Notes to Self (7 page)

“Isn’t there anything else I can try? To remember?” I pressed on the sides of my head as if my whole face was a giant zit I could pop.

“Robin, why are you pressing on your temples? Are headaches still bothering you?”

“Sometimes. Not that bad. I’m just frustrated.” I took my fingers off my head and crossed my arms over my chest. I kind of zoned out. “I fell,” I whispered, reminding myself.

“You can’t really force a memory, even without a brain injury.” His voice was extremely calm. It was like he was working extra hard to make it that way. I wanted to tell him to chill out and be normal, but I also wanted him to like me, so I left it alone.

I slumped lower in the cushy chair. “I know I told you this before, but if I could just remember what happened, why we fell, I think I can help the doctors make Emily better.”

Dr. K. looked doubtful but sympathetic. “Alright. I have a few tricks up my sleeve, but you have to promise me you’ll go to bed earlier each night. You need more rest than you’re getting. If you can’t sleep earlier, we might need to rethink you being in school all day. There are options: tutors, online classes, catching up in the spring, et cetera.”

“I promise.” I sat up again and tried to look alert.

Dr. Kline handed me a book called
Meditation for Beginners
.

“Really? I have to sit on the floor like a yoga weirdo and chant? Tell me the truth, is this just for your own entertainment?” I flipped through the book. There was a picture of a girl sitting on a pillow with her eyes closed.

“Busted.” He winked at me. “Seriously, though, meditation is good for all kinds of health issues. As is exercise. You can take the book.”

I paged through it, but it was hard to imagine how sitting on a pillow in the middle of the room with my eyes closed could possibly help. It reminded me of one of those games parents play with their kids to get them to shut up:
Let’s have a contest to see who can go the longest without making a sound.

“I’m confident things will be back to normal within a few months,” Dr. Kline added. He handed me a workbook with a bunch of crosswords and stuff like that. “Keep exercising your brain.”

I knew he was trying to make me feel better, but I glared at him. “That’s not fast enough. I need to know what happened
now.”

“It doesn’t work that way. I’m sorry. The good news is that all of your tests are great. It’s an incredible recovery, Robin.” He smiled. His eyebrows hairs were even longer than before. Disturbing.

“I went back to Fun Towne with a friend of mine to see if I’d remember the accident. But it didn’t work.”

“You should know that you might not ever get back the few minutes before the fall. Scientists think perhaps new memories go into a kind of holding tank, and then our minds classify them later…as in, put them in either short-term or long-term memory storage. The experts think that accident victims often don’t remember their accidents because all the stuff in that holding tank never has the chance to get properly filed. I’m really sorry.” At least he didn’t say
let it go.
I hated that phrase. “Emily’s getting the best care you can imagine, Robin. Her doctors are some of the most renowned in the country. Try to focus on your own health for now and trust them. Do you want to talk to the social workers again? Sometimes talk therapy is a good idea after this kind of injury.”

“Christ, no. Do I have to?”

“Not unless I say you do. How’s school going?”

“Meh.” I looked away, out the window. There was a little airplane flying around, trailing a banner. I wondered what it said.

“Meh? What is ‘meh?’”

“School’s fine. I sometimes forget which books to bring to which class and they all whisper about me, but I can handle it.” I looked the doctor in the eye. The truth was a little more complicated than that, but since when did any adult understand what really went on in school? Even the teachers didn’t. “I’m writing myself notes like you said.”

“You sure?” He sat back in his chair like he had all the time in the world. I appreciated that. Sort of.

“I’m sure. Mostly, I just miss Em.”

He nodded. “It’s hard, isn’t it? Not knowing what’s going to happen?”

“Yeah.” I looked down at my hands.

“Alright. I won’t insist you talk to a social worker. But let’s schedule another appointment here next week. Oh, and I have something for you.” He handed me a penny. I looked at it: 1932. “Your mom said you collect old pennies.”

Mom was the one who liked them so much. Since waitresses always carry around lots of change, she made a game of it and brought home the oldest one she got each night. When I was younger I thought it was cool, but now I think it’s kind of sad. There’s a huge jar in our living room full of them, with a label on the front that says RETIREMENT.

“Thanks,” I managed.

“Take good care, Robin.”

CHAPTER 19

BABY GIRLS

Back at home I rested on my bed and looked up. There were pale green glow-in-the-dark stars up there, arranged in constellations. I tried to think about when I might have put them there, but instead I thought about a stormy night sky and heard Emily’s voice in my head.

“I like it up here.”

I sat up straight and grasped my bed like it might throw me off, mechanical bull-style. The memory was so vivid.
Recent
. We were outside. It was windy when she’d said it. Emily’s parents were getting a divorce.
Yes
. And she’d just found out. I closed my eyes, hoping for more.

Nothing.

“Damn it,” I sputtered in frustration. I kicked my bed with my heels.

My door clicked open. “Sweetie? Are you okay?” Mom poked her head into my room.

“I’m fine. I’m trying to think about the accident—about before we fell—and I just remembered something Emily said to me but it was just one sentence and that was it.”

She sat down on the bed next to me and put her arm around my shoulder. I leaned in to her, allowing myself to be comforted. I was glad she wasn’t telling me to calm down or stop trying.

“What did she say?”

“Um.” I debated sharing what I thought I knew. Before, I tried to tell my mother as little as possible. Now it seemed kind of pointless to play that game. “I think Emily might have told me her parents were, like, over.” I whispered. Mom looked a little bit sad, like you would if you heard that a celebrity couple you’d kind of admired had decided to split up.

“That’s too bad. I’m sure she was upset,” she said. “Was it upsetting to you, too? To hear that?” Mom always wanted me to talk about my feelings about Dad leaving, but I didn’t have any. And now that I needed a cheat sheet just to figure out how to take a shower, they had faded even further away. It’s true what they say: life goes on. When you think you’re dealing with something super shitty, just wait. Another super shitty thing will come along to distract you from the first thing.

“Me? No. I can’t remember the whole conversation. Did you see Mrs. Sampson in the hospital?”

“I did. Once. She came to visit your room the day after the accident. We hugged and promised each other you darling, baby girls would be okay.”

“
Baby
girls?”

“Yes, sweetheart. Always.”

CHAPTER 20

$72 IN CASH WON’T GET YOU VERY FAR

I ran away from home once, and when I came back, my mom told me she had run away from home, too. But the thing is, she never went back.

Writing notes to myself was unsettling. I remembered things I hadn’t thought about in a long time. Things I wasn’t sure I wanted to remember. But I didn’t try to stop it.

“Fine, I’ll go with you, but I won’t sleep on the ground, and if my picture appears on some tragic missing girl flyer, I
will
kill you.” Em crossed her arms over her chest, but I could see her eyes glittering. As long as the plan was interesting, Emily was in. Her greatest fear in life was boredom. I sometimes wondered if having annual passes to theme parks changed your brain.

“It might. Better set out your fave school picture so your mom doesn’t choose last year’s.” Em’s seventh grade photo was hilarious. Her eyes were crossed the tiniest bit, but you could totally see it. She was still mortified. There was talk of suing the photographer, but she couldn’t find a lawyer who wanted to help a thirteen-year-old. And her parents thought the photo was adorbs, naturally.

“Well, we’re not going anywhere gross or scary like the bus station. Let’s go sleep at Nordstrom’s. Or Ikea, with all those cute rooms,” she grinned.

I thought about the beds they had on the second floor at Nordstrom’s, made up with about seven bright, white comforters inside frothing duvets and pillows. Sold.

“How?”

“All we have to do is go in close to closing time and hide. Duh.” Now that Emily had decided to go, it was almost as if she was bored with the plan. Like she ran away every day and twice on Saturdays. I smiled.

“Let’s go tonight. My mom is driving me crazy. After she signed my permission slip for the wetlands field trip, she put it in the refrigerator.” It had taken me two hours of searching to find it.

“How are we gonna get there, Runaway Train?”

“Walk?”

Emily sighed and checked her phone. “The mall is 5.2 miles away.”

“So? I can walk pretty fast. Or we can take the LYNX. We’ll stop on the way for Starbucks. Chocolate chip frappuciiiiino.” I knew I sounded a little nuts, but I had to get out of my apartment. I didn’t even care if I ended up on some tragic missing girl flyer…as long as they didn’t find me.

“Yum. Okay, let me go brush my teeth and put some stuff in my bag. I suppose giving my parents a little lesson in Emily appreciation probably isn’t the worst idea in the world.”

“Exactly. I’m ready to go when you are.” I patted my backpack, which contained my cell phone, ear buds, cell phone charger, $72.00 in mostly small bills, one of Mom’s credit cards for major emergencies only (I knew from watching movies that they could trace credit cards, so I didn’t plan to use it), a dozen PowerBars, seven pairs of clean underwear and small t-shirts, two pairs of socks, toothbrush, comb, hair ties, pepper spray, sunglasses, sunscreen. I wore comfortable jean shorts, chucks, a tank top, and a long-sleeved, dark blue t-shirt. I was ready.

As I listened to Em getting ready in the bathroom, I thought about my problems. It all started when my dad went on tour with Quicksand three years ago. My mom wasn’t thrilled, but she didn’t make a big thing out of it. She was sure the whole tour would implode and he’d be back within a week, especially because the band members were in their twenties and acted like they were twelve, according to her. If not a week, a month, tops. After five weeks with no sign of Dad, though, things began to slip. I noticed she wasn’t buying groceries and missed a couple shifts at work. Our cable TV got turned off, and then she said we had to share one cell phone. I stopped worrying about school and started worrying about her.

If I hadn’t met Emily at the beginning of sixth grade and started sleeping over at her house all the time, I would’ve gone crazy. Finally, when the utilities company threatened to turn off our electricity, Mom pulled it together. She got herself to work on time, cleaned the apartment, and paid our rent (mostly) on time. Then she did something insane: she enrolled in college again. Suddenly there were huge textbooks lying all over the apartment and she was asking me how to use a laptop to take notes in class. It was completely weird. I was secretly really proud of her, but even though the bills were getting paid, there was still no one buying groceries or doing laundry or fixing the air conditioner. Mom had exchanged depression for credit hours. I still didn’t have her back, and she was it. We were a family of two. I envied Emily and her endless numbers of aunts, uncles, and cousins. She claimed they all drove her bonkers, but I knew better.

Emily understood about my messed up family and didn’t ask any questions. I loved her for it. Reno, on the other hand, didn’t have a clue. His family was so perfect and normal I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand him, either. He always had new shoes and new video games and a season pass to Universal. I shook him out of my mind.

“Ready?” Emily appeared in the doorway. I could tell she’d just exfoliated her face; it was all pink and splotchy. She shouldered a bag and grabbed her wallet from her bureau.

“Always.”

“Well, let’s do this, then.” We put sunscreen on our noses and walked out the door.

Four minutes later we were both sweating. I’d forgotten that even if you didn’t strictly need a car for transportation, the air conditioning was pretty key for the whole A to B experience. It had to be at least 90 degrees and the sun was beating down like a weapon. There was no else walking; we got some strange looks on the way to the bus stop. Everyone in Florida treated their cars like clothing: they didn’t leave home without them. Thank God Em was with me. I might have chickened out within a half hour if she hadn’t been.

At every major intersection between downtown Kissimmee and the Florida Mall, there were hundreds of cheap plastic signs littering the roadside. People advertised roofing, cleaning, jobs hotlines, you name it. It looked like a dump, like the city was full of scam artists. If you wanted beauty, you had to either imagine it or pay for it by getting inside some gates.

When the Florida Mall was in sight, the sky opened up. It was September, which meant almost-daily monsoons. The clouds would blow up out of nowhere, pour rain in sheets, and disappear again, all within an hour. We got off the bus and ducked under a Denny’s awning to wait it out.

Emily pointed. Starbucks. It was only a hundred yards away, across a parking lot. If we made a dash for it, we’d be soaked, but we’d have coffee. We grinned at each other and ran like little kids, flailing and screaming.

I ordered us two venti chocolate chip frappucinos, extra whip, and we sprawled out on the leather couches like we owned the place.

“So, Runaway Train, why are we here?” Em put both fists under her chin and leaned forward onto her knees like I was about to tell her where babies came from.