2

“Everyone’s worried sick,” Mom said, eventually breaking the heavy silence. “Avery spent the first three nights camped downstairs in the family room. He point blank refused to leave.”

“H-he did?” My brother was supposed to be in Indiana, so it touched my heart knowing he’d rushed back to be at my side.

“I don’t want him jeopardizing his junior year,” I said. Avery played football for Notre Dame and had a real shot at going pro. “Once he’s seen I’m okay, he needs to go back. I won’t be the reason he messes up his—”

They shared a strange look.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing, sweetheart.” Mom squeezed my hand.

Just then, the doctor came into the room. At least, I assumed he was the doctor given his appearance. “Ah, Ashleigh, it’s so good to see you’re awake.” He greeted my parents before his attention came back to me. “I need to examine you, Ashleigh, if that’s okay?”

“Yes, of course.”

“It shouldn’t take long. Did your parents fill you in on what happened?”

“I was in an accident.”

“You were. You suffered what we call a traumatic brain injury.” He approached the bed. “Are you okay with your parents staying in the room during my examination?”

“Yes, it’s fine.”

He nodded and gently eased back the sheet, taking my hand in his. “Flex your fingers please.”

I did and he smiled. “Good. Now if you could follow my light.” He produced a small flashlight and shined it in my eye, left then right. Then he held up a finger at different angles and made me focus on it as he moved it slowly toward me.

“What’s your name?”

“Ashleigh Karen Chase.”

“Good, good. And where do you go to school, Ashleigh?”

“Rixon High. I just started senior year.”

Mom sucked in a sharp breath and my eyes immediately went to hers. “What is it?” I asked, another flash of dread snaking through me.

“When’s your birthday, Ashleigh?” The doctor asked, sympathy shining in his cerulean eyes.

“September twenty-second. I’ll be turning eighteen.”

“How is this possible?” Dad asked, clearing his throat.

“What is going on?” I demanded, hating that they seemed to be having a conversation about me, without me.

“Sometimes, when the brain suffers trauma, it causes memory loss.”

Memory loss? That made sense.

“That’s why I can’t remember the accident?”

“Yes, and…” He glanced at my parents again, and they both nodded.

“Ashleigh, I suspect you have something called retrograde amnesia.”

“Amnesia.” The word rattled around my head.

“The part of the brain responsible for memory was damaged in the accident. It’s not uncommon for some patients to experience memory loss, particularly of those memories stored in the immediate days and months leading up to the accident.”

“Do they ever return?” There was a tremble to Mom’s voice that made the knot in my stomach tighten.

“They… can. Over time. Some people get all of their memories back. Others find some return, but some remain inaccessible.”

“Guys.” I let out a strangled laugh. “This is silly. It’s just a few weeks. I’m not sure I want to remember the accident anyway.”

Mom and Dad both gave me a tight smile.

“Ashleigh, this will be hard to hear.” The doctor settled his kind gaze on me. “But you’re not seventeen.”

“Of course I am. I turn eighteen in a couple of weeks. I’m a senior at Rixon High School. My best friends are Lily Ford and Peyton Myers. I have a brother named Avery, who has a girlfriend named Miley. My parents are Hailee and Cameron Chase. My uncle is Xander. He’s helping coach the football team this year with my other uncle. Uncle Jason.” Panic swelled inside of me like a storm.

“Sweetheart, take a breath.” Dad stood, running a hand down his face.

“I-I don’t understand…” I silently pleaded with him to fix this. To reassure me that everything was going to be okay. But then he said eight little words that changed everything.

Everything.

“It’s almost July, sweetheart. High school is over.”

 

   

Ten months of my life… gone.

Just like that.

The doctor called it retrograde amnesia, said that sometimes after a TBI a person lost the days or weeks or months leading up to the accident.

I’d lost my entire senior year save for the first few weeks.

I didn’t know how to process that. How to accept that such a crucial part of my life was just… gone.

At least Ezra was okay.

I’m not sure I could have survived it if anything had happened to him too.

My parents had informed me that Mr. and Mrs. Bennet—his foster parents—had finally adopted him. So he was no longer Ezra Jackson, but Ezra Bennet.

They said he was fine, but I wanted to talk to him, to look him in the eye and know that he was okay. Maybe seeing him, talking to him, would fill in the missing pieces of that night.

According to Dad, there had been a graduation party at Bryan Hughes’s house. He was on the football team with my cousin Aaron. Ezra was giving me a ride home when we got run off the road.

It still didn’t feel real. That they were talking about something that happened to me, when the last thing I could remember was everyone talking about the upcoming pep rally at the beginning of senior year.

Frustration welled inside me again as I tried not to get worked up over the lost memories. But memories made you who you were. They shaped you, influenced the road you walked on. Without them, was I even me anymore?

I mean, it wasn’t like I was missing a day or two; I was missing some of the most significant moments of my life.

College applications.

Homecoming.

My eighteenth birthday.