.
And now I had a boyfriend. Boyfriends were good, if they were like Dr. McDreamy for Meredith. Or bad, if they made you cry, like Alex. I wasn’t sure how often either thing happened, but this felt like the right kind.
I held our joined hands to my chest. “Tad and I are about to celebrate four months of boyfriend and girlfriend bliss.”
I immediately caught myself. Tad? Where had that come from?
Jared slid back down in his chair. Ria’s mouth became a frown.
I’d messed up. I would not pass the test.
Morena lifted both eyebrows this time. “His name is Tucker.”
I had to fix this. My gaze moved from the counselor to the other teens while I thought about it. Then I said, “I call him Tad.”
Tucker put his arm around me. “She thinks Tucker is hokey.”
My belly swooped again. I ran through the episodes of the shows I’d watched, thinking fast for a way to prove we had memories together. Then I had it. The Simpsons. “Tad swept me off my feet at a school dance,” I said. “He tried to do some fancy dip, and I ended up on the ground.”
“Super embarrassing,” he added.
I squeezed his hand. “But in true Tad fashion, he picked me right up again, and we continued dancing.” I grinned up at him and was rewarded with a glorious smile in return. “And since then, he’s picked me up every time I’ve fallen.”
His smile faltered.
Oh no. I’d said the wrong thing.
But his expression must have meant something good because he lifted my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles.
The feeling became more than a swoop. It was a glow.
An assurance that everything was absolutely right.
I sank into it like the blankets on the bed.
It was the most secure, the most safe I’d felt since reading the shower curtain.
“That’s what people do,” he said. “When they’re in love. They pick each other up.”
I didn’t know if love worked this way. I hadn’t seen enough TV or lived enough life to know for sure.
But I believed him. Because when Tucker said he’d pick me up when I fell, the gooey goodness inside told me it was absolutely true.