“Eh, I don’t know.” She shrugs. “Probably, but I already saved your life and it’s also not super normal to give someone a sandwich in exchange for that. So…” She giggles, leaning out of the way of my attempted shove.
“It was my mom’s idea,” I admit. Iknewit was a weird move. “Was it good, at least?”
“I actually didn’t eat it,” Nora replies, sounding a little guilty. “I went vegan a little bit ago.”
“Oh. That’s what your mom meant.”
“Oof. Sorry you had to meet her.” She cringes.
“Your mom? Yeah, she was… uh.” I wrap my arms around my knees at the thought of her.
“Easygoing? Tenderhearted? Charismatic?” Nora fills in.
“All of the above,” I answer, and both of us share a knowing smile. Nora seems to be about the opposite of whatever her mom is and not at all the awkward girl who walked into my room that night. “Hey, I didn’t really get a chance to like… talk to you at the hospital. You kinda…”
“Yeah, sorry I disappeared.” She pauses for a little while, kicking her boot into a few scattered stones. “I just realized it was probably a bad time. For you guys.”
I think of that night, my dad getting emotional as he told me what Nora did for me, how she carried meover a milethrough the woods.
“How did you do it?” I ask. She definitely looks stronger than most girls, but she’s still at least a couple of inches shorter than me. “How did you get me out of there?”
She shrugs, staring at the brick wall across from us. “I never had another option. I was either going to get you out of thereor…” She bites the inside of her mouth, the skin of her cheek hollowing. “I just… I couldn’t leave you.”
Being here at the coffee shop hasn’t done anything to jog my memory, but maybe routine isn’t enough. Maybe if I saw the place where it happened. Maybe I could at least remember why I was there in the first place.
“Can you show me sometime? Where it happened?” She doesn’t answer me right away, like she’s deciding. “Please,” I add, and finally she nods.
I hand her my new phone from my pocket and she hesitates for a second before finally inputting her number. I half expect her to ask me about it, my lost memories, my recovery. Everyone else seems to have questions, but she doesn’t.
I take a deep breath of fresh air, feeling surprisingly better after sitting here with her, and even though I don’t like talking about it with strangers, even though she hasn’t asked, there’s this urge to tell her.
“Maybe it’ll help because right now… I can’t remember the last two years of my life,” I admit. She doesn’t look at me like I’m some kind of alien, or ask me a thousand questions. She looks almost like she understands. “You know, I think you’re the first person I’ve talked to, likereallytalked to, who didn’t know me before. Who doesn’t know all these things about me that I don’t even know myself. It’s kinda nice.”
She opens her mouth, closes it, then opens it again. “I… I’m glad,” she says, checking her watch. I check my phone too and notice that my fifteen minutes are almost up.
“Oh my God. I can never go back in there.” Kendra and Cal and all those customers flash in front of my eyes. “I need toleave. Move to a new country under a new name. You want to come with me?” I ask, turning to Nora.
She laughs, but her smile slowly disappears before she speaks. “I wish I could…” She pauses for a long time, her eyes scanning every part of my face again in a way that makes my cheeks heat up, then clears her throat. “But I’ve gotta get back to the farm,” she finishes, standing up and turning her back to me.
“Wait, don’t you want a drink?”
“I think your concoction just about did me in. I’m glad you’re okay, Stevie,” she says over her shoulder, then walks quickly around the front of the building.
I glance down at her phone number lit up on my screen and then up to the empty space where she just disappeared around the corner.
I know I’m supposed to be getting back to normal but being with Nora, this girl who I’ve never met before, feels more normal than anything I’ve tried so far. I feel like I can actually talk to her about stuff without any danger of stirring up the past, because, well, unlike everyone else I know, we have no past to stir up.
We’re a completely clean slate.
Maybe a nice and simple friendship like that could be good for me, let me start living my life without giving up the way Dr. Reicher suggested. Maybe I need that just as much as I need to remember.
July 3
WHAT AM I DOING, STEVIE?
I just flat-out lied straight to your face.
But also like what was I supposed to say? “Well, actually, Stevie, funny story, you and I have been dating for two years and we’re madly in love.”
