criminal.
"I didn't mean to do anything wrong," I say. "I wasn't trying to be a hero, either. I just..."
"I know," Mitch tells me. "You were just trying to save a life, and you did. And that's what I've told everyone."
This time, I'm the one puzzled. "You did?"
He nods. "They misunderstood you. Some of the people in this town are not very bright, I'm afraid. But after I explained what happened - that Maggie fell into the river and would have drowned if not for you - they understood. They're not bad people, Antonio. Just... wary of people they don't know, like everyone else."
He draws a deep breath.
"Anyway, everything's alright now. No one's saying you did anything wrong. In fact, there are some people waiting to thank you and welcome you into the community."
My eyebrows arch. "Welcome me?"
"Because I also told them that I'm planning on taking you under my wing and training you to follow in my footsteps as the town doctor," Mitch explains.
What?
"I'm not getting any younger or stronger, after all, and this town will always need a doctor, which is something no one else here feels like they can be. Frankly, I agree. But you, you can be a doctor. I've known you were intelligent from the start. Composed, too. Compassionate. And just now, you proved that you have courage, too, that you're willing to take risks, even risk your own life, to save someone else's. Plus you seemed to know exactly what you were doing."
I look at my hands. "I don't know how I knew. I just..."
"That's fine. That's actually good. Doctors don't just store facts in their heads. They store them in their bodies, too. After performing a surgery a hundred times, a surgeon's hands practically move on their own."
I meet Mitch's gaze. I know he's serious. He always is. But he's especially serious now. He thinks I can be the next town doctor. He wants me to be. He intends to make me. But can I do it?
"I'm an outsider," I remind Mitch. "Do you really think the people of Summerset will entrust their lives to me?"
"Didn't I say I'd take you under my wing?" Mitch says. "That means you won't be an outsider any longer."
I shake my head. "It can't be that easy."
"No. It will take time, but we have that. Stay here and by the time you become a doctor, the town will forget you weren't born here. You'll be one of us."
One of them.
A new family. A new home. A new life.
It sounds good. Too good. Can I really have it?
"What if my memories come back?" I ask Mitch. "I might not be able to stay then. Then everything you've spent on me, all the time and money, will be wasted."
"I don't think so," Mitch says. "Something tells me you'll be worth it."
My eyebrows furrow. So he's making such an important decision based on a gut feeling?
"All children leave eventually. If you do, then you'll be just like the rest of them. But at least you'll have experienced the warmth of a family and made some happy memories by then. Or do you want to wander around and waste your life while you try to remember who you are? What if you never do? Or what if you do but it's not who you want to be anymore?"
Those are exactly the fears that have been plaguing my mind.
"It seems to me like you have a choice, Antonio. What happened to you was out of your control, but now your life is in your hands. Are you going to keep wandering like a ghost dwelling in the past, or are you going to make the most of this second chance you've been given and start living again?"
I gaze past the window as I withhold my answer. I'm still confused, still afraid. I still don't know what I should be doing with my life. But Mitch is right. I'm alive. I'm in control. I have a choice. I don't know who I am, but I can decide who I want to be and how I want to live my life. I can give myself a reason to live and a place to belong. Aren't those really what everyone needs? Aren't they what I want?
I won't just throw away my past, of course. I'll keep looking for answers. But I also have to move forward. Time doesn't stop. My life can't just end here.
I have to keep living.
I draw a deep breath, straighten my shoulders