“Social worker,” I whispered.
“That’s right. A social worker,” she said. “I need a social worker to send me to the support group because I’m sad. Depressed! I should take an SSRI, which may cause dry mouth and have side effects I should tell my doctor about.” She seemed elated to have thought of all this.
Her mother rounded the bed. “No more television.”
Ava lunged toward the nurse and grabbed her arm. “Please call a social worker. I need to talk.” She bit her lip. “I need help away from this mother.”
Her mother went still. “Ava? What are you doing?”
Ava stood straighter. “You said I was here to get help. I’m getting it.”
“You’re here to get a doctor’s opinion,” her mother said.
Ava turned back to the nurse. “Please, a social worker. My mother… hurts me.”
“Ava! Stop it!” Her mother’s face contorted with fear.
The nurse paused, wide-eyed. “I’ll get someone up here right away.” She looked back and forth between the mother and Ava. “I think I’ll wait here for her to arrive.” She pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped a hurried message.
DeShawn tugged on my arm. “Come on, Tucker.Now.”
This time I let him lead me away. When we were in the hall, I asked him, “Do you believe all that?”
He shook his head. “I believe you are about to get your butt thrown out of here.”
“I think she’s in some sort of trouble.”
“Ava doesn’t remember who you are. Let them sort this out.”
“I lose some memory when I have seizures. I forget things for a while. It comes back.”
“That’s not going to happen to Ava,” DeShawn said. “When she has a seizure, her memory loss is permanent.”
“Permanent? Like gone, gone?”
DeShawn grimaced. “Gone for good. Now, come on.”
I barely registered the walls as they blurred past, giant portraits of smiling kids in colorful frames. Ava lost everything with a seizure.
How could you live that way?
Would she have another one today? Would she lose the memory of kissing me?
I’d never forget it. Her blue eyes. Her joy. For the first time in my life, someone had pinned their hopes on me.
I decided right then and there, her seizures didn’t matter. Because after losing my parents and brother, there was one thing I knew about memories. As long as you were alive, you could always makemore.
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.
