Chapter 35
Ava
Tucker and I thought we were so secure. Tucker’s VNS worked so well. My meds kept my seizures away. Once we had the legal protection against my mother in place, our situation felt manageable. We could live like other people.
But at my next doctor visit, everything changed.
Dr. Clark entered the room without his usual smile. He held a tablet in his arms, scrolling and tapping, frowning.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
He sat on the stool and looked at me with dark eyes filled with concern. “Ava, you’re a patient I think about a lot. Epilepsy is one thing. Memory loss is another.”
I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. “My medication has been working for over a year. Things have been good.”
“Remember when we talked about the blood test at your last visit? Why you had to do them?”
Unease curled in my belly the way a flower petal shrivels and dies. “I did the blood test.”
“And I have the results. We were looking for signs of liver damage. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s also not really rare. And it’s happening to you.”
Tucker stood up from his chair. “She has to switch medicines?”
Dr. Clark nodded solemnly. “She has to switch.”
It took a few seconds for my throat to loosen enough to speak. “Will the new one work?”
“It should. It uses a similar method of stopping seizures.” He patted my shoulder. “We’re going to be very conservative. We’ll have you on a full working dose before we wean you off the old one. Your liver isn’t going to be harmed immediately. We have time to change from one to the other.”
Tucker watched as Dr. Clark moved through the usual checks, finger touching, eye following, but we were distracted.
The moment we headed out of the office, he said, “We need to plan for a reset. Just in case.”
I agreed.
“We need to make videos. You talking. The two of us talking. Film your apartment and what everything means. Pictures of people. Your history. Everything.”
I took his hand. “We’ll get it done. We’ll be sure to be ready.”
But I understood his fear. When I started over, I knew nothing. Not even him.
We prepared as best we could. Videos. Notes.
We typed up our entire story, alternating points of view to make it like a real book of our lives.
We created what we called “the sequence”—an organized set of videos, notes, and photographs that would tell me who I am and who mattered. And also, who to avoid.
I would never be more vulnerable than right after losing my memory.
Tucker didn’t officially move in with me, but we stayed together for all of our home hours. For the first few weeks of the transition, everything seemed all right. The new med caused some dry mouth. A few rounds of dizziness. All normal side effects that faded as I got used to the drug.
But then I noticed small things. Frequently, my head would go fuzzy for long seconds. I’d catch myself being asleep, but not asleep, like I’d zoned out.
Dr. Clark was concerned, but felt sure I would settle in. Once the old med was totally out of my system, he inched the dose of the new med higher and higher to stop the small breakthrough seizures.
On an evening a couple of months after the switch, I spread my newest class assignment across the dining room table to be packaged and turned in. The photos were of a baby with a toothless smile, gold bokeh behind her, bits of light I’d captured perfectly out of focus.
“Come look at these,” I said to Tucker, who was washing the dishes. “I really love doing this. I’m thinking about getting a bachelor’s degree instead of just an associate’s.”
He shut off the water. “That’s great! Still here in Austin?”
“Sure. UT has a great program. I could do any kind of work I wanted. Portrait. Editorial. Advertising. I could be on a billboard!”
“I love it. Dream big, Ava.” Tucker kissed my hair and turned back to the sink.
My head went fuzzy again, and I sighed in annoyance. Another partial seizure. I would sit for a few seconds and wait it out. We’d have to increase my dose yet again.
I was about to tell Tucker I would call Dr. Clark in the morning when I realized my mouth wasn’t working. I couldn’t get a word out at all.
My hand holding the portrait went slack, dropping to my side. That was bad. I hadn’t gotten this far before.
My body tilted, more muscles going. My head sizzled. The last thing I saw as I began to fall was the world turning sideways.