Toby hands it to me. The handwriting is definitely mine.
I read the pages, the graphic descriptions of a fantasy that I’d just lived. They brought my words to life.
I snap the diary shut and clutch it to my chest. "Why didn't you look for me at the hospital?"
"You told us to stay out of your life. You ignored our calls and texts." Toby rubs his neck.
Dylan nods. "We’re sorry Ni—Molly. We thought you were just mad. And as far as what we read, it doesn’t make it right, but we felt the same way about you. What we read gave us permission to stop denying our feelings.”
I’m not ready for apologies. “Do you know how depressing it was that no one came looking for me?”
“We tried, but with privacy laws it wasn’t easy. Thanks to a friend risking her job, we tracked down the woman’s shelter you went to, but they protect their clients too.”
"Look." Toby thrusts his phone at me. “This was our group chat."
I scroll through the messages. The dates match when I was admitted to the hospital. They apologize profusely, beg for my forgiveness, swearing they'll never tell anyone what I wrote…
Dylan’s saying something but I’m absorbed in the messages, even a proclamation of love, a promise of a lifetime together if that's what I want. It's all there.
Toby's voice pulls me from the screen. "Our best guess is that you booted us from your place and went for a jog—your go-to way to blow off steam. A Jane Doe was admitted to the hospital that day, discharged the next with bumps, bruises, and memory loss."
I wave him off. "They were supposed to let the shelter know if anyone came looking for me."
"By the time we realized you weren't just ghosting us, you'd already left the hospital."
Reading their increasingly concerned messages warms my heart more than anything. They tried. They got vulnerable. In some ways it's like them reading my diary, seeing the most protected side of someone.
I glance at the box of my things. A medal from a marathon rings a bell. I'll go through the contents later. And since I was so explicit in my diary, maybe it holds answers to parts of my life no one else would know, although I doubt I'll find anything more shocking than my confession about my stepbrothers.
Toby continues, "I did reverse image searches daily. The hit on the reindeer ranch was our only hope."
Dylan adds, "It seemed like a longshot since the woman was holding a kid, but we had to know if it was you."
"That was Jolene's little one. I was helping her. She was in the auction."
Dylan smiles. "She’s lucky to have you as a friend. You always clicked with kids, helped with the after-school running group."
The room spins as memories flood in. "I need to sit."
They help me to the couch, sit beside me, and hold me.
There’s no way I could have faced them after they read what I wrote… except the way it happened. My clean slate. My second chance?
Toby's hand squeezes my knee. "Take your time."
Dylan leans in, his breath warm on my neck. "No rush, we're here for you now."
Am I really considering going through with this?
Chapter 13
Molly
Toby wraps me in a sideways embrace, his arm solid around my shoulders. His lips rest on my head.
"I hate that you can't remember our past," he murmurs. "And might never. I promise to fill your life with the best memories moving forward. I don't want the one big thing you remember about us to be that argument."
"A lot of memories are coming back. By the time I get through the box you brought, I bet I'll have even more good ones."
