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