“Lucy!” I squeal into the phone. “Oh, thank God!”
“Tess.” The sound of her familiar voice brings tears to my eyes. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
Am I okay? Is she seriously asking me that? “Well I can’t remember anything that happened before yesterday, so not really…”
Lucy sighs—a long, sad exhalation of breath. “I know. I… I’m so sorry.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “It’s horrible, Lucy. I feel like I’m stuck in a nightmare.”
“Honestly, you’re not usually like this.” She sounds genuinely perplexed. “You used to be a little scared in the morning, but by the afternoon, you always seemed okay. It’s just this last month you seem to freak out every day.”
A month. That’s when Harry said I first contacted him.
What happened one month ago that prompted this?
“Did anything happen to you today?” she presses me. “Something that upset you?”
I chew on my lip. I desperately want to tell her everything that happened to me today. About the note I left for myself on my thigh. About meeting Harry at the dog park. Lucy is my best friend, and if I can’t trust her, who can I trust? Apart from her, there are apparently only three other people regularly in my life. And my father hasn’t returned my call.
But Harry warned me. He was emphatic. Don’t tell Lucy.
“Nothing happened today,” I finally say. “It’s just hard to wrap my head around… everything.”
“I know. I don’t know how you do it every day. I don’t think I could. I would, like, have killed myself or something.”
That doesn’t make me feel any better. “It’s not like I have much of a choice.”
“I know,” she says. “But God, it must be so hard for you. Not recognizing Graham all the time. Not being able to go anywhere without Camila having to tag along. Not being able to work or be a productive member of society. You are honestly a superstar for getting through it.”
I don’t feel like a superstar, that’s for sure. And everything Lucy is saying is only making me feel worse. “Listen, can I ask you something?”
“Of course! Anything.”
“Why did I break up with Harry?”
Lucy is quiet on the other line. She said I could ask her anything, but it’s clear she wishes I hadn’t asked her that. “I don’t know.”
“Lucy…”
She lets out a huff. “Tess, it happened ages ago. Why do you even want to know?”
“Because the last thing I remember is being engaged to Harry. I miss him.” Against my will, my eyes fill with tears. God, I miss him. If only he were here with me, I could deal with this memory loss. “Please tell me what happened. If you care about me at all, you have to tell me. Please. I have to know.”
“Are… are you sure you want to know this?”
“Yes,” I say, even though I’m not sure I do. I don’t want to know, but I need to know. I need to know if I can trust Harry Finch. I need to know what awful thing he did that made me return the ring to the man I loved.
She lowers her voice several notches. “Harry… he… he grabbed me and tried to kiss me.”
I almost drop the phone. What is she talking about? Harry would never do that. He never even looked at other women—and especially not Lucy. He didn’t even like Lucy! How could he do something like that?
“He tried to kiss you?” I repeat incredulously. “Are you sure you have that right?”
“I’m so sorry, Tess.” Her voice cracks. “I feel awful about it. You… you saw the whole thing. He did it in the living room and you walked in right as I pushed him away and slapped him across the face.”
“But he didn’t even like you!” I burst out. “I mean, he was always saying that you…”
I don’t want to repeat any of the negative comments Harry made about Lucy over the years, all of which contained a small grain of truth.
“Exactly.” She snorts. “He was always trying to hit on me when you weren’t around, and he hated me for not playing along. I tried to tell you so many times, but I thought it was harmless until the day he grabbed me like that…”
“He… he grabbed you…?”
I’m having a hard time even imagining it. Harry was always so shy when it came to that sort of stuff. I still remember the first time he kissed me. We had just had dinner together, then he walked me back to my apartment building. We stood by the entrance to the building for well over an hour, talking to each other, until finally the doorman came out and yelled, Kiss her already! She wants you to! Harry’s face had turned bright red. Do you? he asked nervously. And I nodded, because the doorman was absolutely right. I had been wanting him to kiss me all night, and when he did, every part of me down to my toenails tingled.
“You saw the whole thing, Tess,” Lucy says. “He grabbed me. Stuck his tongue down my throat. It was awful. He—”
“Stop.” I choke out the word. “Please stop. I… I get it.”
“I was scared you might not forgive me,” she says in a small voice. “But at least you saw I pushed him away and slapped him. I mean, as if I would ever be interested in Harry…”
I rub my aching right skull. Do I believe this? I guess I have to. Lucy isn’t a stranger like Graham—she’s my best friend. She wouldn’t lie to me. And anyway, it makes sense. Harry would have had to do something awful for me to end our engagement. I broke up with him. That’s a fact.
He kissed my best friend.
That bastard kissed my best friend.
My father was wrong. He was not a good man. “Tess?”
“I’m here…”
“Look,” Lucy says, “I know it all seems fresh right now, but believe me when I say you were totally over it. You’re better off without him. Graham is great. Like, a million times better. And he doesn’t hit on me.”
I still feel sick at the thought of Harry trying to kiss Lucy. How could he do something like that to me? It turns out I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did.
A disturbing thought occurs to me. What if it wasn’t me who found Harry? What if he found out about my accident and decided it was a perfect opportunity to worm his way back into my life? And every day now he throws doubt into my head about whether my brain injury is real or not. He’s manipulating me. Torturing me. Either because he wants me back, or maybe to punish me for breaking up with him.
No, it couldn’t be. Harry wouldn’t do something like that.
He’s not capable of it.
Then again, I would’ve said he wasn’t capable of cheating.
“Are you okay?” Lucy’s voice sounds far away. “Tess?” “I’m fine,” I manage. I slide into the leather chair in front
of Graham’s desk. It’s very comfortable. Like everything else in our house, it probably cost a fortune. “Lucy, is there any chance you could come here? I really want to see you.”
“I wish I could!” She groans. “Work is insane right now and I don’t know when I’m getting out of here. But tomorrow should be better. How about if I come for dinner tomorrow?”
Tomorrow. By tomorrow, I won’t even remember I invited her. But what can I do? “Sure, that sounds fine.”
“Hang in there. I promise everything is going to be okay.”
I almost laugh out loud. Everything is going to be okay? Is she joking? Nothing is okay. And I’m beginning to think nothing will ever be okay ever again.
