by Sarina Bowen
Two, my dad was proud when I got accepted. So proud. And I drank that shit in.
And, finally, I was interested in military intelligence as a career. Even if marching in formation bored me silly, I liked the idea that I could become a spy someday.
But near the end of my first semester, I went to an off-campus party and got hurt. I was in the hospital for two weeks. And I haven’t been the same since.
That was the end of the USTSA for me. I dropped out. And when the college dragged its feet on giving me credit for the semester, my parents warily helped me force their hand.
“I hate lawyering up against my own college,” my father had said. “But one stern letter will probably do the trick.”
The lawyer had bigger plans. “Credits aren’t the only thing you should be leaving with. Your doctor doesn’t even know when you’ll be able to go back to school. I think you’re due some more party favors.”
“Like what?” I’d asked.
“Like cash.” So, with my permission, he asked them for a million dollars. “They’ll bargain us down,” he’d added.
But that’s not what happened. They’d written me a seven-digit check two weeks later.
My father still isn’t over it. I sued the college who gave him a free education. “I can never show my face there again,” he’d raged at me. “It wasn’t even the college’s fault that you went to a damn party!”
He might have a point. Except the college has never actually told me what happened that night. When I hit my head, I lost my memory of that evening. All I know from the hospital report is that three cadets brought me into the emergency room.
We tried to find out more, but the Academy kept dishing out unsatisfying answers. “We’re investigating.” “There was some confusion.” “It happened off campus.”
After I got my settlement, they stopped pretending to take our calls. And my father lost his taste for pressing them. “I guess you don’t need answers now that you’re a millionaire.”
Before then I’d sometimes struggled to win my father’s approval. He didn’t understand my intellectual interests. And he really didn’t understand that I was pansexual. But he mostly dealt with that. He was a good dad.
But now I’d become a true embarrassment to him. It’s not an easy thing to be. The settlement money has helped me get back on my feet. I bought a house in Burlington, and started school again, this time at Moo U. It’s not like I bought a yacht or first class seats to Vegas.
It doesn’t matter. He’s never getting over it.
The rest of the money—after the house and the lawyer’s hefty cut—is invested in bank CDs that mature right before the start of each semester. So my tuition is covered through graduation, and I don’t have piles of cash free to waste on weed and booze.
I get good grades. I made new friends. My life is back on track, even if my relationship with my parents is not.
And I never miss a session with Lenore. She gets me.
“Tell me something fun about the farm,” she says. “Besides the bear.”
I open my mouth to tell her about the food, but then I hear myself say, “There’s a girl. Daphne Shipley. I have it bad for her.”
“Really?” Lenore sits back, and her smile is dishy. “Do tell.”
“Well…” My chuckle is dry, because I sound like a middle school kid confessing his crush. “The attraction is driving me a little nuts. I’m super distracted. And I think it’s mutual, but she doesn’t encourage me.”
Lenore cracks up.
“Wait—is that what a therapist is supposed to do? Laugh at the patient?”
“I’m laughing with you,” she says with a broad smile. “This is great, you know? You need to celebrate the idea that you’ve finally got an average college guy’s problem. Boy likes girl. Girl is on the fence.”
I suppose she has a point. “Yeah, sure. But it’s been so long since I wanted someone that maybe I lost my touch? My inner slut forgot all his best moves.”
“Nah,” she says, dismissing this problem with a wave of one hand. “That stuff is like riding a bike. Let’s talk about Daphne. Is she Dylan’s twin sister?”
“That’s the one.”
“Didn’t you tell me Dylan’s sister was moving to Burlington in the fall? And might need a spot in your house?”
“Yeah, that’s the same sister. The rent is so cheap that she ought to say yes.” I barely charge my friends anything. It’s mostly out of guilt. Like I’m not sure I’m entitled to own a house in central Burlington, paid for by the US Tactical Services Academy. I’m trying to share the wealth with other college students who are just trying to get by.
“That’s a potential complication, then,” Lenore says. “Maybe Daphne doesn’t want to get involved with her future landlord.”
“Maybe,” I concede.
“Just keep working that Rickie charm. You wouldn't be the first guy who's ever been attracted by a woman who plays hard to get.”
“Yeah, but there’s one more complication—we met before.”
Lenore blinks. “Before when?”
This is where things get weird. It’s where they always get weird. “I first met her during my time at the Academy.”
Lenore’s face falls. “Oh, shit.”
“Yeah.”
We lapse into silence for a moment. This is my real issue, and the reason that I see Lenore. It’s not because of my parents, or my childhood. It’s because I lost six months of my memories—basically from the day I left for Academy basic training, up until the weeks after my hospital stay. And it’s really freaking hard to navigate a brain where some of the crucial details are missing.
“How do you know?” Lenore asks softly.
“I recognized her face.”
“And…?” She waits, hopeful.
I shake my head. “Just her face. Nothing more. Last fall she came to visit her brother in Burlington, and I took one look and just knew we’d met before.” And that I’d liked her.
“Okay,” Lenore says. “So that’s a complication most college guys don’t have to deal with.”
“Yeah, I’m still trying to figure out what happened that other time. Apparently we shared a ride home for a weekend. Maybe I was an ass to her.”
Lenore folds her hands. “But why would you make that assumption about yourself? Are you an ass to Daphne now?”
“No.”
“Then you probably weren’t then.”
“You’d think.” But I’m not so sure. “Daphne seems wary of me, but she won’t say why. Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
Except I think it does.
Lenore looks thoughtful. “Tell me why you find her attractive. What is Rickie Ralls’s type?”
This is a much easier question. “She’s super pretty. Tall, with dark hair and legs for days. But she’s also kind of prickly. She makes me work for a smile, you know? She’s angry about something, and I haven’t figured out what yet.”
“Huh,” Lenore says, clicking her pen a couple of times. “You like your women complicated. What a shock.”
“Oh, shut up.”
She laughs. “I’m thrilled for you, honestly.”
“Why? I just told you I’m not getting any.”
“You’ve always told me what a player you used to be. I’ve heard you call yourself a slut many times. But I’ve been seeing you for, what, a year?”
“Yeah.” My first psychologist retired, and then I lucked into Lenore when the psych department offered me a postdoc for therapy.
“Well, this has been an open question for me. Since we’ve been meeting, you told me right off the bat that you enjoyed sex with both men and women. And since then you haven’t mentioned any new romantic or sexual relationships.”
“I haven’t been very interested in sex since my accident.”
“Okay.” She shrugs. “Does that seem a little strange? You’re handling school full time. You have friends. You go to parties. You call yourself a slut. But you don’t h
ave sex.”
“Long recoveries aren’t very sexy. At the beginning, my ribs hurt so badly that I couldn’t have imagined anyone touching me.”
“Sure. Fine. But you’re strong now. Why does a self-described slut stay away from the fine women and men of Burlington U?”
I shift in my chair. “Not sure.”
“Let me ask it another way—have you been tempted before? Any hookups at all since your accident?”
“Not really. There was one party early on when I was trying extra hard to be a regular guy. I had some drinks and walked a girl back to her place. But I realized I wasn’t feeling it, so I bailed.”
“How far did it go?” she asks softly.
“Not far. Making out on the couch.” I feel my face redden, because I know what she’s going to ask next. Someday I’m going to be an amazing shrink. But today it’s still me in the hot seat.
“When you say you weren’t feeling it, was that in your mind, or in your body?”
Yup. Bingo. “It was both, actually.”
“That must have been uncomfortable for you?”
“Excuses were made.” I clear my throat. “But you’re right, I was pretty embarrassed when my soldier wouldn’t stand up and salute. Not sure she even noticed. But I just wanted to get out of there.”
Lenore nods. She waits.
“After that I just didn’t bother. And you know I’m still a little weird about needing to sleep by myself.” That’s putting it mildly. Since my accident, I can’t sleep without locking the bedroom door. And I wake up several times a night, just making sure I’m still alone. It’s a true phobia, and Lenore and I discuss it all the time. “Who wants to sleep with a guy who won’t share his bed?”
“Oh, please.” Lenore actually rolls her eyes. “If memory serves, that’s like half of all college guys. Besides, a real slut could figure out how to hook up in the daylight. Boom. Problem solved.”
It’s my turn to crack up, because Lenore is just the best.
“So now there’s one woman who’s turned your head, right?”
“Oh hell yes.”
“You’ve got your flirt on, then? Flirting seems to be your default setting, anyway.”
She’s not wrong. “Yeah, I’m doing my best. But she seems to have a lot on her mind.”
“Unless she’s just not attracted to you.”
“That is not the issue.”
Lenore smirks. “No matter what, this is a good thing. Even if you don’t lure Daphne into your clutches, maybe your libido is waking up for good.”
“Like, my boner might be transferrable to someone else?”
She rolls her eyes. “Make all the boner jokes you want, Rickie. But this seems important. Sex is the last part of your life that you haven’t gotten back, right?”
“What?” I sputter. “You’re forgetting a big one. How about my goddamn memory?”
“That will come,” she says breezily. As if this two-and-a-half year nightmare will ever end.
“Will it?” Ten seconds ago we were joking about sex, but now I’m suddenly angry. Mood swings are a symptom of traumatic brain injury. They’re always fun. “That’s the real reason I’m not comfortable getting involved with anyone. It’s the whole freak angle. ‘Hey baby, let me tell you about the big hole in my memory.’ Nobody wants to hear about that.”
“Hang on.” Lenore leans forward in her chair. “You’ve told her, right? About your memory loss?”
“Daphne?”
“No, the Queen of England. Of course I mean Daphne. If you want someone to trust you, telling the truth is step one.”
Slowly, I shake my head. “I haven’t told her. It’s not a very sexy conversation.”
“Whoa. Forgetting how you met someone isn’t that sexy either.”
With a low groan, I sink down in my chair. “I know, okay? I just wanted to move on. For two years I’ve just tried to get past the whole thing. But it keeps sucking me back into the vortex.” I don’t know if I’ll ever have any peace until I understand what happened to me in Connecticut.
“Just tell her,” Lenore says quietly. Her expression is both empathetic and firm. “I would never judge you for bedding whoever you want. Two consenting adults, etc. But she’s your friend, right? And Dylan is your friend. Does he know about your memory issues?”
Issues. That word is entirely too sedate for the disaster I’ve been living. “No. I met Dylan after moving to Burlington. He knows I had a rough time, but he doesn’t pry. At all.”
Dylan has the most easygoing personality of anyone I’ve ever known. I would have liked him no matter when we met. When he and Keith moved into my house, I had some strange requests. “At night, we keep the doors locked up tight. And nobody enters my room for any reason.”
“Sure.” Dylan had shrugged. “You got it.” We’ve been living together for almost a year now. So he knows I have a deadbolt lock on my bedroom door. And that I bought the house with money I got from a legal settlement. He’s not a stupid guy. He’s probably curious. But he never asks questions. I appreciate it more than he’ll ever know.
“Look,” Lenore says. “Is Daphne the kind of person who appreciates honesty?”
“Aren’t we all that person?” I ask drily.
“Yes.” Lenore smiles. “Yes we are. Honesty is sexy, Rickie. Just tell her.”
“Okay,” I promise.
But I sure don’t want to.
Five
Daphne
My new job as a student research assistant at the School of Public Health starts like any new job—with paperwork. I fill out a bunch of forms for the HR person, who awards me a brand-new ID.
I’m not smiling in the picture, though, because starting over is hard.
All this takes a couple of hours, but finally I'm sent upstairs to find Karim, a graduate research assistant. He’s a slim, friendly man with tan skin and long, dark eyelashes.
“Since I have seniority, you can bring me all your questions," he says, "I've been here for two weeks, at least."
His dark eyes twinkle when he says this, but my answer is still a very stiff “Thanks.” I know he's joking, but I just can't make myself loosen up. I’ll probably never trust any young, ambitious man again.
Besides, Karim is already an MD. He outranks me no matter how friendly he seems. Never again will I forget that these things matter. If I lose track of the rules, I could lose everything.
Karim leads me on a lengthy tour of the office. He explains their system of moveable workspaces. “None of the research assistants has his own desk, because we’re all here on different days. You check out a laptop with your ID, unless you’ve brought your own. But there's no formal system for claiming a study carrel. It's first come, first served. And no fair leaving books there overnight to reserve your spot. Only an arsehole would do that."
"It was one time!" calls a voice from the other side of one of the blond wood dividers. “And I apologized!” A head pops up to match her voice, and I find that it belongs to a young Black woman with close-cropped hair and a bright smile. "Hi. I'm Jenn Washington.”
“Daphne Shipley.”
“Oh! You're the transfer? We're all very curious about you.”
Lovely. “Yes. I’m the transfer student.” And thanks for making this awkward. I feel my smile tighten up on my face. They probably think I couldn't hack it at Harkness, and that stings.
"Welcome," she says brightly. "Any relation to the Shipleys who make that cider?"
"That's my brother."
"Really?" she squeaks. "It's so yummy."
“Yeah, that's his thing,” I babble. “He has a degree in organic chemistry. We're science people.” Oh my God. Could I sound any more defensive right how? Get a grip, Shipley.
"Feel free to bring us samples,” she says.
“Yeah, I get that a lot.” I force another smile on my face. And when Karim continues the tour a moment later, I feel nothing but relief.
The last stop is the departmental library. "It's small, as
you can see," Karim waves an arm around the room full of books. "The University has done a great job of digitizing our core research materials, and you’ve got Lexis/Nexis access under your new ID. But hard copies of the best reference books are kept in here. They also keep print copies of all the journal articles produced by professors and research fellows in this building. If I’m lucky, I’ll have something on the shelf eventually.”
“Oh, wow,” I say in the same hushed, fangirl voice. One wall is full of peer-reviewed research publications. Karim and I have the same dream, apparently. I pull a copy of the Journal of American Public Health off the shelf. Sure enough, there's an article by my new boss and advisor, Vi Drummond, entitled Modeling the Probability of Arsenic in New England Groundwater for Risk Assessment.
“Do these books circulate? I’d love to check a few out,” I ask Karim.
“Sure. Go ahead. That was Dr. Drummond’s first piece about arsenic.”
“I know. But it’s been a while since I read it. What else should I read if I want to understand the core specialties of the people who run this place?”
He blinks. Then he eyes the massive wall of documents. “Well… Don't forget that I'm new here. But I guess I'd read the latest stuff on birthweight versus educational outcomes. And food insecurity as a factor in hospital admissions.”
I spend the next fifteen minutes collecting ten more journals and checking them out under my ID number. “You can stop now,” Karim says. “Before you make the rest of us look like slackers.”
My hand freezes on a volume of Environmental Health Perspectives. “I just need to get up to speed here. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Kidding,” he says a little stiffly. “I was kidding.”
Ten bucks says he wasn’t. But that isn’t my problem. If I do good work, he’ll tolerate me in time. He doesn’t have to like me.
“Oh, there you are.”
We both turn to find Dr. Vi Drummond in the doorway. “Welcome, Daphne. I know it’s almost time for you to leave. But I was hoping we could have a quick chat in my office.”