doesn’t know we ever existed, and because of that reality, it’s like we never did. That’s the way it needs to stay.
“What are you doing?” I ask as Cora slides open my closet door, thumbing through the clothes that hang there.
“I’m picking your outfit for tonight.” She tugs at a black dress that hugs every curve and holds it up, tucking the hanger under her chin. “If he doesn’t remember you, the least you can do is try to get him to notice you.”
“I’m not interested in getting noticed.” The words burn when I say them, physically causing me pain.
“Bull.” She slides the dress back in and holds up a scandalously short aqua skirt. “Every girl wants someone like Ran to notice them. It’s like in our DNA or something. Surely you’ve been learning about DNA in your recent quest to become a biologist.”
I don’t dignify her statement with a response.
“I don’t understand why you aren’t trying to get him to fall in love with you again.” Cora drops the skirt down by her side and cocks her head, giving me a sympathetic look that reads like she truly cares. And I’m sure she does. Even though she doesn’t mention it, I know she hears me when it’s three in the morning and I’m muffling my quiet sobs against my pillow. I know she sees me poring over web articles about amnesia and the likelihood of lost memories being reclaimed. She sat with me during our recent movie night and even let me suggest that film where the man suffering from amnesia suddenly remembers it all and the woman he once shared his life with, and everything falls back into place. I know Cora knows the shape of my broken heart, and she’s trying to do everything possible to help me piece it back together. But that’s an impossible task when someone else holds a huge chunk of it, and there’s no way to get it back, because they don’t even know they’re its keeper.
“I don’t want him to fall in love with me again, Cora.” I drag my hand down my face. I didn’t know a state of exhaustion could last two whole months. “He fell in love with me once. And it was perfect.”
“And it can be perfect again.” Her naïve eyes pull open wide.
“I’d never want to run the risk of it being anything less.”
Cora’s phone whistles from under the ruffled mess of her dorm room bedding. She hangs the skirt back up and strides to retrieve her cell. Only Cora would have a text alert that is a catcall. “Trav says Ran’s favorite color is blue. The aqua skirt it is.”
“You’re texting Trav? That’s so not cool, Cora.”
“I’m helping you make the best first impression possible, though it’s probably more like your fiftieth.” She races across the small stretch of space to the closet, balls up the miniskirt in her hand, and chucks it at me. “But seriously, think about it. The last real memory he has of you is covered in blood, hanging upside-down in your car. It’s time to stand out, Maggie. He likes blue. You’ll wear blue.”
“I’m not doing this.” I toss the skirt to the floor. “I don’t have the capacity to do this.”
“Umm, yes you do,” she challenges. “And just to be fair, you are the one always saying Ran doesn’t have the capacity to remember and it’s not fair to force him to try. Don’t you think that’s a little selfish to act like you’re the one who got the short end of the stick here? He’s the one missing two months of his life.”
I spin around so fast in my seat I nearly do two full rotations. “And I haven’t? I haven’t lost the only part of my life that actually meant something?” I throw my words at her with force, hoping she feels them the way I do, the way they hurt me to think them.
“You still have your memories, Maggie.”
“But what’s the point when the person you shared them with doesn’t even know they ever happened? What’s the point in hanging onto them?” I toss my hands angrily into the air. “It’s easier to pretend it never existed. That he never existed. Going out to celebrate Ran going back to work won’t help me do that. Seeing him isn’t going to help me do that. Pretending there is no Ran is my only option, Cora.”
Cora folds her arms across her chest and all but taps her toe