vertical position. But nope. It’s still strange. Rickie doesn’t remember our driving together. It wasn’t just me that he’s forgotten, either. It’s the whole trip. It’s the strange configuration of highway 89. It’s like he was never there.
Like he’s a different person than that Rickie I met three years ago.
I feel a chill down my spine. It doesn’t make any sense.
Six
Rickie
The tap on my bedroom door is bashful. But I'm a psycho in the nighttime, so the sound is enough to startle me into wakefulness. I jackknife into a seated position, my book flopping off my chest and onto Dylan's quilt.
Tap. Tap. It’s just a fingernail on the door. Quiet as a mouse. But my pulse is ragged nonetheless as I swing my legs out of bed and get up to face my midnight visitor.
I unlock the door and open it to find Daphne standing on the other side. She wears soft shorts that show off plenty of thigh, and a tiny little tank top.
No bra, my libido adds. There’s no denying that my sex drive has roared to life, like a long-forgotten engine that still manages to catch on the first try when you turn the key.
But I step back like a gentleman and allow Daphne into the room. I close the door, just in case I'm about to get lucky.
Although the look in her eye right now is not sexual. It's pure curiosity, with a side of anger. Daphne always looks a little angry. I may have an anger kink. Who knew?
"You don't remember driving with me from Harkness," she hisses, her voice hushed.
I circle the bed and then get into it, crossing my arms behind my head and leaning back against the pillows. "I told you I had a terrible memory," I remind her.
"But you really don't remember," she repeats. “You don't remember the highway exit with no matching entrance. You don’t remember driving there at all.”
She's right, and I'd been willing to explain it earlier today. I was going to take Lenore's advice and spill my guts over ice cream.
But then I'd kissed her instead.
“Look,” I begin. “I know it's awkward. But it's not just you. I don't remember anything from July through December of the year we met.”
Her eyes pop wide, so I don’t add that the following January, February, and March are a little hazy too. But I'd been on painkillers. And then I'd become dependent on painkillers, so I had to be weaned off them slowly.
It was a long nightmare.
“What? How do you forget six months of your life?" She plops down on the end of the bed.
This is closer to another human on a bed than I’ve been in… Wow. There’s some depressing math. But she’s not here to fuck, she’s here to interrogate me. She's waiting for an answer.
See, Lenore? This is the opposite of sexy. "I got injured at the Academy. Badly. Broken bones and a head injury."
She blinks. "Like a TBI?"
"Yeah." Although I rarely use that term. Traumatic Brain Injury. Gross.
“And you just... forgot that semester.”
"Right."
A crinkle appears between her eyebrows. "But last fall you recognized me. When I showed up in Burlington, I walked in and my brother asked if we knew each other. And I said no, but you said yes.”
This, of course, I remember perfectly well. “Yeah, I know. And then I said don't worry, you'll figure it out. And then you did."
"Of course." Her cheeks pink up. “It took me a second. The context was all wrong. And you looked so different." She winces. “That was embarrassing. But your hair is so much longer now, and you weren’t wearing your uniform."
"My uniform," I echo. I know I wore one. There's a photo of me from drop-off day, and I'm standing shoulder to shoulder with my dad in front of the campus gate. He's smiling like he just won the lottery. I'm decked out in a green wool jacket with gold buttons, a dress shirt, pressed trousers and shiny boots. Plus a cap.
But I don't remember putting that on. I don't remember if those boots were stiff or comfortable. I don't remember if the collar of that shirt was loose or tight, or how it felt to slip the cotton onto my skin. It's a blank. And when I see that photo, it's like looking at some other guy.
“And after I heard you laugh, I realized who you were. But you recognized me. I know you did. So how could that be?"