I wonder what else has changed, what else there is to know about how my life ended up, but right now I think I’m too afraid to ask more questions I might not like the answers to.
Later that evening my mom and I watch TV in my hospital room after my dad leaves to catch up on some work at thegarage. Judging from the bags under his eyes, these past couple of weeks haven’t been too easy on him.
On either of them, really.
I look over at my mom, all scrunched up on that tiny couch she slept on last night. She hides her exhaustion better than my dad, but I can still see it. It’s in the way she carries herself. The way she sighs when she sits down and the way she drags the heel of her sandals when she walks.
“Did you sleep there a lot?” I ask, pulling her attention away from the muted commercials on the TV in the corner of the ceiling.
“I don’t like to leave you here alone,” she says with a shrug. “Beats that.” She flicks her eyes to the pink recliner beside my heart rate monitor and the IV drip that they took out of my arm this morning. “Plus, if all goes well with your recovery, we should be getting out of here by the end of the week,” she adds, and I can hear relief in her voice. I know I should tell her to go home, but the truth is I really want her to stay. I don’t want to spend a night in this place without her.
I look down at my bed, scooting my body all the way onto one half.
“At least come sleep here.”
She pushes herself up onto her elbow. “With you?” she asks hesitantly. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah?” I squint my eyes at her for a second, letting out a confused laugh. “Why wouldn’t I be?” We spend half of our evenings sprawled out on her bed anyway, among hot cups of tea and a selection of snacks, watching movies until my dad comes up to bed.
She smiles up at me, then her feet pad across the floor as I throw the blanket back for her to climb in. We wiggle around a little to get comfortable until she ends up on her side, her arm stretched out above my head. I stare at the reality baking show on the TV, reading the tiny captions at the bottom of the screen. A couple of minutes later I feel her fingers combing gently through my hair, careful to stay far away from my stitches. My eyelids start to droop as I lose my battle with sleep, but they snap awake again when I hear a quiet sniffle from above.
I crane my neck to find her slightly glassy brown eyes looking back at me.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, and the question elicits a sad sort of smile.
“It’s just been a long time since…” Her other hand comes to rest on my cheek as she tries to find the words, but whatever they are, she doesn’t say them out loud. “I missed you,” she whispers instead, a tear spilling across the bridge of her small nose. I scoot up to lay my head down on her shoulder and she slides her arm around me, pulling me closer.
I guess I haven’t given much thought to how hard this must’ve been for her. To watch me lie unconscious for weeks, not knowing if it would all be okay.
As I fall asleep that night to the faint smell of her familiar perfume and the feeling of her hand, warm on my back, I realize that maybe I’m actually just lucky to be here, lying in a hospital bed with my mom. Sure I’m in a town that I’ll probably never escape from, with no idea if I’ll ever remember the missing twoyears of my life, and that’s definitely not the best-case scenario, but it’s certainly not the worst, either.
Because I’m still here. I still have my family, the people who mean the world to me.
And I’m still alive.
CHAPTER 8
I’M DISCHARGED FROM THE HOSPITALa few days later. Per Dr. Reicher’s recommendation, the very first thing I do when I get home is head into the bathroom and take a long, hot shower. It feelsincredible. It’s the first real shower I’ve taken in over two weeks and I’m not going to lie… it freaking feels like it.
When I step out onto the mat, I keep my eyes away from the mirror, just like I’ve done since I woke up four days ago. I don’t know what I think it is I’ll see, but… I’m just not sure I’m ready.
When I’m all dried off, I wrap the towel around me and cross the hallway,solooking forward to stepping into my room,myspace. My evergreen-painted walls plastered with posters from floor to ceiling:Outer BanksandStranger Things, Taylor Swift and the US Women’s National Team. The old wooden desk in the corner, family photos lining the top shelf. Plants that my mom and I started from seeds sitting along the windowsill in mismatched pots hanging over my pink bedspread.
I swing the door open ready to breathe a sigh of relief, but as I step inside it’s…
… It’s notmyroom at all.
Across from me, all of my posters are gone, replaced by tons of little white spots, where the paint was ripped off the drywall. I drag my bare feet across a new beige area rug and over to my desk, which is now painted white. A line of books has replaced all but one of my framed family photos. The one with me as a baby being held by my dad, my mom standing beside us looking like the happiest person to ever walk the earth. It’s always been my favorite. I slide my hand across the spine of each book, but my fingers catch on something hard and rough after the last one. Leaning in closer, I pull out a gray-and-orange-striped rock tucked between two sections of wood. I have no idea what it’s doing there, but I place it back on the shelf next to the photo. Then I rest my hand on the cool metal of a silver MacBook, running my eyes across the completely empty windowsill, not a single one of our plants in sight.
The drive home today proved that not a single thing about Wyatt has changed. It’s still full of the same empty storefronts. The same front yards littered with brightly colored plastic toys and turned-over bicycles. Even the same old man sitting on his front porch in a tank top watching the traffic go by. So I never expected my room would be so different. Have I really changed this much in two years?
I walk over to my door again, my hand clamped around the edge. I know I’ll see my own reflection when I close it. I know the mirror at least has to still be there, because when I was ten, I had the genius idea to Gorilla Glue it there. I still don’t know if I’m ready, but at this point I might as well rip off the Band-Aid.
I close the door and drop my towel, staring at my nakedreflection in the full-length mirror. Turning to the side, I run my hands over my chest, fingers dragging down each rib, across my flat stomach and onto my hips, taking in all the changes to my body, big and small. I flip my hair over my shoulders, and it actually might be the most noticeable difference. I havealwayswanted really long hair, but I could never stand that awkward midlength like an overgrown bob and I’d cut it before it could pass that point. I guess I finally found the drive, because it’s hanging almost down to my belly button.
I lean in closer, examining my face, turning my chin to the left and right, up and down. Different, but not in a bad way. My cheeks aren’t as full and my jaw is a bit more pronounced. I guess I look…older.
I turn my back to the mirror before I get too weirded out and make my way over to the closet, pulling the handle to reveal a line of hanging T-shirts, both plain and graphic in mostly muted tones. The girly tank tops and bright colors I remember are nowhere in sight. I reach into the top drawer for a pair of undies but pull out pajama pants instead. So I make my way down each one, until in the bottom drawer I find a pair, along with a bra that looks too big but isn’t. I get dressed, picking out some blue jean shorts and a faded yellow T-shirt with a bundle of wildflowers embroidered onto the chest pocket. Cute.
