He closes his eyes, shielding them from me as his broad chest rises and falls on a deep breath.
“We’ll need to run some tests,” Nix says. “But the best thing you can do for Hanna is give her time. She needs rest and support right now. Not stress.”
“We’ll help you remember, Han-Han,” Lizzy says.
“It doesn’t work like that.” Nix moves to the computer in the corner and types something in. “But tell her whatever she needs to return to living her life. Those memories might be back before you know it.”
“Cally and Maggie are in the waiting room,” Lizzy says. “I’m going to run out and give them an update. Can I get you anything?”
A healthy memory? Evidence that this isn’t all just some bizarre dream? “No. I’m fine. Thanks.”
Lizzy leaves, and exhaustion sweeps over me. My eyelids are heavy and my thoughts muddy with the implications of everything I’ve learned in the last fifteen minutes.
“When do I get to go home?” I ask in a whisper.
The doctor taps at the keyboard a few more times before turning to me. “Not today and probably not tomorrow. We need to run the tests and observe you for the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours. If everything goes as well as can be expected, you can go home after that.”
Max takes my hand between his two warm ones.
Nix checks the display panel on the tower connected to my IV and presses a few buttons. “Let the nurses know if you need anything. Unfortunately, because of the head injury, we can’t give you much for the pain other than Tylenol and ibuprofen, but try to sleep as much as you can. I’ll see you on my rounds tomorrow.” She flips off the lights at the door. “Rest. Take good care of her, Max. You know how to reach me.”
I sleep fitfully, the pain in my head and ribs keeping me from settling into my dreams. When the early morning sun peeks in between the curtains, Max is still in the chair next to my bed. He’s slumped over, sleeping, his dark hair falling into his face. I want to reach out and brush it back.
I try to roll to my side, but the movement puts pressure on my ribs and sends a jolt of pain through my center. I bite back my cry, but not before it wakes Max. He hops out of his chair and comes to stand by my side.
“Are you okay? What hurts?”
Eyes closed, I focus on my breathing. Inhaling. Exhaling.
“Do you want me to call the nurse? They can give you something else for the pain.” His face is etched with worry as he scans mine.
“I’m okay,” I assure him, because I know they can’t give me anything else. “I’m just a little banged up.”
“Okay.” He lets out a breath and drags his hand through his hair. “This has been hell, you know. The last couple of days. You couldn’t even carry on a conversation. They’d ask you one question, and by the time you answered it, you’d be confused all over again. I thought…” He shakes his head. “I didn’t know if I’d ever get you back.”
I have to swallow the thickness in my throat. “I’m here now.”
After dragging the chair another foot closer to the bed, he sits and takes my hand. He toys with the ring on my finger, and a smile plays at his lips. “I like seeing this on you.”
“You gave me this ring?” I whisper.
He lifts my hand and presses a gentle kiss to my knuckle right above the diamond. “I did.”
“Why? I mean…how? I mean…” I bite my lip. My stomach is a mess of nerves.
He tucks a lock of hair behind my ear and gives a sad smile, his fingers working tiny circles on my palm. “How? I’m just a lucky bastard, I guess.”
“Hmm.” I rest my head back on my pillow and relax. “Sounds like it. Lucky guy is engaged to a girl who has a beat-up face and can’t even remember dating him.”
“Surely I can work this to my advantage.” His eyes crinkle in the corners with his smile. He is so damn handsome. “Let me remind you all the ways I was the world’s greatest boyfriend. The flowers, the foot massages, the…what else?”
“Coach bags,” I supply. “The many Coach bags you bought me during our courtship.”
“I’ll admit, I never bought you a Coach bag.”
I scoff. “And I accepted your proposal?”
“I love you, Hanna,” he says softly, and more surprising than the words is this feeling in my chest. As if something there knows what he says is true, even if my mind can’t remember how we got here.
“I…” What am I supposed to say? To echo the words back to him would ring empty. We both know I don’t remember being with him, let alone falling in love. I’m sure I love you too? That option seems like a kick in the pants.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs, kissing my hand again. “I know you don’t remember. I’ll win your heart all over again if I have to.”
2
I OPEN my eyes to see my sister Maggie’s head bobbing to music I can faintly make out from her headphones, her gaze focused on the print-filled pages of a thick textbook.
“So what else do I not remember?” I ask groggily. “Are you having Asher’s babies yet?”
She lifts her head and grins at me as she pulls off her headphones. “Hey, how’d you sleep?”
“Like a baby. In the literal awake-every-two-hours sense of the cliché.” Hospitals have to be the worst places to get rest. Every time I would fall asleep, the nurse would come in to check something or change an IV bag. I tap Maggie’s book. “What are you studying?”
“I’m doing an independent study in women in art history. Trying to catch up and make up for the year I took off.”
“So that’s a no on the babies?”
“Unless you count Zoe, no. No babies.”
I nod thoughtfully. I remember Zoe. She’s Asher’s daughter who lives in New York. She spent most of the summer here—well, last summer at least. This gap in my memories is so bizarre. Not like forgetting what you did last weekend when you know time passed but just can’t pin down any memories, but like the last year never happened.
I roll carefully to my side, mindful of my bruised ribs. No breaks, the doctor informed me. Just nasty bruises. Lucky me. Between tests and sleeping and being prodded by the nurses, I haven’t gotten many answers to my questions.
“What happened to me, Maggie?”
“We don’t really know.” She closes the book and sets it to the side. “Lizzy found you at the bottom of the stairs behind the bakery. You were unconscious and looked, well”—she winces—“actually a sight better than you do now. Those bruises have gotten colorful.”
“What bakery?”
“Your bakery.” A slow grin lights her face. “You opened a bakery.”
“I did? Mom didn’t flip out?” I’ve always loved baking, much to the dismay of my fat-phobic mother.
She shrugs. “I don’t know, but you wanted to do it and you did. It’s downtown and does a nice little business. And your wedding cakes are gorgeous.”
“My wedding cakes?” I’ve decorated cakes for friends’ birthdays for years and always loved to play with frosting, gum paste, and fondant. I watched wedding cake shows on TV obsessively. But it was just a dream. Nothing I ever believed I’d be able to make a career out of.
She smiles. “We’re all so proud of you.”
“So then I have a bakery and I mysteriously ended up bruised and battered behind it.”
“Our best guess is that you took a pretty good fall down the stairs.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “So you’re saying I didn’t find gracefulness in those months I can’t remember?”
She chuckles. “You’re a hell of a lot more graceful than I am.”
“What else did I miss?”
“You didn’t miss anything,” she says. “You were here for all of it, and that memory’s going to be back in no time. I’m sure of it.”
“Humor me.”
“You and Liz graduated in May.”
I lift my hand and study my ring. “And then there’s me and Max.”
“Yeah. Since, I don’t know, maybe December or so? But the engagement is new. In fact, that’s been a surprise to all of us. Mom came by while you were sleeping last night and she practically bawled when Max confirmed that the ring on your finger was from him and it was the real deal.”
“Mom approves of Max, then?”
“That’s an understatement.”
I frown at my hand then stretch my arm out straight and study it. “I’ve lost weight.” I sit on the edge of the bed and extend my legs out before me one at a time. They’re long. Obviously I haven’t grown in the last year, but they’re so much thinner that they look longer to me. I’ve taken a couple of groggy trips to the bathroom with nurses at my side, but I didn’t pay much attention to my body. I certainly didn’t bother to look in the mirror. Thanks to my litany of aches and pains, I was too afraid to look.
I bring my hand to my stomach and draw in a breath. This isn’t my body. I’ve never been this thin. Not as a teenager, not as a child.
I look to Maggie. “Did this happen before or after Max started dating me?”
“After,” she says carefully.
I start to stand, and she takes my arm. “I’m fine,” I assure her. “I just want to look.”
She ignores my protest and escorts me to the bathroom, where I freeze at the sight of myself in the mirror. These bruises on my face aren’t very pretty. In fact, they almost look worse than they feel—which is saying something. But what really has me staring is the shape of my face. My cheekbones are visible, the line of my jaw more defined.
“I’ll give you a minute,” Maggie says. “I’ll be right on the other side of the door if you need me.”
After the door clicks behind her, I lift my hospital gown and study my body in the mirror. Frowning, I run my hands over my belly. It’s flatter than I ever remember it being, and I can feel muscle definition beneath my stretchmark-wrinkled skin. The bruises at my ribs could get me a job starring in a domestic-violence video. Was this all really from a fall down the stairs?
I’ll never have a model’s body, yet I’m nearly giddy at the sight of myself. My waist is tiny for the first time in my life, my thighs toned, and the br**sts I always cursed for making me look even bigger than I was are now nice curves. I’m actually excited to put on clothes and see my new body when I’m dressed like a normal person.
“It all seems too good to be true,” I murmur as I study my reflection.
“Which part?” Maggie pokes her head into the bathroom just as I’m repositioning my gown. “The bruises or the traumatic brain injury?”
“You know what I mean.”
She raises a brow. “You’re the only person I know who could go through what you did and still think life is peachy. The rest of the world could learn a thing or two from you, Han.”
I follow her out of the bathroom. “It’s like a dream, you know. Suddenly, I wake up and, sure, I’m in the hospital and pretty banged up, but I have everything I’ve ever wanted. The business, the body—”
“You were gorgeous before,” she tells me as I lower onto the edge of the bed. “You’re the only one who couldn’t see it.”
“It’s not just that.”
“Max,” she provides.
“Yeah.” I sigh. “I feel like the universe wants me to see everything, to not take it for granted. The doctor said my memory will probably be back soon, so maybe this is the luckiest thing that’s ever happened to me. How many of us get to step back from our lives and see how perfect they really are?”
“No one’s life is perfect, Hanna.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do know, and it worries me. You’ve got stars in your eyes about your life, and in a couple of days you’re going to start living it again. I just don’t want you to be disappointed if it isn’t everything it seems.”
I slouch into my pillows and take a deep breath in the silence of my hospital room.
Mom hosts brunch every Sunday at her house, and since I’m not expected to be released until tonight, she brought Sunday brunch to me this morning. My sisters were all here—Abby, Maggie, Lizzy, even Krystal, who came home from Florida when she heard about my condition. Asher stopped by. And of course, Max. Max, who hustled everyone out of the room just when I started feeling claustrophobic. Max, who managed to get my mom to change the subject when she didn’t want to talk about anything but the wedding. Max, whom I caught watching me the way Asher watches Maggie, the way Will watches Cally.
A knock sounds on the door, and I expect to see Lizzy, but red curls, not blond, peek into the room.
“Are you okay?” Maggie asks. She steps in and closes the door behind her.
I swing my legs around to the floor and nod. “I’m good.”
“It’s all overwhelming, I bet.”
“Does Mom still have him cornered?”
Maggie grins. “Yeah. I think she’d marry him herself if she could.”
Toting the bag of clothes Max brought me into the bathroom, I crack the door so I can talk to Maggie. I do a double take when I see my reflection. I’ll have to get used to this. I’d guess I’m at least fifty pounds lighter than I remember being. Maybe more. I knew I’d lost weight—I’d seen it for myself. Even so, when Max had first brought me clothes to wear, I couldn’t believe the tiny jeans and tee in the bag would fit me. When I pull them over my hips, they slide on smooth and easy.
“We’ll need to run some tests,” Nix says. “But the best thing you can do for Hanna is give her time. She needs rest and support right now. Not stress.”
“We’ll help you remember, Han-Han,” Lizzy says.
“It doesn’t work like that.” Nix moves to the computer in the corner and types something in. “But tell her whatever she needs to return to living her life. Those memories might be back before you know it.”
“Cally and Maggie are in the waiting room,” Lizzy says. “I’m going to run out and give them an update. Can I get you anything?”
A healthy memory? Evidence that this isn’t all just some bizarre dream? “No. I’m fine. Thanks.”
Lizzy leaves, and exhaustion sweeps over me. My eyelids are heavy and my thoughts muddy with the implications of everything I’ve learned in the last fifteen minutes.
“When do I get to go home?” I ask in a whisper.
The doctor taps at the keyboard a few more times before turning to me. “Not today and probably not tomorrow. We need to run the tests and observe you for the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours. If everything goes as well as can be expected, you can go home after that.”
Max takes my hand between his two warm ones.
Nix checks the display panel on the tower connected to my IV and presses a few buttons. “Let the nurses know if you need anything. Unfortunately, because of the head injury, we can’t give you much for the pain other than Tylenol and ibuprofen, but try to sleep as much as you can. I’ll see you on my rounds tomorrow.” She flips off the lights at the door. “Rest. Take good care of her, Max. You know how to reach me.”
I sleep fitfully, the pain in my head and ribs keeping me from settling into my dreams. When the early morning sun peeks in between the curtains, Max is still in the chair next to my bed. He’s slumped over, sleeping, his dark hair falling into his face. I want to reach out and brush it back.
I try to roll to my side, but the movement puts pressure on my ribs and sends a jolt of pain through my center. I bite back my cry, but not before it wakes Max. He hops out of his chair and comes to stand by my side.
“Are you okay? What hurts?”
Eyes closed, I focus on my breathing. Inhaling. Exhaling.
“Do you want me to call the nurse? They can give you something else for the pain.” His face is etched with worry as he scans mine.
“I’m okay,” I assure him, because I know they can’t give me anything else. “I’m just a little banged up.”
“Okay.” He lets out a breath and drags his hand through his hair. “This has been hell, you know. The last couple of days. You couldn’t even carry on a conversation. They’d ask you one question, and by the time you answered it, you’d be confused all over again. I thought…” He shakes his head. “I didn’t know if I’d ever get you back.”
I have to swallow the thickness in my throat. “I’m here now.”
After dragging the chair another foot closer to the bed, he sits and takes my hand. He toys with the ring on my finger, and a smile plays at his lips. “I like seeing this on you.”
“You gave me this ring?” I whisper.
He lifts my hand and presses a gentle kiss to my knuckle right above the diamond. “I did.”
“Why? I mean…how? I mean…” I bite my lip. My stomach is a mess of nerves.
He tucks a lock of hair behind my ear and gives a sad smile, his fingers working tiny circles on my palm. “How? I’m just a lucky bastard, I guess.”
“Hmm.” I rest my head back on my pillow and relax. “Sounds like it. Lucky guy is engaged to a girl who has a beat-up face and can’t even remember dating him.”
“Surely I can work this to my advantage.” His eyes crinkle in the corners with his smile. He is so damn handsome. “Let me remind you all the ways I was the world’s greatest boyfriend. The flowers, the foot massages, the…what else?”
“Coach bags,” I supply. “The many Coach bags you bought me during our courtship.”
“I’ll admit, I never bought you a Coach bag.”
I scoff. “And I accepted your proposal?”
“I love you, Hanna,” he says softly, and more surprising than the words is this feeling in my chest. As if something there knows what he says is true, even if my mind can’t remember how we got here.
“I…” What am I supposed to say? To echo the words back to him would ring empty. We both know I don’t remember being with him, let alone falling in love. I’m sure I love you too? That option seems like a kick in the pants.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs, kissing my hand again. “I know you don’t remember. I’ll win your heart all over again if I have to.”
2
I OPEN my eyes to see my sister Maggie’s head bobbing to music I can faintly make out from her headphones, her gaze focused on the print-filled pages of a thick textbook.
“So what else do I not remember?” I ask groggily. “Are you having Asher’s babies yet?”
She lifts her head and grins at me as she pulls off her headphones. “Hey, how’d you sleep?”
“Like a baby. In the literal awake-every-two-hours sense of the cliché.” Hospitals have to be the worst places to get rest. Every time I would fall asleep, the nurse would come in to check something or change an IV bag. I tap Maggie’s book. “What are you studying?”
“I’m doing an independent study in women in art history. Trying to catch up and make up for the year I took off.”
“So that’s a no on the babies?”
“Unless you count Zoe, no. No babies.”
I nod thoughtfully. I remember Zoe. She’s Asher’s daughter who lives in New York. She spent most of the summer here—well, last summer at least. This gap in my memories is so bizarre. Not like forgetting what you did last weekend when you know time passed but just can’t pin down any memories, but like the last year never happened.
I roll carefully to my side, mindful of my bruised ribs. No breaks, the doctor informed me. Just nasty bruises. Lucky me. Between tests and sleeping and being prodded by the nurses, I haven’t gotten many answers to my questions.
“What happened to me, Maggie?”
“We don’t really know.” She closes the book and sets it to the side. “Lizzy found you at the bottom of the stairs behind the bakery. You were unconscious and looked, well”—she winces—“actually a sight better than you do now. Those bruises have gotten colorful.”
“What bakery?”
“Your bakery.” A slow grin lights her face. “You opened a bakery.”
“I did? Mom didn’t flip out?” I’ve always loved baking, much to the dismay of my fat-phobic mother.
She shrugs. “I don’t know, but you wanted to do it and you did. It’s downtown and does a nice little business. And your wedding cakes are gorgeous.”
“My wedding cakes?” I’ve decorated cakes for friends’ birthdays for years and always loved to play with frosting, gum paste, and fondant. I watched wedding cake shows on TV obsessively. But it was just a dream. Nothing I ever believed I’d be able to make a career out of.
She smiles. “We’re all so proud of you.”
“So then I have a bakery and I mysteriously ended up bruised and battered behind it.”
“Our best guess is that you took a pretty good fall down the stairs.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “So you’re saying I didn’t find gracefulness in those months I can’t remember?”
She chuckles. “You’re a hell of a lot more graceful than I am.”
“What else did I miss?”
“You didn’t miss anything,” she says. “You were here for all of it, and that memory’s going to be back in no time. I’m sure of it.”
“Humor me.”
“You and Liz graduated in May.”
I lift my hand and study my ring. “And then there’s me and Max.”
“Yeah. Since, I don’t know, maybe December or so? But the engagement is new. In fact, that’s been a surprise to all of us. Mom came by while you were sleeping last night and she practically bawled when Max confirmed that the ring on your finger was from him and it was the real deal.”
“Mom approves of Max, then?”
“That’s an understatement.”
I frown at my hand then stretch my arm out straight and study it. “I’ve lost weight.” I sit on the edge of the bed and extend my legs out before me one at a time. They’re long. Obviously I haven’t grown in the last year, but they’re so much thinner that they look longer to me. I’ve taken a couple of groggy trips to the bathroom with nurses at my side, but I didn’t pay much attention to my body. I certainly didn’t bother to look in the mirror. Thanks to my litany of aches and pains, I was too afraid to look.
I bring my hand to my stomach and draw in a breath. This isn’t my body. I’ve never been this thin. Not as a teenager, not as a child.
I look to Maggie. “Did this happen before or after Max started dating me?”
“After,” she says carefully.
I start to stand, and she takes my arm. “I’m fine,” I assure her. “I just want to look.”
She ignores my protest and escorts me to the bathroom, where I freeze at the sight of myself in the mirror. These bruises on my face aren’t very pretty. In fact, they almost look worse than they feel—which is saying something. But what really has me staring is the shape of my face. My cheekbones are visible, the line of my jaw more defined.
“I’ll give you a minute,” Maggie says. “I’ll be right on the other side of the door if you need me.”
After the door clicks behind her, I lift my hospital gown and study my body in the mirror. Frowning, I run my hands over my belly. It’s flatter than I ever remember it being, and I can feel muscle definition beneath my stretchmark-wrinkled skin. The bruises at my ribs could get me a job starring in a domestic-violence video. Was this all really from a fall down the stairs?
I’ll never have a model’s body, yet I’m nearly giddy at the sight of myself. My waist is tiny for the first time in my life, my thighs toned, and the br**sts I always cursed for making me look even bigger than I was are now nice curves. I’m actually excited to put on clothes and see my new body when I’m dressed like a normal person.
“It all seems too good to be true,” I murmur as I study my reflection.
“Which part?” Maggie pokes her head into the bathroom just as I’m repositioning my gown. “The bruises or the traumatic brain injury?”
“You know what I mean.”
She raises a brow. “You’re the only person I know who could go through what you did and still think life is peachy. The rest of the world could learn a thing or two from you, Han.”
I follow her out of the bathroom. “It’s like a dream, you know. Suddenly, I wake up and, sure, I’m in the hospital and pretty banged up, but I have everything I’ve ever wanted. The business, the body—”
“You were gorgeous before,” she tells me as I lower onto the edge of the bed. “You’re the only one who couldn’t see it.”
“It’s not just that.”
“Max,” she provides.
“Yeah.” I sigh. “I feel like the universe wants me to see everything, to not take it for granted. The doctor said my memory will probably be back soon, so maybe this is the luckiest thing that’s ever happened to me. How many of us get to step back from our lives and see how perfect they really are?”
“No one’s life is perfect, Hanna.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do know, and it worries me. You’ve got stars in your eyes about your life, and in a couple of days you’re going to start living it again. I just don’t want you to be disappointed if it isn’t everything it seems.”
I slouch into my pillows and take a deep breath in the silence of my hospital room.
Mom hosts brunch every Sunday at her house, and since I’m not expected to be released until tonight, she brought Sunday brunch to me this morning. My sisters were all here—Abby, Maggie, Lizzy, even Krystal, who came home from Florida when she heard about my condition. Asher stopped by. And of course, Max. Max, who hustled everyone out of the room just when I started feeling claustrophobic. Max, who managed to get my mom to change the subject when she didn’t want to talk about anything but the wedding. Max, whom I caught watching me the way Asher watches Maggie, the way Will watches Cally.
A knock sounds on the door, and I expect to see Lizzy, but red curls, not blond, peek into the room.
“Are you okay?” Maggie asks. She steps in and closes the door behind her.
I swing my legs around to the floor and nod. “I’m good.”
“It’s all overwhelming, I bet.”
“Does Mom still have him cornered?”
Maggie grins. “Yeah. I think she’d marry him herself if she could.”
Toting the bag of clothes Max brought me into the bathroom, I crack the door so I can talk to Maggie. I do a double take when I see my reflection. I’ll have to get used to this. I’d guess I’m at least fifty pounds lighter than I remember being. Maybe more. I knew I’d lost weight—I’d seen it for myself. Even so, when Max had first brought me clothes to wear, I couldn’t believe the tiny jeans and tee in the bag would fit me. When I pull them over my hips, they slide on smooth and easy.
