Georgine was a normal girl. A beautiful, normal girl. There was no twinkling chimes in her voice. There was no golden glow to her skin. I couldn’t think those things anymore. I didn’t want to get sent back to the doctor. He gave me a severe case of the creeps.
“Hello?” Georgine snapped her fingers in my face. “Cassie? Are you with me? Or do I need to call your doctor again.”
She was not calling my doctor. I couldn’t believe my mother gave Georgine his number. “I’m here, George.” She hated it when I shortened her name. “I’m fine.” I took a sip of the tea to stall for time and regretted it. It was too sweet and too tea-ish and had an aftertaste of flowers. It was like drinking perfume.
I thought about spitting it back through the straw, but would people notice? It might be too gross to do that in public.
I glanced around the room, then back at the cup.
Yes. It was way too gross to do that in public.
I forced myself to swallow and cleared my throat. “I’m fine. I just ordered the wrong thing.”
“You wouldn’t have ordered the wrong thing if you were paying attention. You look weird.” She reached for her phone. “Maybe I should call your mother.”
“And tell her what? That I’m a little spacey. She’d be annoyed at you for wasting her time.”
Georgine looked from me to the phone. Me to the phone. Me and then she put the phone down.
“I’m really fine.” I wasn’t sure how to get out of telling her what happened. She was letting it go for now, but
she wouldn’t stop until she knew what was wrong with me.
And there was something wrong. A lot of things wrong. Like how I hated that she was way too close to my mother. She ratted me out all the damned time, like a meddling older sister. Or maybe jailer was a better term for her. It was exhausting. She was exhausting. Then again, I thought everything was exhausting since I woke up in the hospital.
I’d been in an accident a year and a half ago and suffered what my doctor called a traumatic brain injury. I couldn’t remember anything from before the accident. I took six months off school after I woke up, but then finally convinced my mother that I should go back. So, I moved into my apartment and was a month into my third year of college.
Sometimes I felt lost in my classes. I couldn’t remember what I’d learned before the accident. My mother told me that I could either pick up where I left off or not go at all. She told me the fact that I was struggling was proof that I shouldn’t be in school at all. I wasn’t stupid. I knew what she was doing.
My mother wanted me to quit—that much was clear—but I wasn’t a quitter. So, I did what I could to keep my grades up.
I stared at Georgine. She occasionally did this thing where she’d look me in the eye, and we’d see how long it’d take before I’d look away. I never looked away first, and I wasn’t about to start today. If I got her to look away first, then she’d drop the whole texting my mother thing. I’d win.
At least Georgine wasn’t rooming with me. If I had to do staring contests with her multiple times a day, I’d lose whatever was left of my mind. I was fine studying with Georgine—we were both psych majors, so it made sense—but anything beyond studying every few days was a hard pass for me. My mother said that we’d been best friends since grade school, but some days I found that hard to believe.
Or maybe the accident had fundamentally changed who I was.
Every time I thought about the accident, I got angry.
I was angry. Angry that I couldn’t remember anything. Angry that my past was gone. Angry that it was never, ever coming back. That I was missing so much of my life hurt me in a way that I couldn’t describe, but it literally gave me a migraine to end all migraines when I tried to remember anything. So, I had no choice but to focus on my future.
Like school. Like the books in front of me. Like the test I had tomorrow.
Georgine finally dropped her gaze, and I wanted to cheer myself on.
At least I could win one battle today. “If we don’t get started, we’ll be here all night.” I busied myself with pulling my books and notebooks out of my backpack, then notecards, then my highlighters, and finally, my bag of pens. I lined everything up and then looked at Georgine.
She was glaring at me. Again.
I didn’t set everything out to annoy her, but it was a solid side benefit.
“God. Why do you still use that stupid bag?” Georgine hated me. It was clear every time she said anything to me. Her tone was utter garbage.
I looked at the pen bag in question. There was a wolf howling at the moon printed on it. “Because it makes me happy.” I gave her a painfully fake smile and unzipped the bag, pulling out my favorite blue pen.
My mother was wrong. Georgine and I weren’t friends. We weren’t even close to being friends.
But my mother wanted me to be nice. She didn’t like it when I acted differently than she was used to. So, I’d be nice. For now.