Remember When **Under MAJOR Editing**

Chapter 8

In my mind I was back in my mother's bedroom, trying to fix everything, but I just sat there, helpless, with one hand pressed to the throbbing in my head, watching my mother die quietly.

Britney shook her head at me and rolled her eyes as if my dad was being silly. As if what he had just said to me could be considered a silly, impatient thing to say to his daughter when he was under a lot of stress with a Hawaiian vacation planned.

Then she reached for my dad's hand and spoke in that calming, motherly tone I did not like at all. "Clyde. They said the concussion confused her and that's very common. They said she might not remember the entire night, and if she didn't, there wouldn't be anything they could do." She turned back to me. "You don't remember last night?"

"Oh, sure, I remember," I lied. My words came out gravely. I cleared my throat. "My head really hurts. I was hoping a nurse had taken mercy and slipped you some pills for me on our way out."
"Sorry," Britney said with an exaggerated sorry face, bottom lip poked out. "The nurses were preoccupied with your boyfriend."

"Dade?" The gremlin in my head had given up on the balls of increasing size and was now taking whacks at the inside of my skull with a baseball bat. "You know my boyfriend, Zack. He worked at Splash Central with us this summer? You hired him?"

"Ohhhh." She and my dad gave each other another look through their sunglasses. Britneysaid, "We thought you'd gotten together with Dade, the way the two of you were acting last night."

"Right. That was because of the wreck. We were so relieved to be alive." I hoped I sounded embarrassed instead of mortified. No wonder Dade had thought we were together now and I would break up with Zack for him. What had I done? Had I freaking humped Dade Elks in the ER?

"Wasn't he the one there with the policeman last Monday at the emergency room?" my dad barked. "And suddenly you're in a wreck with him?"
"I have almost every class with Dade, and we're on the swim team together." I had been ready to accuse Dade with some conspiracy theory a few minutes ago, but now that my dad verbalized it, I heard how ridiculous it sounded.

"Honey!" Britney patted my dad's hand insistently, glancing at her diamond watch. "We need to leave for the airport right now and we haven't finished packing, haven't showered . . ."

My dad stood and held out a strong hand to help up his fiancée. Britney continued to fill the void among the three of us with busy talk until they escaped inside, leaving me alone on the edge of my seat, straining my ears for the familiar breath-sounds of the ocean.

Dizzy and sick, I wandered into my bathroom and found a bottle of over-the-counter pain pills. I took two. Examined the label. Under absolutely no circumstances was I to take more than two at a time. I shook out another and swallowed that. Read the label again and wondered who had written it and how serious she was. Then slammed the bottle into a drawer. It was too much, calculating the line between reasonable under the circumstances and overdose.
I filled the bathtub. This would use all the hot water and ruin the showers for my dad and Britney, but they probably were taking one together anyway. Then I pulled off my damp clothes. And got another shock when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

Mottled purple extended from my left shoulder diagonally down my breast and disappeared at my waist on my right side.

I squinted into the mirror and tried to picture the wreck. It was dark. It was raining. A deer appeared in the road. I swerved and stomped the brakes. My car skidded on the slick road and crashed into Mike's Miata, hard enough to heave me forward and snap my seat belt. My head whacked the rearview mirror. I sat up and saw the boys past the crumpled hood of the Miata, in the front seat: Mike trapped behind the wheel, fumbling for his phone, Dade in pain and struggling to open the passenger door.
No, I didn't remember a bit of this.