front of my chest. And then I actually flex, like a tool.
But it works. Daphne's eyes dart to my half-naked body. I see her drink in the view of my tattooed biceps and chest. But then her eyes snap upward again, and they narrow. "Answer the question.”
Oh well. I tried. “That's happened before," I admit. "I recognize a face from that time, but I don't know why. It’s…” Maddening. Terrifying. Pick an adjective. “Frustrating. But since you couldn't place me at first, I assumed we'd barely met."
She chews her pink lip. I’d like to cut these questions short and bite it for her. But I can see that she’s wrestling with my story, trying to figure out if she believes me.
“Look, you wouldn’t be the first person to think I was bullshitting you. Why do you think I don’t explain this to people? It sounds bonkers.”
“Sorry,” she says, rubbing a hand across her forehead. “It’s just so weird.”
“Welcome to my world,” I mutter. I’ve spent so much time these past two and a half years straining to remember those missing six months. I’ve visited every page of the USTSA website, squinting at photos of cadets, looking for my own face in those pictures. Looking for anything that’s familiar.
I never found it.
“So what was this accident like?” Daphne whispers. She’s hugging herself now. But she seems to believe me. “It must have been bad.”
“Bear in mind that I don't remember.” I chuckle.
“Right. Sorry.”
“They told my parents that a group of cadets brought me into the ER from an off-campus party. They said I’d climbed a wall on a dare. And then fell off.”
Her perfect eyebrows shoot up. “Because you were drunk?”
“That's what I assume. But there’s no evidence of that. Why else climb a wall, though?”
“Because it’s past curfew?” She shrugs.
“I’d thought of that. But it was Open Weekend.”
“Open Weekend,” she repeats. Then she looks at her hands.
“Apparently it was one of the few times when there was no curfew. But that’s all I’ve got. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to remember what happened. But it hasn’t come back.”
“So…” She lifts her brown eyes to mine. “You’re like a character in Proust, hoping that some small thing triggers your memory?”
“Nah, this is way past Proust,” I grumble. “I’d need to be Marty McFly from Back to the Future.”
She lets out a startled laugh. “So you could go back in time and see what happened?”
“Or tell myself not to climb the damn wall. That’s what McFly was trying to do, right? He wasn’t there to watch. He was there to change the outcome.”
“Yeah, I get it.” Her big brown eyes search mine. “Can I borrow the time machine after you’re done with it? I have a few messes I’d like to clean up, too.”
“Sure, Shipley.”
We’re quiet for a minute, and I close my eyes and try to imagine myself visiting the past. I’ve done this before. I’ve tried meditation, hoping that a memory will surface. I’ve spent many an hour trying to picture myself climbing a wall. I concentrate, trying to imagine the texture of the bricks against my fingertips—and my feet scrambling for purchase as I struggle toward the top.
"Who dared you to climb it?” she asks suddenly, and my eyes snap open. “Don't you want to kick his ass?”
Oh, Daphne. Can’t she see that we’re on the same wavelength? “I would love to kick somebody’s ass,” I admit. “But the Academy wouldn't tell me who I was with.” They remained silent even when my father—an alum—raged at them, begging for information.
Cadets are supposed to know better than to take a dare, they’d said. It was an attempt to shame us into silence.
It worked on my dad. But not on me.
“And you don’t have friends from school who could…” She stops in the middle of the sentence. “Oh.”
I snicker. “Yeah, if I had friends, I’ve forgotten them. And you already know that gets awkward.”
“Wow, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I say immediately. “My life was waylaid for a while there. Look at me now. I’m healthy. I’m fine.” I hold my arms out wide. “Why don’t you come a little closer and let me demonstrate.”
This wins me a rare smile from Daphne. And, man, that smile is something else. I would like to give the word waylaid an entirely new meaning with her.
But then she says, “I think you only hit on me to distract me.”
“No way,” I argue. “I hit on you because I’d like to know how you feel