“Hopefully I won’t be long,” she says. And she turns to follow the nurse back out into the hallway. When she gets to the boy, she puts a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay,” she says, and then she lets her hand fall as she steps past him into the hallway.
This seems to be what he was waiting for, and he takes a step fully into the room. He’s tall and athletic-looking in sweats and a T-shirt. Handsome. One of his arms is in a sling; his opposite hand, bandaged. There are bruises beneath his eyes—bruises like I saw in the mirror last night.
I can feel Paige watching me as I try desperately to add up all the details.
“I’m sorry,” she says. She looks from me, over her shoulder, at the boy. “I know you two probably have a lot to talk about, I can go—”
“No,” I say, more forcefully than I mean to. “Stay. Please.” I hold on to her hand. Tight.
She glances at the boy, then nods at me. “Okay. I’ll stay.”
It’s quiet.
“Liv,” he says finally, and I startle at the sound of my nickname and the tremor in his voice when he says it. Like he knows me. Like I should know him.
His bandaged hand shakes the slightest bit as he takes a few steps toward the bed.
“I’m so sorry,” he says.
I tighten my grip on Paige’s hand, and try to ignore the rawness of his voice and the worry it triggers in my chest: that something is very, very wrong. I should know who he is. I should know what he’s sorry about.
“God, I’m sorry. I don’t even know what to—I didn’t know what hit us. We went over so fast, and then we hit the water, and it came pouring through the windows, and the airbags were everywhere—I couldn’t see anything.”
His words sink in—we . . . us . . .
The accident.
“You were in the accident too?”
I look at him, and all of a sudden it feels hard to breathe.
“I couldn’t find you at first,” he says. “I got out, and I dove back down, over and over.” He shakes his head. “And then I did find you, but I . . .” He looks at me now. “You were stuck and I couldn’t get you out.” He runs his hands over his face and through his hair, and looks at me with glassy eyes. “I’m so sorry, Liv.”
My throat tightens, and I try to take a breath, but it hurts. I look at Paige, beg her silently to tell me what’s going on.
She just squeezes my hand.
“Liv?” His eyes plead with me. “Say something. Please.”
“I don’t . . .”
Worry creases his forehead. “I know you don’t remember. I just . . . wanted you to know that I tried. I would’ve traded my life for yours if I could have.” He takes a step closer and reaches out a tentative hand. Rests it on the edge of the bed. “I love you, Liv.”
I press my lips together and try to keep from crying, but it’s too late and there’s no other way to say what I need to.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “But I don’t . . .”
I can hardly bring myself to say it, because of the look on his face, and because now I’m certain something is very, very wrong.
My voice is shaky and hollow when I finally form the words.
“I don’t know you.”
Confusion spreads over his face. “What do you mean?”
I glance at Paige, who seems just as worried and confused as he is. “Liv?” She looks from me to him and back again, alarm in her eyes. “Liv, what’s wrong? What’s going on? It’s Matt.”
I look back at the boy standing there by the bed, and I repeat the only thing I know to be true in this moment.
“I don’t know who you are.”
FIVE
DR. TATE STANDS next to my bed, and my parents hover at the end of it. My dad is in his uniform—he came straight from work when my mom called him. She’d come back to the room to find Paige still holding my hand, Matt pacing quietly, and me sitting there feeling like I’d failed them both terribly.
They’d gone silent when I’d finally said I didn’t know who he was, looked at each other in that worried way people have been doing around me, hoping I don’t notice, since I woke up. It was a relief for all of us when my mom had come in. I think even more so for them when, after we told her everything, she thanked them for coming, suggested that I needed some rest so they should probably go, hugged them both, and assured them that she’d call later with an update. As soon as they walked out the door, she called the nurse on duty, who called Dr. Tate.
That was hours ago.
Since then, Dr. Tate has taken me through a series of tests that started with questions like what was my full name, and when was my birthday. After I got those questions right, we’d moved on to me counting backward and repeating sequences of words, identifying the names of everyday objects in pictures, and answering questions like whether or not a stone floats on water.
It had all felt strange and ridiculous, but those were all tests I had passed. It was the questions that came after, the ones my parents had asked me, that I didn’t have the answers for. Questions about Matt, and school, and volleyball. Birthdays, and dances, and summers spent working at the marina. They’d gone backward in time with their questions, starting from this morning when I didn’t know who Matt was, until finally we got to the summer before freshman year, and I started to have some answers.
Which brings us here, now.
Dr. Tate flips through the last few pages on my chart, then closes it in her hands and focuses all her attention on us. “Based on the full CAP assessment, and the questions you’ve helped me ask her, I believe Liv is experiencing posttraumatic retrograde amnesia.” She looks at me now. “You’ve been through a major trauma—one in which you were without oxygen for an extended period of time.” She turns to my parents. “That could be the cause, or it could be the blow she suffered to the head when she was pulled onto the boat. In either case, based on the memories she is able to recall, we know she’s missing a period of recent years.” She looks back at me. “Between four and five, as far as we can tell. Right?”
I close my eyes, try to wrap my mind around what Dr. Tate is saying.
That I died for a few moments and came back missing years of my life. That there are years of the life I’ve lived that I do not remember. Years that still feel like they’re ahead of me. Days I was looking forward to. Big moments I’ve already had. They’re gone. Like they were never mine.
“What does this mean? Is it permanent?” my mom asks.
It’s quiet for a long moment, and I open my eyes and look at Dr. Tate, who’s looking at me.
“It’s hard to say. In many of these cases, some or all of a person’s memories return over time. In others, they don’t. At this point, it’s a waiting game.”
“So we just have to wait and see?” My mom’s voice is shaky now.
Dr. Tate nods sympathetically. “I know that’s not the answer you want, but as hard as that sounds, yes. We’ll continue to assess her and monitor any progress we see, but there’s very little we can do for this besides give it time.”
Now my dad chimes in. “There has to be something we can we do to help her—besides wait and see. That doesn’t—there’s got to be something more.”