THAT MONDAY MORNING BEFORE SCHOOL STARTS, I finally get access to my computer for a carefully timed twenty minutes.
My online accounts show a world that has existed, up until now apparently, only in my wildest imagination.
In many of the photos, Kylie and I drink from the same bottle of vodka at parties, wear matching leather jackets at concerts, and have coordinating face paint at football games. In each photo Lila and Eve are in the background, but we are in the foreground of the picture, arms draped around each other. We are the stars. We’re clearly best friends.
It’s weird but—I’m jealous of this photograph version of me.
It’s been ten days since I was struck in Tank’s pool. Ten days that I have been covered with these markings, and that my memory has been blank. On the computer, I scroll back through all the days I was in the hospital, through the well wishes and various notes. I stop when I get to the feed from the night of the strike.
There’s a photo of Kylie and me wearing dark crimson lipstick. We make kissy faces in the rearview mirror of a car. That’s right! I can drive! I missed my sixteenth birthday. I scroll back up to the top of the page and do a double take at some of the posts right before the lightning strike. I actually scoot closer to the monitor.
Congrats on homecoming nom!
You were nominated, Penny!
I was nominated for homecoming queen? I wait to be excited. I should want to jump up and down in my seat.
But I’m not. I fixate on the names of the people writing me messages. None of them are people I know. Acquaintances, sure, but none of them are my friends.
I scroll back as many months as I can, but it’s a flutter of posts that all look similar. Kylie and I are out at live music shows or riding around in my car or hers.
I keep going and the first post is from late May, 2015. Right after I quit Much Ado About Nothing.
“Penny!” Dad calls. “Let’s go! We don’t want to be late for your meeting!”
I’ve had online accounts since seventh grade—the year Mom let me get my own laptop. But there’s no evidence of the two years before this. I must have deleted my original accounts and started new ones. A memory, like a firefly, darts around in my head. If I could only catch it, I might be able to figure out how any of this happened. But that firefly darts deeper into the black of my mind and pulses like a faraway star. If only I could get to it.
I close the laptop cover; I don’t want to look anymore.
After a minute or two, I’m almost done with my morning rituals of burn cream and medication. Last but not least, the superfun process of getting dressed. I stand before the clothes in my closet, but I don’t recognize a single item on a hanger. I tug at a pair of jeans and pull them closer to me. La Brea? Kylie is always wearing them. These are the most ridiculously expensive designer jeans and I have two pairs in my closet. I sit on the bed and pull the jeans on. The fabric suctions to my leg. With a tug upward using my left hand, the tight denim sears along the vines on my skin.
“Holy hell!” I cry out, and kick them off. They coil on the ground near my feet. I rub some silver sulfadiazine cream to help with the stinging burns.
I grab a pair of leggings and slip them on instead. The fabric is soft against my skin. Even though they stop at the ankle, I use some stage makeup I find in the trunk to cover the last branches that coil onto the top of my foot. After slipping on a tank top and a long-sleeved cardigan, even though it’s seventy-five degrees out, I tap a little concealer along my collarbone as well. I limp to the bedroom door.
Last night, after another round of the burn cream for my figures, Mom gave me a fresh bag of fruit-flavored sucking candies. I still taste metal no matter how much sweet gum or lemonade I have. I eat a cherry one anyway and throw the rest in my school bag.
I trudge down the stairs slowly. Even with the makeup covering my skin, I’m still self-conscious about my limp.
The streets are nearly empty as we drive up toward school. It’s well before any students will be there because I get to kick off my first day back with an early-morning meeting with the headmaster, my teachers, and the school counselor.
“I guess they’re going to want to talk to me about everything,” I say.
Dad sighs. “Look, Pen. Your mom and I wanted you to find out from us first, and well, your mom slept in today, but I—”
“What?” I say, and turn to him. I forgot to move slowly; the figures ache and I suck in a sharp breath. “I’m okay,” I say quickly. “What’s going on?” Dad pulls onto the path that leads up to the double doors of the school. “You said the meeting was to get me up to speed and get back on track.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come?” Dad says. We’re idling outside school. “You can take more time off. We can homeschool.”
“What’s going on, Dad?”
He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
“They have to put you on a probationary period as a senior. We don’t know how much information you’ve retained and what you’ve lost since the strike. Or if it will affect how you learn new things.”
My heart sinks. “They’re keeping me back?”
All I can see in my head are Wes, May, Panda, and Karen, walking across the stage at graduation without me. I grip the seat cushion but the middle of my right hand zings and I have to relax. Except, they’re not my friends anymore. I try to picture myself walking across the stage with Kylie, Lila, and Eve, but it doesn’t feel the same.
“No. They’re not holding you back—not yet, anyway. But they’ve taken you out of AP for now.”
“But I’ve always been on the honors track. I worked so hard—”
“I know, I know. But Pen, eleventh grade was really hard academically and we don’t know yet what you’ve kept and what you might have lost. We just have to wait and see.”
“I just want my life back,” I say.
“I know. Just go in and talk to them, and you can call me after to let me know what happens.” He pauses. “But I really think I should come with you.”
“I have to do this myself,” I say, and look up at the double doors. “I have to.”
Dad nods and kisses me on the forehead. He pulls away to rummage in the backseat for something.
I double-check that I have the stage makeup concealer in my bag so I can cover any stray ferns throughout the day. I don’t want the headmaster, or anyone for that matter, to see them and think I need to be kept back. I am about to open the car door when Dad says, “Wait. I got you something.” He pulls out a small brown paper bag. I pull out a leather-bound journal with my initials engraved in tiny gold letters on the front: PLB.
“I love it,” I say.
“Dr. Abrams said you should do your best to note any inconsistencies with your memory. I thought you could use a journal to keep track of it all.” He smiles. “And I thought it was cool.”
“It is cool,” I say. “Thanks.” I kiss him quickly on the cheek and let him go back home to write his typical nine thousand emails to people about his new inventions.
“You can call or text me after the meeting?” he says through the window, once I’m already out of the car.
“Text you?” I say. “Do you do that now?”
“I try but I’m not that hip,” he says. “Lots of typos.”
“Get with the times, Dad,” I say, and note the irony of my situation with a cringe.
“Hey! She’s already back to punning!”
I laugh, and limp my way up toward school.
“Well, I think it’s important that we be realistic here.” The headmaster’s voice is as annoying as ever. Six thirty and I’m sitting here in between Headmaster Lewis, School Counselor Ms. Winters, and Ms. Reley, who’s been assigned as my faculty advisor while I readjust to school. Reley is notorious for being a hard-ass. Yippee.
“Penny was third in her class last year,” Reley says.
I was?
“She’ll catch up quickly.”
“I just don’t know,” Headmaster Lewis says with a shake of his head. “It’s a lot of work to make up.”
“Know what?” Reley retorts, and I can hear the aggravation in her voice. “The state said it’s our discretion given her academic record. We’ve already taken her out of accelerated classes.”
“Look.” Ms. Winters sighs. She seems to be sighing her way through this whole meeting. “I think we should hold off on taking any drastic measures like holding Penny back a year until we see just how permanent her memory loss is. We might be overreacting for nothing.”
I nod. I like that idea.
Headmaster Lewis flips through a file folder, which I would love to get my hands on. Over the top, I can see a typed letter with the Memorial Hospital logo.
“Penny’s memory loss is very extensive,” Headmaster Lewis says. “And eleventh grade is an important year academically. I fear without the memory of last year, she won’t be adequately prepared for college next year.”
“She may not remember the events of last year but it doesn’t mean that her development and skill set are compromised,” Ms. Winters explains, and I hope that it’s true.
“What do you want to do, Penny?” Ms. Reley asks.
I can hear the chatter from the hallway as it begins to fill up with people.
“It’s strange. I feel like I should be in eleventh grade and taking my SATs. The timing feels off. But I want to be with my friends. I want to be with—” I am about to say their names: Wes, May, Panda, and Karen. “I need to get back to the way things were. Apply to college,” I say quietly.
The headmaster looks thoughtful. “If we keep you where you are, we’ll need to establish some ground rules to help you succeed academically.” He ticks things off on his fingers. “Someone will have to get Penny up to speed on her standardized testing scores and work with her on her college applications.”
That’s right. I took the SATs already.
“We will also need to provide her with a note-taking buddy and a peer tutor.”
An idea rushes into my head. I know the perfect tutor.
“May I suggest someone?” I ask.
“I don’t see why not,” Headmaster Lewis says. “It will need to be someone you work well with, after all.”
“May Harper would be great.”
They all share a glance, one that says, bad idea. After a pause, Ms. Winters says, “We’ll check with May today. If she agrees, we’ll get you guys working straightaway.”
The meeting is adjourned and I limp out of the room. I hesitate before stepping out of the administrative offices and into the hallway. I don’t know who I will sit with at lunch or who will make room for me. I haven’t heard from Kylie since she ran out of my bedroom. I sit down in a chair near the doorway. In my new notebook, I write down the two questions from last night and scribble a third question below the other two:
1. Why did I quit theater?
2. How am I friends with Kylie Castelli?
The third is probably the most important . . .
3. How do I apologize and get my friends back?