AFTER
January
The tears hit me with force when they come. I wrap my arms around myself and lean my hand against the headrest, and all I can do is heave and sob because I can’t stop thinking about all the things I’ve lost without knowing.
I’m still parked outside the restaurant, but I can’t stop thinking about what it might have felt like to have a younger brother. A pink-toed baby brother who maybe cooed at the sight of my face and danced around in a high chair and smelled like baby powder and new life.
I can’t stop thinking about the day we put him in that tiny grave and how it’s been there all these years and how I never went back. How I should have gone back.
I can’t stop wondering about the first time I met Zach, and whether I liked him from the moment I laid eyes on him. And why don’t I remember what it felt like to kiss him the first time? To lock my fingers in between his?
I lost my virginity to him and it’s supposed to make you different, and all this time I didn’t know. And even now I’ll never really know.
What did his hair feel like in my hands, and what are all the truths I told him,gavehim, about myself that I’ll never get back?
Who was I when I loved him? Did being in love make the air feel light and musical? Did I have more good hair days and better playing days, and was I any surer of who I am? Were my eyes wider, my lips different, from having been kissed? Was I that girl who couldn’t stop grinning, couldn’t stop telling strangers about this boy I liked, or was I quiet and cool and coy like I always hoped I’d be?
I don’t remember anything about being with him, or not being with him. Did it really make me different, did our relationship really mean anything, if he’s still with her?
I would take the sting of brokenheartedness, of being betrayed, if I could somehow get back the knowing, the feeling, of all those days. The weight of them, certain and clear in my mind. I would give anything to have them back. I’d even take his invisible replica, the boy who wasn’t Zach but who led me to him. And to a version of myself I might never have known existed.
The impact of everything I’ve lost, all the things I’ve lost forever, hits me again and again until I can’t breathe.
AFTER
January
“I need your help please I need your help.” I mumble a run-on sentence once I reach the counter where the receptionist is. It’s Heidi again, and the man who was training is nowhere in sight. I drove to Overton right after losing it in the car, and I was expecting to have to plead or grovel my way into the clinic since I didn’t make an appointment, but apparently Dr. Overton has granted me temporary emergency access because of my “symptoms,” the unexpected side effects I’ve been experiencing.
“Please,” I say again. I must be loud, because while Heidi is trying to calm me down and the other patients are staring, the nurse with the purple stripe in her hair hurries in with Dr. Overton, who’s holding a half-eaten chocolate granola bar, his eyes wide with surprise.
“Addison!” he says. “What are you doing here?”
“I need you to help me.”
He and the nurse exchange a glance, and I determine definitively that, yes, she does know me. Then I follow Dr. Overton to his office and sit across the desk from him for the third time in a week.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, looking genuinely concerned.
“The boy I was seeing? The memory?” Dr. Overton nods. “He’s gone. I can’t get him to come back.”
I see some of the tension release from his shoulders.
“Well, that’s good! Right?” He watches me carefully.
I shake my head. “No, that’s notgood.He’s all I have.”
Of the first time I fell in love. Of the two people who were erased from my mind.
Dr. Overton’s forehead furrows and he seems unsure what to say for a second. Finally he chuckles. “He’s notallyou have, Addie. You have two parents who would do anything for you and—”
“You don’t understand,” I say, speaking over him. “I feel like there’s a giant hole.” I hear my voice catch as I continue. “And I don’t know how to fill it. How to go back to being normal and happy. How to look at my family again.”
To know that they’re not who I thought. That I’m not who I thought.
The crease remains in the middle of Dr. Overton’s forehead.
“I wantyouto fill it,” I say slowly. “I want you to give me my memories back.”
