by Jessi Kirby
Unless I can.
Unless I can find them the way Dr. Tate mentioned, by getting back to the familiar. The routines of my life.
I make up my mind then, that that’s what I’ll do. I’ll step right back into my life, like it was before. And when I don’t know what that was like, I’ll find out. And maybe this will work. Maybe things will come back to me and I’ll feel like myself again.
This feels better, having a plan. Hopeful, even.
I get up and go to the kitchen island, where I left my new phone.
“Paige?” I say when she answers. “It’s Liv. Can you come over today?”
TEN
AFTER I HANG UP with Paige, I go upstairs to get ready. I shower quickly, doing the best I can to wash my own hair. I know Paige already saw me in the hospital, but I feel a little nervous about seeing her again, and I want to look like I’m doing better than I was there. More like me.
In my room, I open and close drawers, finding my way to my clothes. None of them are familiar, so I settle on a tank top and comfy shorts that I hope I would normally wear. All this tires me out a little, and my ribs are beginning to ache, but I go back into my bathroom, find a comb, and stand in front of the mirror. It’s still a little foggy from my shower, so I grab a towel and wipe the space in front of me.
This new reflection stops me every time I see it. Of course I’m taller than I remember being, but my body is different too. Somewhere in those four years, I grew the same curves I’d look at on other girls and hope for. All these differences were startling at first, but now that I’m dressed in my own clothes instead of the hospital gown, and the bruises on my face are starting to fade a little, I can almost see that this is me. This version of myself doesn’t seem so far-fetched. I might even get used to her.
I finish combing my wet hair just as the doorbell rings, and I take one last look in the mirror before I go down to answer it. This is going to work. Paige is going to tell me everything I need to know, and I’m going to listen to every word so I can pick up where I left off.
“Wow,” Paige says, surveying my life laid out on the table for me. “Your mom must’ve stayed up all night to do this.”
“I think she did.”
Paige runs her eyes over the yearbooks and family photo books. “That was really sweet of her.”
“I know. I think she feels kind of helpless, so she’s trying to do what she can.”
“Well, I think it’s a good idea—and you have a good plan. She gave you the outline version, and I can fill in the rest. Because you know the actual details of your life and relationships are gonna be a little bit different from the ones your mom knows.” She winks and gives me a conspiratorial smile that makes it seem like I should understand what she’s referencing.
For the first time, I’m a little nervous about what I might find out. “It can’t be that different,” I say. “Right?”
Paige shakes her head. “No. It’s not. It’s just that, you know. You show a different side to your friends than you do to your parents. That’s all I meant.” She puts a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry. There aren’t any big skeletons in your closet or anything—I mean, not unless you count the time we swiped those leftover Lime-A-Ritas from your mom’s staff party and snuck out to meet the boys on the beach for an illegal bonfire that got a little out of hand.”
I have no idea what Lime-A-Ritas are, and I can’t picture having an illegal bonfire on the beach, but I don’t say so. I raise an eyebrow at her instead.
She shrugs. “Minor skeletons,” she says with a smile. “It was a good night. But I’m getting ahead of myself.” She drifts into the kitchen, past the open pantry door. “Wow, she did a lot of shopping too.”
“Are you hungry? Help yourself,” I say, following.
We both step into the walk-in pantry, and I watch Paige scan the shelves before she finally reaches for a bag of white cheddar popcorn and two bottles of sparkling water.
“There’s Coke in the fridge,” I offer.
She hands me one of the bottles of sparkling water. “We don’t drink soda anymore. Gave it up when we went vegetarian.” She smiles. “Good life choices and all.”
I look down at the bottle in my hand. “Oh,” I say. “Right.”
I let Paige pick out a few more snack items—all of which, I’m happy to say, I like, and I know that I like—before we head up to my room.
I sit in my desk chair, and Paige lies on my bed, chin propped with her elbows. “So,” she says, purposefully. “Where do you wanna start?”
I want to start with why there’s only Paige and no Jules here, but that feels like something I should work up to. “I, um . . .” I look around the room, my room, and my eyes land on the chalkboard wall above the desk. “This, maybe? What is all this?”
Paige smiles as she pushes herself up and comes over to the desk so she’s standing next to me. “It’s your memory board, where we—” She stops. Looks down at me. “Wow, I’m sorry. I’m still getting used to this.” She runs her eyes over the board. “You really don’t remember any of this, do you?”
I stand up so we’re shoulder to shoulder and start to read over words and phrases that feel just as foreign to me now as they were my first day back in my room. Then one catches my eye: Good Life Choices!!!
I point to it. “Is this about being a vegetarian? And no soda?”
Paige smiles. “Among other things. But you don’t remember that, do you?”
I shake my head, and we’re both quiet as we scan the board.
“Oh,” Paige says, “what about this? It’s from middle school, I think?”
I look where she’s pointing:
PUT. The toilet paper. Down.
“Um, I don’t . . .” I reach back in my mind for the context.
“It was the very first time we tried to sneak out to toilet paper a house, and your dad caught us.” She laughs. “That’s what he said. Over his police megaphone.”
The scene blossoms in my mind as soon as she says it. “Yes! I remember!” Now I laugh too. “Oh my God, yes. He let us get all the way outside with all that toilet paper, then lit us up in the middle of the front yard.”
“How old were we, anyway?” Paige asks.
“Twelve,” I say, happy that I know the answer. I do because that was the summer between sixth and seventh grade, which I still remember, in great detail. A few weeks later we succeeded in sneaking out and TP’ing our crushes’ houses without getting caught.
“That’s right,” Paige says. “Oh man, I thought we were in so much trouble.”
I shake my head at the memory. “And Jules was so embarrassed she wouldn’t come over for the rest of the summer.”
We’re both laughing, and there it is again. I can feel that moment of standing there, knowing we were caught, completely terrified of what was going to happen next, just like I can feel this moment, now. The two of us having something we share. Something that bonds us.
Our laughter fades, and I wonder if it’s because she feels like something is missing the same way I do.
“What happened?” I ask. “With Jules?” So much for working up to it.
Paige looks at the floor, and then at me, her face serious now. “What’s the last thing you remember? With her, I mean.”
“The three of us, together, talking about starting ninth grade.” I close my eyes, and I can see it, the three of us sitting here in this room. “I remember planning how we were gonna decorate our lockers, trying to figure out what our chances were of having at least one class together. Hoping it would be PE so we could hide behind each other to change. Being excited and scared all at once.” I open my eyes and look at Paige now. “I remember being friends. All of us.”
Paige is silent.
“What happened to us?”
She looks down at her hands. Won’t meet my eyes.
I wait, hoping the silence will give her the space to explain.
After a long moment, she looks at me. “Honestly? It’s
been so long I don’t even remember.” She shrugs. “It was just one of those things where she started hanging out with us less and less, and we just sort of . . .” She looks down, picks at fuzz on my comforter. “Drifted.”
“But how? I don’t understand. Why would we let that happen?”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.” She looks at me now. “There wasn’t any big fight, or anything like that. It was just . . .” She takes a deep breath and lets it out in a sigh. “Sometimes people just change, Liv. It’s sad, but that’s what happened. There wasn’t anything we could do about it.”
I think of Jules, and of the three of us together, and no matter how hard I try to accept what Paige is saying, it doesn’t feel right.
I’m not ready to let it go just yet, but Paige claps her hands together. “So,” she says. “What else? You want me to tell you everything I know about you and Matt, and how you guys are meant-to-be cute?”
“No—I mean, I do. Just. There’s something else I . . .” I glance at my computer. “I saw the video. Of me, and the rescue and everything.”
Paige’s eyes widen. “Oh Jesus. Why’d they show you that? How completely traumatizing.”
“Nobody showed it to me. I found it myself.”
“It’s awful,” Paige says. “I couldn’t watch it.”
“I watched it. Over and over.”
“Why?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. So it would seem real? So I could understand why my parents acted so weird when I started asking them questions about it.”
“You almost died, Liv. You don’t think they’re gonna be a little freaked out about the details of that?”
“No, I get that. They just acted strange when I asked about Walker being the one who pulled me out.”
Paige sits back and waves a dismissive hand. “Oh. That’s probably because of the whole thing that happened with your mom.”
“What thing with my mom?” I ask slowly.
Paige takes a sip of her sparkling water. “When we were freshmen. He was in her class, and he was out a lot, and then when he’d come back, he’d look like he’d gotten beat up. She asked us about it, and we told her what we’d heard—that it was his dad. So the next time he missed a bunch of school and came back with a broken arm, she called and reported it, and it turned into this whole big thing.”
“How? What do you mean?”
“Just . . . his mom came to the school all angry and yelled at your mom in the parking lot, saying how she ruined her life, and calling her all kinds of names. Your dad ended up having to come down and arrest her, and they filed a restraining order against his mom and all that. You know. Super-classy, small town drama.”
I realize that this was years ago for Paige, probably a blip on her radar, but she’s so casual about it. I try to be too. Try not to be entirely freaked out. No wonder my parents acted the way they did when I brought up Walker.
“What happened to Walker?” I ask, anxious that there may be more.
Paige shrugs. “I don’t know. He was gone after that. At first he went to live with relatives or something, but then I think he ended up in a group home until he got emancipated.”
“So my family broke up his family?”
Paige shakes her head. “No.”
“It seems like it,” I say, remembering his yearbook picture.
“They didn’t. His parents were a mess. I’m pretty sure they both ended up in jail, which is probably why your parents acted like that about him—even after what he did. He’s the kind of guy it’s just better to keep your distance from, you know?”
I nod. “Yeah. I get it,” I say. But I don’t. Not really. It seems sad and unfair. I’m about to say this to Paige, but there’s a knock on the door.
“Come in,” I say, and my mom does.
“Oh, Paige—hi, honey! I’m so glad you’re here.” She looks at me and smiles. “I guess we survived me being away for a few hours, didn’t we? Everything okay?”
“Yes we did, and yes it is.”
“Good. Well, I’m back now. You girls let me know if you need anything.” She looks at Paige. “Will you be staying for dinner?”
Paige looks at me.
“Yes,” I say. “We still have lots of catching up to do.”
This seems to make them both happy.
“You girls good with pizza? I can have Dad grab a couple on his way home from work.”
“I’m GREAT with pizza,” Sam’s voice says from the hall. He appears in the doorway. “Just as long as it’s from First Class. With light sauce. And extra cheese.”
My mom rolls her eyes. Sam has always been particular about where he eats, and I guess some things never change.
“I’ll put your request in with your dad,” my mom says. And then she goes.
Paige laughs, and Sam comes into my room in his Fuel Dock uniform, which consists of a baseball hat and T-shirt with the logo printed on them, and a pair of shorts.
“What’s up, girls? How goes the trip down memory lane?”
He plops himself onto the bed next to Paige, props his chin in his hands, and bats his eyelashes.
“You’re such a dork,” I say.
Paige gives him a playful shove. “Go away. You weren’t invited. And you smell like grease.”
“I prefer to call it eau de French fry,” he says, smelling his shirt. He grins at me. “Did she tell you how you totally embarrassed yourself at prom?”
Paige shakes her head. I give him a look, almost positive he’s messing with me.
Sam remains both undeterred and completely entertained by himself. “Or what about the time you accidentally mooned everyone at the rally?”
“What?”
“Stop it,” Paige says to him. “Now he’s just making things up.”
Sam raises his eyebrows at me. “Ooh. Did she get to the part where she got buzzed and totally tried to make out with me last summer before I left for school? ’Cause that was unexpectedly awesome.”
“Sam!” Paige shoves him so hard he rolls onto the floor. “Shut up.” She looks at me, hands pleading innocence in the air. “That’s not how—that did NOT happen, I promise.”
Sam gets up, smile still on his face, and shrugs. “Okaaay . . . everybody’s got their own version of the truth, I guess.”
“And his is wrong,” Paige says flatly.
Normally, I’d believe her without question, because the idea of the two of them is weird and gross, and I can’t imagine a world where Paige would try to kiss my brother. But there’s a half second where her eyes flick to him, and there’s something there that makes me wonder.
“You guys kissed?”
They go silent, but their expressions say it all.
“Ugh. I don’t . . . I don’t even wanna know,” I say.
Sam looks at Paige. “Oh, I think you do.”
She looks at me apologetically. “We were both a little drunk. It was just a kiss.” She glances at Sam. “Then I came to my senses.”
I’m sure there’s more to the story, and maybe even more between them, but I don’t want to go any further down that road—at least not now—so I bring up the other thing she said that caught my attention.
“You’ve been drunk?” I say, like it’s something she could get in big trouble for.
Paige and Sam look at each other now, clearly trying not to laugh.
“Have I? Do Mom and Dad know?”
Now they lose it. The idea of it is honestly a little scary to me, and it must show on my face, because Paige comes over to where I’m sitting and puts her arm around my shoulder. “Once or twice. And you were cute. Just got a little silly, is all. And no, I don’t think Officer Jordan knows.”
I try to add this to my mental picture of myself, which is becoming more and more paradoxical. I’ve been drunk, but I’ve never had a sip of alcohol. I have birth control pills in my nightstand, but I’ve never . . .
“Wow,” Sam says, catching his breath. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he
takes it out and checks it, then looks at Paige, suddenly serious. “You fill her in on Matt yet? Poor guy keeps texting.” He looks at me now. “He’s worried. He wants to see you, Liv.”
“We were getting to that,” Paige says softly. “I’ve been talking to him a lot, and he’s so worried that this means—that he’s lost you—and I keep trying to tell him it’ll be okay. And it will. Because you guys are so great together, and I think if you spent some time with him, you’d see why. Even if you don’t remember him, you’re still you. And I bet you’d fall for him all over again. Like a second chance.”
“A do-over!” Sam says. “That’s what I said!”
“Sort of. It could be all sweet and romantic. You could have all your firsts all over again. First date, first kiss, first—”
“AND THIS IS THE PART WHERE I EXIT THE ROOM,” Sam says, standing up.
“Good,” Paige says. “It’s about time.”
Sam gives a salute and leaves without closing the door behind him. It used to drive me crazy when he did that, and I’d always yell at him to come back and close it until he did, but this time I don’t get up and I don’t say anything.
Paige gets up and closes the door softly, then turns and smiles at me. “Oh my God, Liv. We really do have so much to talk about.”
ELEVEN
I SIT, STARING at the picture on my nightstand, not knowing what to feel besides relief at finally being alone again. Paige has gone home, we’re all in our rooms, and the house is nighttime quiet, but my mind is not. It’s spinning with everything I’ve heard in the past few hours, trying to catch up and process it all—a task that feels impossible.
After dinner, Paige had taken me through the entire history of me and Matt. She’d told me everything she could remember, and it had made me feel sad, and guilty, and somehow jealous that I didn’t have a single one of these memories for myself, while she had them all.
How he’d come new to our school in the middle of the year from Laguna Beach, with messy hair, an easy smile, and a friendly, humble air about him, which made every girl in our tiny high school automatically interested.