Super. Thanks a lot, Mom.
The doctor goes on, but I tune him out, wrapped in a bubble of numbness that I force myself into.
Short term memory loss, he said.
Did I really have to lose more? Really?
As if I haven’t already lost enough. Just my luck to fall down a fucking flight of stairs and lose another chunk of information. It pisses the shit out of me, more than it should, knowing that my brain has locked away all of those memories, protecting me from whatever shit I’ve been through.
I’m a fighter though. I don’t need to be protected. I’d rather know what I’ve been through and face it like a soldier, as the doctor so generously put it, than just have these blank spots, these gaps.
“The good news is, it’ll probably come back,” Doctor Cohen concludes, just as I shake myself out of my dark thoughts and tune back in. “The brain does funny things, Sophie. It could be a random moment. Maybe walking to class, you’ll see something, hear something, even smell something, and it’ll all click back into place. Just one little trigger, and it’ll come rushing back to you. Short-term memories are much easier to recover than long-term ones, so don’t give up hope that they’ll come back.”
I bite my bottom lip, staring down at my blanket-covered feet.
Good pep talk, Doc.
I don’t care what he thinks or says. He doesn’t know what it’s like to not know. He doesn’t know what it’s like to have large gaps in your memory, patches of darkness that are so ephemeral, you don’t even quite know where they start or end.
“You’ll be able to go home in a few days,” Doctor Cohen reassures me. “We just need to keep an eye on you for a little bit longer, okay?”
Home. I bite my lip to hide my scoff.
I haven’t had a home in years. Maybe my last foster home, but that was only when Jared was still alive. My chest squeezes painfully at the recollection of his name, of his laughing features—and then the image of him lying on a slab in the Medical Examiner’s Office. I quickly shove the emotions down.
When I don’t say anything, Doctor Cohen glances at the guys, as if they’ll have something to say. There’s an awkward silence that lasts for about ten seconds before the doctor gathers up his stuff and tells me he’ll be back again later to check on me again. He nods and strides out, the door clicking softly behind him. We’re alone again.
“What actually happened?” I demand, feeling like there’s some part of this that no one is telling me.
What the hell am I missing?
I’m not really sure what I think is being hidden from me, but I can’t help the nagging feeling in the back of my head telling me that before this… this fall that I can’t remember, something important happened.
I’m just not sure what.
What is my brain trying to tell me, to remind me of? Something important. I’m missing something important.
“Well,” Elias starts, wiping his palms against his jeans. “Last I saw you that night was in the kitchen. Declan and I went to go talk to Taylor, and we lost track of you after that. We were just chilling in the den, and then there was a huge commotion.”
Declan nods, stepping forward to grab my hand again now that Doctor Cohen isn’t in the way anymore. “We ran out to see what was going on, and we heard you’d fallen down the stairs. A freshman girl found you when she got lost looking for the bathroom. Thank fuck she did.” He grimaces. “No one saw it happen. Or at least no one wants to admit to anything.”
“Was I… was I pushed?” I wonder aloud, but no one says anything.
Did someone purposely try to hurt me?
“I was on the phone. I had to step outside to take a call,” Gray adds. Something flickers over his face, something I can’t quite read. “We’ve asked Max too. She didn’t see anything. The last time I saw you, you were dancing with her, but she says you disappeared at some point.”
Dancing… Gray… Max.
I try to fill in the blanks, but my head spins and throbs the more I think about it. The pulse of a headache I woke up with is growing into a full-fledged migraine, and whatever drugs I’m on right now are making it hard to think.
“I’m so fucking tired. When I… wake up…” I mutter, not quite sure of anything. Words get lost somewhere between my brain and my mouth, just a jumble of half-formed, fading thoughts. “Maybe I’ll remember then…”
Will I though?
Not likely.
It’ll just be another thing to live with. Sophie, the special Hawthorne scholarship student whose medical records were displayed for the entire school. Sophie, who stripped in front of a roomful of people to shut down a stupid bet. Sophie, whose life has become a circus, a shit show for everyone on campus to watch and obsess over.
I shut down the thoughts as soon as they crawl through my pounding head, refusing to obsess over them now. When I get there, I’ll get there. For now, I just need to work on getting better.
“You need sleep.” Gray echoes my thoughts, his voice firm. “You’ve been through a lot, and you’re still not recovered. You need to rest up, and you can’t do that with us keeping you awake.”
It’s a signal for the rest of the guys to leave, even though I don’t want them to. I want them to stay here and keep guard as I sleep, as if they could protect me from my own mind, from my dreams.
“We’ll be back, okay?” Gray says, his tone softening a little bit. I’m glad he can’t read my thoughts, because I don’t like feeling dependent on any of these men, let alone having them know how I feel. “I promise.”
I promise.
Those words stick in my mind, and I let them stay there. I let myself draw a little bit of comfort from them.
Declan gives my hand another squeeze, reminding me that he’s still holding it, and Elias rests a palm on my thigh through the blanket. When I meet Gray’s eyes, something storms inside the green depths of his irises as he stands next to the bed, his gaze never leaving mine.
He leans down, that familiar rich scent of his brushing over my senses. It reminds me of bare skin, of heated breaths, of tangled limbs and deep kisses.
I may not remember falling down the stairs, but as Gray leans in and presses his lips to mine, the memories of every moment I’ve spent with him are clear and sharp. Almost biting.
My breath leaves my lungs in one exhale as his soft kiss lingers, not wanting to pull away. Honestly, I want to pull him down into the bed with me, wrap my body around his and get lost in his kiss, but I’m limp with fatigue and exhaustion, and my head is still pounding. I’m a big fan of fucking my pain away—that’s how Gray and I met, actually—but in this instance, I don’t think it’ll work.
“Sleep well,” Gray murmurs against my mouth. Our noses brush as he breaks the kiss. It’s a sweet, tender touch that shouldn’t make my toes curl beneath the covers, but it does. “We’ll be back.”
We’ll be back.
I believe him.
Elias and Declan don’t bother to look away anymore, don’t bother to pretend they aren’t affected by the way Gray kisses me. I’ve kissed both of his friends more than once, not to mention that time all three of them gathered around me on Gray’s bed and made me come harder than I ever have before.