‘Stop!’ The disc obeys. A blanket. A blue one. A canteen.
I think I know what comes next.
A flutter runs through me. I know. I picture a scene, fully formed. Jenna, cross-legged on a blue plaid blanket on the sand. A mug of steaming hot chocolate in my hands. Hot chocolate with three fat marshmallows. I loved hot chocolate. Taste! I am shocked at my first memory of taste. How could I forget taste? Chunk after chunk pieces together. It is like a window has been opened and memories are breezing through it. Days. Weeks. Three weeks of details collect and run through my mind, every one remembered and sharp.
I pull myself closer to the screen on my desk. My head vibrates. ‘Play,’ I command. The scene shifts from the campfire to me. I’m sitting on a blue blanket. I lift a mug of hot chocolate to my lips and offer a frothy, chocolate-mustached grin.
‘Stop.’ I lay my head on my desk. I close my eyes and soak in what it means.
I knew. A whole chunk of my life is mine again.
Three whole weeks’ worth. It seems like a lifetime.
My eyes blink open. ‘Mother!’ I call. I race from my room and down the stairs to the kitchen. ‘Lily!’
No one answers. I see Mother out the window, talking with a workman and pointing to panes in the greenhouse. Lily is no doubt somewhere within. I run to the pantry and search for ingredients. I pull cocoa and then sugar from the shelves. Marshmallows! Lily has marshmallows, too! I tuck the bag beneath my arm and let them all tumble onto the kitchen counter. Milk! A sauce pot! I remember! I pour. I stir. I make sense of a stove I have never used before. I feel full, powerful, like I haven’t felt since I woke up. I’m making hot chocolate. I love hot chocolate! I search the cupboards for a mug. I pull the largest one I can find from the shelf and pour the steaming mixture in. I rip open the bag of marshmallows, and just as I plop them in, Lily and Mother come in through the back door. They stop and stare at me and the helter-skelter mess I have made.
‘I remember! I love hot chocolate!’
I raise the mug like a toast to celebrate this new memory. I expect a smile—at least from Mother—but instead, as I bring the mug to my lips, her face wrinkles in horror and she yells, ‘No!’
Taste
Maybe I don’t like hot chocolate.
And maybe the three weeks’ worth of memories aren’t real at all.
Maybe I don’t remember sneaking on makeup in the bathroom at school.
Or completing a double pirouette and finishing as gracefully as if I really did have wings.
Or snuggling on the sofa with a golden dog I named Hunter.
The hot chocolate was tasteless.
Just like my nutrients.
I know you can forget a lot of things,
but how can you forget taste?
When the mug slipped from my fingers,
Lily caught it.
And hardly any spilled on the floor.
School
I’m certain it is Claire’s fault. Everything. Why does she whimper and cower so? Is she guilty? She cried when I dropped the mug. I wanted to hit her. It’s mine, dammit. Mine. But it must be hers, too, with the way she takes it on. It is like she owns every shortcoming I have. Maybe she just plain owns me. She tried to explain it away. It’s temporary. Your taste will return. You shouldn’t have food anyway. I spent the next hour locked in my bathroom, staring at my tongue. It’s normal. Rough and pink and fleshy. What’s wrong is somewhere else inside. Something that is disconnected within me. I don’t trust her. She hovers, smiles, cries, and controls. Too much of everything. I need to get away from her.
I open the car door. She opens hers, too.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I’m seventeen. I can do this on my own.’
‘But, Jenna—’
I’ve learned how to smile in the space of just a few short weeks. I’m learning how to control, too. ‘Claire,’ I say, to hold her to the seat.