Jane’s Book of Memory, written in the
days and weeks after the crash
What I wasn’t prepared for was disbelief. Not about the suicide note. Not about Mom’s ill-fated deer story.
About my amnesia.
Every day was a gauntlet.
A girl, stopping me and Kamala on our second day back at school (Kamala had been assigned to help me, since we had several classes together and she assured me we had been good friends forever, and yes, she and David had dated, but she was sure that suicide note was some kind of misunderstood bit of scribbling, and after that first day I was just so grateful that she was standing up for me, her, the person who could have hated me the most). But I couldn’t help that people were staring at us walking together. I saw hands cupped over whispering mouths, gossiping heads touching each other. Everyone knew me, and I felt like I hardly knew anyone.
“This is so generous of you, Kamala. Hi, Jane.” The girl who spoke to us had warmth in her voice for Kamala and a coolness for me. I could hear the drop in her voice. “Do you really not remember things? Like Jason Bourne in the movies?”
“Of course she’s lost her memory,” Kamala said. “Most of it. It’s coming back, slowly.” She put an arm around my shoulder. She did this a lot when I first came back to school, as if she could cocoon me from the painful uncertainty, the stares, the whispers. And to send a signal, I suppose, that I had her loyalty.
“Really? I heard, but I didn’t think it was true.”
“I remember my childhood years,” I said. My voice sounded so dry. “Not so much high school.”
“You think it would be the reverse,” the girl mused. “I don’t remember what I ate for dinner last week.”
“Morgan.” Kamala sounded like her patience was wearing thin. “She doesn’t know you. Or anyone she didn’t know in elementary or middle school. It’s like she’s still fourteen. I thought name tags, for our classmates, might not be a bad idea.”
Forcing everyone to wear name tags. Morgan had spoken to me, but a lot of kids just glared at me. Because of David, of course. He was dead and I was alive and compared to him I was a nobody. I suddenly, very badly wanted to go home. But I had to do this. I had to.
“Name tags,” Morgan said. “That would be a great service project for me.” And she left, like she’d been given a job.
There was more of the same as we navigated from the student center through the hallways.
“Jane, this is Claudia Gomez. She went to middle school with us.”
I nodded. But Claudia had changed so much; she had gone from being kind of mousy to vibrantly pretty with a kind smile. We transform into new people in those years from middle to high school. “I remember. Hi, Claudia.”
“Hi. Did you really lose your memory?”
No, I just thought in the aftermath of our friend’s death this would be a great conversation starter. Or a funny joke. Ha, ha.
“Yes. The last three years.”
“Wow. I’d like to forget freshman year.” And Claudia moved on, as if I were contagious.
Kamala eased me out of the hallway traffic. I could feel stare after stare after stare. Like rocks being thrown, or bullets. “I’m embarrassed for our classmates.”
“I’m not optimistic about this.”
And I shouldn’t have been. The variations of greetings I got:
“Of course you remember me!” (Yes, but the last time I remember you, we were in eighth grade.)
“Jane! This amnesia thing is a rumor, right?” (No. It’s a curse. I am like Snow White, except the curse continues after I wake up from my sleep.)
“Jane, sweetheart! Hey, baby, how you doing?” (“Baby”? Is he an ex-boyfriend? He was kind of cute. But I also thought Mom or Kamala would have mentioned a boyfriend, or that he would have shown up at the hospital.)
The rest of that charming hallway scene went this way:
Kamala: “She doesn’t know you, Parker.” (Her voice coated in ice.)
Parker: “Well, Jane, we’ve been dating awhile.” (Leaning close.) “More than dating. Meet me in the parking lot after school and I’ll show you what you like.” (Lowers voice.) “Because you’re not going to get many other offers these days.”
Me: (Speechless, confused, and angry at myself for being speechless.)
Kamala, shoving him: “The concussions have caught up with you, moron. Get away from her.”
Me, standing, shivering, realizing, You are at the mercy of all these people. And some of them are going to think it’s a joke.
Parker: “I’ll give you something to remember, Jane.” (Wiggles his tongue at me.) “You won’t forget me.” (And then laughing and high-fiving with his friends, like he’s accomplished something of lasting value.)
The hot little rage demon in me that Mom had warned me about decided to dance out of the bottle. “I do remember, Parker!” I yelled at him. “I remember how tiny and quick it was. Thanks for the reminder.”
Kamala’s jaw dropped. I shrieked this down the hall at Parker, LOUD, and he froze, and then he came back toward me, muttering “you little murdering whore” and then this big blond wall of a boy stepped between us, put his hand on Parker’s chest, and told him to stop it. It was Trevor Blinn, the boy who’d visited me in the hospital but seemed to have nothing to say.
Parker tried to dodge around Trevor and then suddenly Parker was pushed up against the wall and Trevor was whispering in his ear, low and soft and even in the sudden hush that fell across the gathered students, you couldn’t hear it. I noticed Trevor was wearing a knee brace, but he didn’t seem bothered by it in pushing Parker into the wall.
“Get off me,” Parker said when Trevor was done whispering, and then Trevor stepped back and Parker eased away from him. He stared at me and then went back to his friends. I kept staring at him. Murdering whore. I still felt weak from the wreck, but at that moment I could have punched him, again and again. It was an awful thought and I wondered if it was a thought the old Jane would have had.
Trevor looked at me. He said nothing. Then he looked at Kamala, like he was angry.
“Thanks, Trev,” Kamala said. “Thanks for standing up for her.” I realized she had her hand on my arm.
“What are you doing, Kamala?” he asked her. As if I weren’t there. “What are you doing?”
“Helping our friend,” she said, her voice suddenly icy. She put her arm around my shoulder. “She needs me right now.”
Then he gave me a long look. I said, “Thank you, Trevor.” He just nodded and walked on, limping slightly with his leg brace, settling his backpack more firmly on his shoulder.
“He got bigger from when I remember him,” I said. “What happened to his knee?”
“Football.” Then Kamala said, “Yeah, I figured you really do remember.” Only after a moment did I realize she thought I actually remembered an encounter, ugh, with Parker.
“Gross, no, I don’t. I just wanted Parker to shut up.”
“But your memory about the deer, that’s true,” she said. “Right?”
And so this was a big moment about lying, and I made my choice, because I’d realized something.
If information was power, then they all had sway over me. I didn’t know before two minutes ago that Parker was vicious or that Trevor was the kind of friend to truly stand up for me.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s hazy, but yeah.”
“Oh, good. You let me know what else you remember.”
“I will.” I wished I remembered more recent memories of Trevor. I needed my friends. But he didn’t seem interested in renewing our friendship.
“Forget Parker,” Kamala said. And then she said, “Oh, I did not mean that word choice.”
“I know.”
“You remember me, right, Jane?” an anxious-sounding girl said, stopping and staring into my face. “We met freshman year.”
“She doesn’t remember,” Kamala said, already tiring of the novelty. “She does not remember, OK?” Raising her voice in the hallway. The bell sounded; we were late, the gawkers were late, teachers coming into the hallways to see why kids were not hurrying in, still talking about the fight that almost was over the school’s biggest mental freak.
“I’m sorry,” I said to the girl. I would later decide I needed a button to wear, pinned to my shirt, because the answer would become so rote. No, I don’t remember you.
But many kids did not even look at me beyond a first awkward, painful stare. No, not a stare, a glare. An actual glare.
“I’m not very popular,” I said after she and Kamala sat down in class. This was a shock to think about; I had not really considered the possibility of open hostility and physical threats.
“People are upset about David.”
“I get that,” I said, and my voice trembled. “Is anyone happy I survived?”
“Oh, Jane,” she said, giving me a mournful smile, “of course we are.”