|photo by The Nigmatic from Unsplash|

Noah's voice isn't at all what I was expecting. It's deep like Dad's but quieter somehow. More relaxed, maybe. I'd need to hear more to be sure. He raises his eyebrows. Like he's waiting for something?

My cheeks go hot because yes, he is waiting—still standing beside his car, holding his phone in the air because he just got my text asking him not to come here.

Do I want him to leave?

The answer is no. With an exclamation point. And that's exactly why I should say, yes. Because this boy is the reason... Not that it was his fault. No. It was me, my obsession with kissing him that turned me into such a despicable big sister.

"You look good," Noah says. "Healthy." He stuffs his phone in his pocket, then swipes his longish bangs to one side, exposing a patch of multidirectional wrinkles in the space where his eyebrows pull together. "You know, because the last time I saw you..." His cheeks turn a splotchy kind of red.

He's embarrassed. And I'm staring.

I drop my eyes to the grey pebble sidewalk and lift my hand to the back of my head, to my scar. The last time Noah saw me, I guess, was right after he pulled my unconscious body out of a swimming pool. But he did try to visit me in the hospital. Mom said he was devastated. So. Maybe all this time he's been worrying?

"I was lucky," I say, dropping my hand. Then I catch a hint of sweaty armpit and cross my arms. "Um. Lucky, because the coma only lasted two days and there wasn't a lot of permanent damage. My semantic memory—that's the part that retains all the facts you learn throughout your lifetime. Is remarkably unblemished." I lift two fingers, making quotes around the last two words, so he knows they didn't come from me. "My neurologist says I can go to school this fall if I want to. He's already sent a letter of recommendations to the high school because of my...I have..."

It's almost funny that I can't come up with this particular word at this moment.

Almost.

"Um, sometimes my brain refuses to cooperate," I say. "I blank out on words and lose track of my—cognitive. That's the word. I still have a few cognitive issues." Obviously. "It's not as bad as it was a few weeks ago, unless I'm stressed or..." Uncomfortable. "I also have a tendency to talk too much when I'm nervous. But that's not because of the accident."

"Yeah," he says. "I'm familiar with the nervous-talking thing."

His smile isn't anywhere close to the one in my dream—it's closed-mouthed and his eyes are a little too squinty—but it's familiar enough to make my arms break out in goose bumps.

"But it's not too much," he adds. "I wasn't sure it was all right to ask about the medical stuff. But I wanted to know. So thanks."

God, that voice. It's familiar, but not because I've heard him speak—there wasn't any sound in the dream, or memory. Or whatever. Noah's voice is familiar because he has a southern accent. Because he moved here from Georgia to live with his dad the same week my family left North Carolina. According to the IM conversations.

"I brought you something," he says.

He opens his car door and my goose bumps go full-body, because I've seen that car. A bunch of times. "You've been here before," I say, walking toward him. "I recognize your car because..." I point in the general direction of my room. "I can see the parking lot from my window, and your car is—it stands out because of the odd-colored door, and... Is your trunk a lighter shade of blue than the rest of the car?"

Noah bobs his head and his eyes shift to the main entrance of the mansion.

So. His car is the one I saw pull into the parking lot while I was waiting for Mom. Noah was here yesterday. "Were you here when..." I clap my hand over my mouth. Because I don't know if the mostly-blue car was still in the parking lot when I came down the front steps. Maybe he was gone by the time I texted him.

He breaks into a genuine smile—which he quickly tries to suppress. Meaning, yes, he saw me jump up and down. Like a complete idiot.

"I've been here a few times," he admits. "I needed to see you—to make sure you were okay—but I wasn't sure if...uh, hold on." He leans into his car and comes right back out. "I brought these for you," he says, closing his door with one hand as he extends the other to offer me a bright yellow box.

I readjust my arms so I can reach out without completely dismantling my body odor shield. The word Raisinets is spelled out in big red letters. California raisins and milk chocolate. "Um, thank you," I say—still hot-faced and a little dazed. And Noah blows out a long exhale. Kind of like he's deflating.

His disappointment is so pronounced that I'm sure I must be missing something. Why would Noah Dodge bring me—oh! "I get it," I say. "They were chocolate covered raisins. That's what you put on my birthday cupcake."

Noah goes still for a moment. Frozen. But then he stumble-steps back, shaking his head. "I didn't think—they said you wouldn't—do you remember your fifteenth birthday?"

"Um. I don't remember anything about the last three years."

Except, no. That's not... "It doesn't really work that way," I tell him. "There's not like this clean break in my memory. There are things that happened when we lived in North Carolina—like when my dad got this supposedly great job offer and decided we should move. I don't remember that. And there are memories that confuse me because they happened after we got to Virginia, but it doesn't feel that way to me because I don't remember the new house. Or any of the people I've met here."

I've been told, on multiple occasions, that my own face has gone pale for one disturbing reason or another. But I've never seen it happen to anyone else until now. "I'm sorry," I say. "I thought you would already know."

"I did," he says, nodding. "I heard you lost some of your memory, but I guess I was hoping what I'd heard was wrong." He exhales again and leans against the hood of his car.

I pull my arm back against my body. So that the box of Raisinets is practically under my nose. The chocolatey scent is intoxicating.

"You used to eat those all the time," he says. And I should probably be embarrassed, because I've been caught sniffing my gift.

"Okay, thanks. I can't say I remember um, liking them. But I'm sure I do." Because they smell like something I want to eat right now.

I tuck my chin, encouraging my hair to fall around my face—but I forgot. It's tied in a ponytail. The break-free strands that come to my rescue aren't nearly enough to hide this smile that doesn't want to be contained. Because it almost feels like I'm re-living the scene I read about, where a fifteen-year-old version of me ate her birthday present standing in front of a younger, shaggier version of this boy.

And I'm staring again.

"How did you know about the cupcake?" Noah asks.

His eyes are so focused, so intensely blue that I have to look away. "My little sister..."

Wait. Did Lindsay hang up on me?

Maybe it was an accident. That happens to Mom sometimes. She'll be on the phone with one of her customers and they'll get cut off, because Faircrest is out in the middle of nowhere, so the cell phone reception can be—

"Ally?"

Noah's bangs are covering his eyebrows. I can't see the patch of worry wrinkles, but I know it's there. "Um, yeah," I say. "Sorry. The cupcake story was on my phone. I have this app with all these conversations, starting in ninth grade when I met—do you know Samantha Zhao?"

"Yeah. She's your best friend. Have you talked to her since the accident?"

"No."

"How about Emma—or Lucy Miller?"

"I don't know those people. I haven't talked to anyone I met in Virginia. Except for you."

Noah's broad shoulders sink with a sigh that sounds like relief. But then he grimaces and straightens, practically hopping off the front of his car. "What else did you learn from reading those conversations?" he asks.

"I know how we met. You were drawing. On your French notebook. And I said the word that described your picture: La table?"

He shakes his head.

"That's not how we met?" I ask. Doubtful, because I read the story in my own words. I messaged Samantha after school on the day it happened: October 25.

"You were wrong back then," he says. "I was drawing a stool. Something I was going to build in my dad's workshop. I didn't correct you because I was afraid you'd get pissed off and stop being nice to me."

"That would never have happened," I say.

Noah shoves his hands in his pockets and drops his eyes to the ground, like I've said something wrong. Like maybe there was a time when I stopped being nice to him?

But, no. I can't imagine that's possible. There's a part in the IM transcripts where I said Noah was "the cutest, sweetest boy in the state of Virginia."

"Did you read anything about the summer before we started tenth grade?" he asks. And there's something uncomfortable in his tone, a hesitance or a caution that makes me think he's hoping for a particular answer. But I can't tell if he wants a yes or a no.

"I only got as far as Spring Break, because... Would you happen to know my password?"

"No," he says, emphatic. And his eyes are extra narrow, like he thinks that's a really strange question for me to ask.

So I tell him what happened to the app, and he exhales—definitely relieved. Which makes me think he doesn't want me to read about the summer before tenth grade.

"You just need to reset the password," he says. "If you want to keep reading."

"Does that mean you don't think I should?" I ask, because he hit that "if" kind of hard.

Noah's eyes drop. He picks at his thumb nail a couple of times. Then shakes his head.

Meaning no, he thinks I should? Or...

"The app'll walk you through the process," he says—before he meets my eyes again. "But I can help if you want."

"I already tried to reset it." I type in my passcode and open the email. "They were supposed to send me a code, but it hasn't come yet—so yeah, it'd be great if you could..." I offer him my phone.

Noah takes it out of my hand like it's a nuclear bomb.