I stay on the floor for a long time with the tattered ghosts of my old life.
Photos of May and me sit on the floor near my fingertips. I still know her phone number by heart. It’s the password for all of my accounts. My brain knows that number. I grab my new cell and turn it on for the first time. It updates with all my old contacts.
I hope to see May’s name pop up in my texts. She and I used to exchange hundreds a day. Maybe she didn’t send a card because she’s been texting me. That makes so much sense. A dozen or so text message chimes come in quick succession right away, starting from the first few days I was in the hospital. My heart leaps.
LILA: Wish we could have seen you
KYLIE: Omg. I can’t believe the last thing we did was fight.
KYLIE: WHAT IF YOU DIED?
TANK: PENNY! Call me when u get out!
LILA: Dropped your homework at your house!
KYLIE: Penny, I miss you. I called the hospital!
EVE: Lunch is disgusting today. Do they even know what they are serving us?
EVE: Need my running buddy to burn off what I THINK are mashed potatoes!
PANDA: Holy shit, Berne. Your name is a pun!!
KYLIE: I’m sorry, Pen. For everything I said.
With the exception of Panda, I don’t know any of these people.
I let the phone rest in my lap and press my fingers against my temples.
The skin on my right leg burns where the first branch of Lichtenberg figures splits and etches out onto my thigh.
Above me in the long, horizontal window, lightning bugs bob in and out of the morning air. No—I’m never calling them that again. Fireflies. That’s their name from now on.
If I just keep my eyes closed and concentrate on my breathing, my arms won’t ache. My hand won’t contract and seize and these branches won’t crawl up and over my body.
Maybe if I close my eyes for long enough, none of this will have happened at all.
Once the texts stop coming in and it’s silent, I call May. It rings three times. I clench my jaw—too late now. Caller ID will definitely show who is calling.
May picks up.
I open my mouth to say something, but hello and sorry want to come out at the same time so I just croak.
“Penny?” She sounds surprised.
I swallow hard and just launch into it. “May, I’m freaking out. I don’t know what’s going on. I lost a lot of memories in the lightning strike. My mom told me we’re not friends anymore. I don’t remember.”
It seems to make sense that she be the first one I tell about my memory loss.
“Your mom told you?” She doesn’t follow what I am saying. Shivers run over me because I’m sitting in the midst of the scrapbook of our lives and I don’t know what to say to my best friend.
“A lot of things happened,” she says, and the tone of her voice, while soft, is guarded.
I want to say I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to say I am sorry when I don’t know what happened between us. I just miss her and the way she makes everything lighter, funnier even when I can’t see the humor.
“I know I must have done something really stupid. Like quit theater and let you all down,” I start to say, but May cuts me off.
“You think that’s what happened? You think because you quit theater that we all decided to stop being friends?” When she says it like that, I feel stupid for assuming so.
“I don’t know,” I go on. “I guess you guys had to pick up the slack or something. I just—” I am about to say, “miss you” when May says, “Look, Penny. I don’t want to talk about this when your memory is so messed up. It’s not right.”
“No, I have to know. I need to know why I have twenty get-well cards and none are from you, Wes, Panda, or Karen. Or why none of my friends came to see me in the hospital.”
She takes a deep breath. “Fine. You decided Kylie was a better friend to have. So you ditched Panda, Karen, Wes”—she pauses before she says—“and me. You wanted to party instead of be onstage.”
“I wanted to party? That sounds made up.”
“It felt like that to me for a long time too.”
A tear rolls down my cheek and I was so deep in her words I didn’t notice I was going to cry. I wipe my nose with the back of my hand, not caring that it’s gross and my skin is sticky. “But I don’t remember,” I whisper. “I don’t remember why”—I swallow hard—“we aren’t friends.”
May stumbles over her words and I hear things like, “secrets,” “popular,” followed by “you got kinda mean, people didn’t want to walk by you in the halls or sit near your crew at lunch.”
I don’t want to hear anymore.
“You were an ice queen all of a sudden—”
She’s midsentence when I hang up.
I lower my cell, placing it back on the carpet next to me. I hold down hard to turn it off so I don’t know if she calls me back.
I gently place the newspaper clippings and photo albums back into the trunk in the order I took them out, making sure to close the lid, sealing all the photos, the scrapbooks, and the memories back inside. I rest a shaking hand on top of the trunk. An ice queen?
“Penny!” Dad’s voice. “Kylie’s here.”
My stomach tightens when I hear Kylie say, “Thanks, Mr. B.” It’s so weird to hear her voice in my house. Now that I’ve heard it again, it’s definitely the same voice from the hospital corridor. God, I don’t want her to see the doll collection but my hand isn’t strong enough to get them all in and tucked away fast enough. I stand up from the floor and head back to sit at the edge of my bed.
I smell Kylie’s perfume first. The rose essential oil that I’ve coveted since freshman year is made bitter by the overwhelming taste of metal still lingering in my mouth. There’s a quick smack of Kylie’s flip-flops on the hardwood landing and they stop at my doorway. I haven’t covered my arms—it will be the first time anyone other than my parents and the people in the hospital have seen the strange burns on my body. I push up on the bed, scurrying to pull on the cardigan resting on my night table, but it’s inside out and I’m not fast enough to slip it over me.
Kylie steps into the room and before “hello” can escape her mouth, her tight puckered lips ease and part. There they are—the figures, twisting across my skin, and shiny from the oodles of burn cream I put on last night. I can’t hide my embarrassment.
But Kylie grins.
“Wow!” she says about the figures. “Pen, you are badass.”
“Thanks,” I say, not sure if that’s the right response. I cross the floor to my desk and place the weight in my heel so I am grounded as I walk. It doesn’t matter; my right foot drags a little anyway until I lean my hand on the back of the chair for support.
“You’re limping,” Kylie says. She tries to keep it cool, but it’s easy to see concern in her eyes.
“Thanks for trying to come see me at the hospital. I heard your voice, I think, in the hallway.”
“Ugh, I was so mad. They wouldn’t let me in the ICU.”
“I remember,” I say. “I remember that.”
“I was like, my best friend’s in there!”
Kylie plops down on my bed and leans back on her hands. She is in a black tank top and cut-off shorts. She has on what used to be white Converse sneakers but she’s drawn crazy designs all over them. My name is in block letters on the sides of the right shoe.
“So what are they?” she asks with a little lift of her voice, and nods to the branches. She is trying to be more casual now that she’s gotten over the shock of the figures, which I appreciate.
“Lichtenberg figures. They’re like bruises from where the lightning hit. They’ll fade eventually.” I wonder how many times I am going to have to say this when I get to school. Maybe not so many now that I’m telling Kylie. Her body language makes it obvious that she’s been here, at my house, in my room, before. I try to recall it, but I can’t. Nothing comes up.
Kylie takes a deep breath. ??
?Look, I’m sorry about what I said at Tank’s party. It’s exhausting when you don’t tell me what’s going on. It’s like you keep all these secrets. . . .” She is talking so fast I have no idea what to say first or how to respond. She takes a big breath. “And I had to try to put it together on my own.”
Put what together?
“I watched you act all shady. Your mom would be drinking and you would act like it was no big deal. And it started me thinking about how I was acting. And I don’t want to be like that, you know? Closed off?”
I’m not closed off, I think, and tuck some hair behind my ears. The spot where the IV was is still tender. Kylie thinks we’re friends. She knows about Mom’s drinking. She doesn’t know about my memory yet. I have to tell her something.
“So when you were being all dodgy, I just snapped.” She exhales really sharply. “Sorry,” she says. “I’ve been wanting to get that out forever.”
“I’m sorry too,” I finally say. “For whatever I did. But . . .” She looks up at me, waiting for me to finish. “I don’t actually know what I did.”
“What do you mean?” She grins. “Too drunk to remember the party? Maybe I was wrong about one and done?”
“No,” I say, and I want to pace but my numb foot makes it hard to talk and walk at the same time. “Not just the party.”
“Oh, I bet you can’t remember the night of the strike. They say that can happen after traumatic accidents, right?” Kylie asks.
Kylie’s eyes follow all of my movements and I don’t want to lie to her.
“It’s a lot more complicated than that,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
I can’t explain it but I feel like I owe her the truth. “I can’t remember anything from the last year. Since last May, actually.”
Her grin fades. “What are you talking about?”
“The lightning . . . it affected my memory.”
She frowns and it makes her features sharp. Thick mascara is the only makeup she seems to be wearing. She blinks hard and her mouth makes a tiny O shape as she understands what I am saying.
“May of last year?” she repeats. “Like before eleventh grade?” Her voice rises an octave.
I taste metal more than ever. I want lemonade or a lollipop.
She crosses her arms over her chest. “You don’t remember Tank’s party?”
I shake my head. She doesn’t want to believe it.
“The Howl shows at the Joint?”
Again, no.
“My house? Pool parties? Riding around on Tank’s tractor? Smoking weed in Patelli’s basement?”
No. No. No. No. No.
“Fuck!” she cries. “Do you remember being friends with me?”
I whisper it this time. “No.”
She flinches at my response and stands up. My shame sits on my shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” I say, because I am. I’m so sorry.
Perfect, popular Kylie Castelli’s eyes tear up and she looks down at the bedspread.
“You don’t remember being friends.” She has her hand over her mouth. It’s only then that I see she’s wearing a ring, a thin silver band with a small blue stone. It’s identical to the one I’m wearing. They gave it to me at the hospital but I hadn’t thought much of it. I assumed it was a gift from Mom and Dad.
If I try really hard, maybe something will come, some shred of memory from the past year. I will it from the darkness. I struggle for any clue, but my mind is pitch-black and I can’t find my way to the light.
My legs aren’t strong enough, so I have to sit down. I grip the bedpost with my left hand. I have to press my heels into the floor to steady myself. If I grip too tight I might set off a spasm.
“I don’t know what happened. Or why I stopped hanging out with my friends.” I quickly rebound when she flinches. “My other friends. You know, May Harper, Panda Thomas, Wes Peterson . . .”
Kylie’s frown sets even deeper. “You said you didn’t want to be in theater anymore. That you wanted something different,” she explains.
I take a step closer to Kylie.
“When? When did I say that?”
She drops her eyes and searches the floor.
“All the time.”
“All the time?” I repeat. “I don’t talk to Wes? Or May? Or anyone from the theater?”
“No. Not really.”
“Why? There has to be some reason!”
She slaps her hands to her thighs. “God, Penny. I’m standing right here.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You’re right.”
After a moment she explains, “There’s not much to tell. My car broke down. You picked me up. I took you to Alex James’s party. That was the night we became friends—we’ve been friends ever since.”
“Alex James? The guy who always wears bright-colored Polos?”
“He asked you out right before Tank’s party. We were dying over it. Penny? Remember?” I don’t know what she reads from my expression but her eyes widen. “God, you really don’t remember, do you?”
“I wish I did. I remember you from school and stuff. It’s just . . . Kylie, I don’t know you.”
Kylie breaks into a sob and turns, running for the door. “I have to go,” she cries.
“Kylie, wait!” I call, and move too quickly. The screaming, needling pain blasts from the center of my right palm. The seizing comes in waves. The pain cuts off my words. The muscles in my palm clench so tight that my fingers are drawn together, straight and awkward. I have to bend over to tolerate the pain.
I yell out and fall to my knees in the middle of the room. My back shudders and my fingers close, pinching together tighter and tighter, until the fingertips touch. The spasms run from my neck to my tailbone.
I cry out and heavy footsteps run up the stairs. Not Mom’s, but Dad’s.
“It’s okay,” he says, and wraps his hands around me to steady the pain. “It’s okay, Penny. Just breathe.”
But I can’t.
NINE
THAT MONDAY MORNING BEFORE SCHOOL STARTS, I finally get access to my computer for a carefully timed twenty minutes.
My online accounts show a world that has existed, up until now apparently, only in my wildest imagination.
In many of the photos, Kylie and I drink from the same bottle of vodka at parties, wear matching leather jackets at concerts, and have coordinating face paint at football games. In each photo Lila and Eve are in the background, but we are in the foreground of the picture, arms draped around each other. We are the stars. We’re clearly best friends.
It’s weird but—I’m jealous of this photograph version of me.
It’s been ten days since I was struck in Tank’s pool. Ten days that I have been covered with these markings, and that my memory has been blank. On the computer, I scroll back through all the days I was in the hospital, through the well wishes and various notes. I stop when I get to the feed from the night of the strike.
There’s a photo of Kylie and me wearing dark crimson lipstick. We make kissy faces in the rearview mirror of a car. That’s right! I can drive! I missed my sixteenth birthday. I scroll back up to the top of the page and do a double take at some of the posts right before the lightning strike. I actually scoot closer to the monitor.
Congrats on homecoming nom!
You were nominated, Penny!
I was nominated for homecoming queen? I wait to be excited. I should want to jump up and down in my seat.
But I’m not. I fixate on the names of the people writing me messages. None of them are people I know. Acquaintances, sure, but none of them are my friends.
I scroll back as many months as I can, but it’s a flutter of posts that all look similar. Kylie and I are out at live music shows or riding around in my car or hers.
I keep going and the first post is from late May, 2015. Right after I quit Much Ado About Nothing.
“Penny!” Dad calls. “Let’s go! We don’t want to be late for your meeting!”
I’v
e had online accounts since seventh grade—the year Mom let me get my own laptop. But there’s no evidence of the two years before this. I must have deleted my original accounts and started new ones. A memory, like a firefly, darts around in my head. If I could only catch it, I might be able to figure out how any of this happened. But that firefly darts deeper into the black of my mind and pulses like a faraway star. If only I could get to it.
I close the laptop cover; I don’t want to look anymore.
After a minute or two, I’m almost done with my morning rituals of burn cream and medication. Last but not least, the superfun process of getting dressed. I stand before the clothes in my closet, but I don’t recognize a single item on a hanger. I tug at a pair of jeans and pull them closer to me. La Brea? Kylie is always wearing them. These are the most ridiculously expensive designer jeans and I have two pairs in my closet. I sit on the bed and pull the jeans on. The fabric suctions to my leg. With a tug upward using my left hand, the tight denim sears along the vines on my skin.
“Holy hell!” I cry out, and kick them off. They coil on the ground near my feet. I rub some silver sulfadiazine cream to help with the stinging burns.
I grab a pair of leggings and slip them on instead. The fabric is soft against my skin. Even though they stop at the ankle, I use some stage makeup I find in the trunk to cover the last branches that coil onto the top of my foot. After slipping on a tank top and a long-sleeved cardigan, even though it’s seventy-five degrees out, I tap a little concealer along my collarbone as well. I limp to the bedroom door.
Last night, after another round of the burn cream for my figures, Mom gave me a fresh bag of fruit-flavored sucking candies. I still taste metal no matter how much sweet gum or lemonade I have. I eat a cherry one anyway and throw the rest in my school bag.
I trudge down the stairs slowly. Even with the makeup covering my skin, I’m still self-conscious about my limp.
The streets are nearly empty as we drive up toward school. It’s well before any students will be there because I get to kick off my first day back with an early-morning meeting with the headmaster, my teachers, and the school counselor.
“I guess they’re going to want to talk to me about everything,” I say.