“I didn’t know if the two of you were together, but the interaction didn’t look friendly from where I stood, so I just kept watching. When he started dragging you off, something didn’t feel right, so I decided to intervene just in case something nefarious was happening.” He pauses, then says, “I’m glad I could help. No woman should have to experience a man in that capacity.”
The unspecifiedtypeof treatment we both imagine that man had in store for me sends a wave of nausea over me, but I take deep breaths and settle myself. I change the conversation as we approach the bungalows. “That one is mine.” I point to number twenty-one.
“Serendipitous. Mine is that one.” He points to the bungalow across from mine. A fresh layer of safety coats me, and I grin.
“It’s like fate.”
Chapter Two
See Me Again ~ late June
The old coffee machine sounds like it’s dying with every gurgle and hiss, but it will brew the enchanted liquid needed to help me get through the current Shakespeare reading assignment for my master-level online college class. Some detrimental memories I lost were the years spent obtaining a master’s degree. I’ve begun redoing every literature class I took, and as always, I’m grateful to the woman I was: a meticulous note-taker who filled the bylines and color-coded with a legend for reference. A small part of me wonders if I’ll ever get that rigid streak back, but then again, when you almost die and lose three years of life, rigidity sounds like a prison sentence. I still prefer order to chaos, plans to spontaneity, and structure to going with the flow, but I’ve loosened up a bit. At least according to my best friend and sister-in-law, Sam Jenkins.
Speak of the raucous devil…
My camper door swings open without so much as a light tap masquerading as a knock, and in sweeps a summer tornado of short, blonde curls and curvy hips reciting Shakespeare.“‘Things base and vile, holding no quantity / Love can transpose to form and dignity. / Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, / And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. / Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste; / Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste.’”
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream!”I shout as if I’m a contestant on a game show.
Sam grins, high-fiving me. “Right you are. Two points, Gryffindor!” She slaps me on the rear before stealing the daisy coffee cup from my hand.
“But I’m Ravenclaw.”
“Were. Before the accident. Come on, you know that.” Sam winks, reaching into the small cabinet above the kitchenette to grab another mug. “You’ve re-tested several times over the past year and you’ve gotten Gryffindor each time. Accept your new fate, Meme.”
But my heart will always belong to Ravenclaw.“I guess it shows how much I’ve changed over the past year.”
“It really has almost been a year, hasn’t it?” Sam muses as she pours our coffee, handing me mine black in a sunset-orange mug that readsShakin’ Up the ‘Speareand features an image of the Bard himself wearing yellow sunglasses and tossing up a peace sign. It was a gift from Sam after her first performance with her Shakespearean theater troupe based out of the neighboring city and state’s capital, Jackson. Sam’s that kind of person; she gifts people for coming to her performance instead of expecting flowers. And yes, I always bring flowers regardless.
“The most stab-me-in-the-back thing you could have changed about yourself is taking your magic bean water black.” She pours creamer into the daisy cup and stirs before throwing a pouty expression my way. “I mean, seriously. We used to mock Ethan so hard for this very thing.” She gestures to my coffee, and I liftmy brows before taking a sip and humming with pleasure. But I don’t miss the way her face falls a little. “I miss those moments.”
Knowing Sam might murder me if I attempt to apologize for my missing memories for the thousandth time, I let her have her moment of sadness and then continue our conversation. “Guess my brother somehow rubbed off on me.”
“Methink’st thou art a general offense.” Sam hip-checks me lightly as she maneuvers around to the burnt-orange couch that can also serve as my dinner table and bench seats when I fold it out. “But I’m glad you came around to the color orange. It’s truly superior.”
“Yes, that is still a mystery to me.” I remember hating it. When I woke from the coma and doctors were asking me all kinds of personal questions, I answered that I loved the color orange before remembering I once thought the color made me feel like I was putting my brain in sport mode. I changed my answer to pink, but over the past year, I’ve fallen in love with the colors of the setting sun. “But the color brings me comfort instead of jostling my mind.”
“I couldn’t tell,” Sam jests, her brown eyes scanning my small space filled with various hues of oranges, pinks, reds, yellows, and blues. It’s chaotic and warm. And completely opposite of my former palette set to earthy neutrals alone, though I still have my beloved houseplants. The current vibe is a blend—an earthy, desert chic.
I think about life and death a lot, and the accident was a wake-up call for me. I can’t remember where I was in life at twenty-six, but from what everyone tells me, I was too cautious, safe, and controlled. Timid and anxious. I was well on that path at twenty-three, and I’m trying not to live that way anymore now that I’m pushing twenty-seven. I grab my best friend’s hand, not bothering to mention my internal thoughts. She’s heard mespill them a thousand times. “I want to be the version of me I’m writing about in my novel. Bold. Flirty. Speaks her mind. Fun.”
Sam smirks. “Try and try, Meme, but never forget that you are who you are. And who you are is lovely in every sense of the word, my friend.” She pulls at my ponytail, that innate sadness crossing her full features once more. “I think you’re plenty of fun. Even when you doubt yourself, overthink, and choose to play it safe. I liked who you were before the accident, and I like who you are now.”
Yeah, so fun.I spend my days with an imaginary man living in a fiction world I’m creating. Which was my goal for the summer, but still. I don’t go out unless it's for groceries or to write at the coffee shop. Sam usually comes here to hang out, though occasionally I visit her and my brother in Jackson. And then I have supper with my parents most nights of the week.I’m just the highlight of the party for one.
The couch buzzes, and Sam tugs her yellow phone from her back pocket.
“Hello, my hunk of a husband,” she coos, and I groan, rolling my eyes. I can’t remember their wedding, and sometimes, it still shocks me that they’re married. It will forever gross me out when she starts talking in the language of a lover to my brother, though I am supportive and over the moon about their marriage.
Oh, sweetheart. We would have them beat. We wouldexcelin the language of lovers. I speak it fluently.Coffee dribbles down my chin as I fight to contain my laugh at the fictional man’s nonsense. Noah’s voice is always alive in my head, and he says the most inappropriate things at the most inappropriate times.
Sam tosses me a concerned look, but I wave her off.
I move to my makeshift desk area by the north window of my camper where I can look out and see a green, grassy field with wildflowers blowing in the light summer breeze across the two-lane highway past the treeline. At the south end of the campersits my parents' house across their front lawn. Enough distance to have my space while still allowing me easy access if I need them. My parents like to hover, so after the accident, when I was ready to start taking some space to figure out who I was and who I was becoming, we agreed to this camper lifestyle so long as I stayed on their property. I love the life I’ve curated for myself, and I wouldn’t move out of my camper for nothing, short of getting married to a man, but ultimately, I’ve had a problem caring too much about letting others down, and it’s the hardest of all to confront when it comes to my parents.
Turning on my computer, I hunt down my old notes onRomeo and Juliet, the next Shakespeare play on my latest list. Sure enough, I find a file labeled with the play’s name and click on it. Another list of folders pop up, each numbered before the file name to keep them in the formation I wanted.
I shake my head and puff out a breath of air. I really was organized to a fault back then. Scanning my tiny space and noticing the piled dishes in the sink, sticky notes full of plot ideas covering a wall near the door, and clothes tossed haphazardly on the rocking chair, I realize maybe I could use a teensy bit more of that desire to be tidy. But then again, at least I’ve loosened up some, and regardless of what Sam preaches to me about how I’m good enough the way that I am, I know I can stand to untie the uptight knots even more.
