| photo by Lucas Pezeta from Pexels |

I should eat breakfast. There's plenty of time, and maybe a slice of toast will settle my nervous stomach. I make my way down the stairs and then detour to the side-light window beside the front door. Like the view is going to be any different than it was from my alcove window. It's still raining like crazy and Noah's car is still not in our driveway. Because he's not supposed to be here for another twenty minutes.

Someone lets out a groan—loud and frustrated. I turn back to the staircase, even though I already know it's not coming from upstairs.

"No Steven, you are being an asshole! You can't micromanage Allyson's first week home from two-hundred miles away."

Whoa. So this is what it's like to hear your mom yell obscenities at your dad. I edge along the foyer wall. The kitchen light is on but it's empty. I guess Mom is in the laundry room?

"That's the point," she spits. "You have no idea how difficult this is—because you're not here! Your sage advice isn't helping me deal with Allyson's migraines. And Lindsay is..."

I hold my breath, inching closer, but there's nothing to hear. Either Mom is holding back or Dad finished the sentence for her.

"I can't do this anymore," she says. And it reminds me of her sigh of surrender that day in Faircrest's cafeteria—when she dismissed Lindsay's disturbingly unresponsive behavior. Except now it sounds like Mom is giving up on all three of us.

I go back to the foyer and open the door—with every intention of leaving the house. But the sky is all puffed up in angry shades of grey. Rain is drumming the copper roof of the small porch. And there's water standing on the front lawn. I wish I could escape to Noah's grandparent's house like I did in that text.

"Then come home," Mom says, her voice raising an octave with each word. "Come home, Steven—and be helpful for a change."

I don't like the person I was before my accident, but right now, I couldn't agree more with the words I don't remember writing to Noah. And Lindsay said it too: Mom's not the same person she was in North Carolina.

"Do not tell me to calm down," she screams.

I could go back upstairs, I guess, but I'd still feel trapped—by the rain, by Mom's hostility and the clock, which is not moving fast enough. And there's no way for me to escape this house because I can't drive a...

I have a car!

It's parked in the garage. Safe from the storm and closed off from my mother's ranting.

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There's just enough light coming through the row of tiny windows stretched along the top of the garage door to help me navigate around to the driver's side of the small silvery-green sedan. I climb in, eager to close out the oily-engine fumes. But sitting behind the steering wheel feels unnatural, so I scoot to the passenger seat. And now I'm sitting right in front of the glove box. I lift the latch—not really expecting to find anything inside, just hoping. But no, there aren't any Raisinets. Not even a lingering chocolaty smell.

I can't know for sure, but I think... No, I believe. A boy who would go through the trouble to sneak Raisinets into a girl's car—so that she would find them when she's feeling sad—would have to like her as more than a friend.

But I'm not that girl anymore and Noah probably knows that better than anyone.

Lightning flashes. The thunder rumbles, slow and steady, vibrating the car windows. I open the door—because the air in here is stifling—but the garage fumes invade, stinging the inside of my nose. I pinch it closed as I climb out and make my way around to a pedestrian door that must lead outside. I have to yank hard to get it open, and there's no roof above the brick landing. I step out anyway, into the pouring rain.

And I find Noah's car in my driveway.

I don't remember waking up from my coma or the ride from the hospital to Faircrest. But I know the day and the time—and even what the weather was like outside my window when Dad walked into my room the first time. Or rather, for the first time after I stopped having the post-traumatic amnesia. His smile was so relaxed, it made me feel like everything was normal, like I'd just come home from spending the night with Kara and he was happy to see me. It was such an incredible relief to see him—until he hugged me, so carefully. Like I was this doll made out of paper-thin porcelain.

This now, seeing Noah's tricolored car, gives me that same...sense of...off-kilter. There's relief because I have a way to escape what's happening inside my house. But I don't know if spending more time with him is a good idea. Maybe I should've just asked Samantha to come get me.

Noah's door swings open. He's going to get out of his car and knock on our front door—and then Mom will come looking for me, and I definitely don't want that.

So. I swipe at my tears—not that it does any good because my face is getting spattered with rain—and go, half-running and half-leaping, along the puddled walkway. Noah doesn't see me because he's fumbling with one of those collapsable umbrellas.

"Hey!" I call out, knocking when I get to the passenger door.

It startles him, but then he laughs and says, "Damn, Ally." He leans over to open my door from the inside before he tosses the umbrella to the back seat. "I was gonna come get you," he says after I'm inside, dripping on his vinyl seat.

"I know. Thanks." I squeegee the water off my face and wipe it on my shorts.

"Uh...I'm pretty sure I've got a towel or something."

His voice is a little high, like he's surprised. Or flustered? But it's definitely not concern—which is good. I don't want him to know I've been crying. He stretches an arm toward the back seat. The other one is braced against the steering wheel. And the muscular chest that cradled my head yesterday is just...right there. Under a clingy, sky blue T-shirt. He unzips a gym bag and pulls out a wad of black fabric. "You're lucky," he says, a little more relaxed now. "I did laundry yesterday."

I take his offering—a soft, cotton shirt—and dry my face first, mostly to hide my embarrassment. But also because I need to breathe air that's not warm and salty and boy. I need a moment to clear my head.

Noah is just a friend. Someone I can trust, who's willing to help me.

"Um, I guess I didn't realize it was raining this hard," I say. Which is stupid and not at all true—because I watched the rain from one of the windows in my room for fifteen minutes before I went downstairs. "I mean, I should've grabbed a rain...um, jacket." I drop the shirt in my lap and gather my hair.

And now, Noah is staring at me. But he's not gawking like I was. His eyes are...I don't know. "Is something wrong?" I ask.

"You used to do that all the time when we were at practice or at a swim meet and you were feeling nervous."

I look at my lap, my hands. "What am I doing?"

"Twisting all your hair into a sort of rope."

My body responds to the soft intensity of his concern. How is it possible that the sound of a boy's voice can make you so aware of your own skin? There wasn't anything about that in any of the books I read.

"Are you sure you want to go to the pool?" he asks, leaning into the dashboard. Like he needs to get a better look at the sky? "It's not going to look like much on a day like this."

"I'm not nervous about seeing the pool," I say.

Noah bobs his head, shifts the car in gear and drives like it takes every bit of his concentration to navigate what turns out to an extremely short trip—because the pool really is right here in this neighborhood. He turns into the parking lot of a clubhouse that is the perfect complement to the homes around it: same size, same colonial architecture. The only things that makes it stand out are the parking lots and the eighteen-hole golf course.

He parks at one end of the black iron pool cage—the furthest point from the diving board. The windshield wipers slash and slash through the deluge, but it doesn't help. There's nothing of my dream here. The artificially blue water is pock-marked by pounding rain. The sky is murky and grey. And there's no trace of that beautiful smile on the boy sitting beside me. 

"I've been thinking that it's funny," I say. "But...in a weird way. That I haven't thought to ask anyone. Or like, I hadn't thought there was someone who could tell me exactly what happened to me. Until yesterday when you...um..."

"Yeah," he says. "Sorry about that."

"We can leave if you want to."

His head turns, but his eyes are slow to make the shift from the pool to me. And then the skin between his eyebrows crumples. "Do you want to leave?" he asks.

"No, I just meant it's okay with me. If it bothers you to be here."

"Nah, I'm all right," he says, dropping his hands from the steering wheel. "I still come over sometimes to say hi to the people we used to work with. The golf cart shed is right there." He points with his thumb and I start to twist around—but my phone interrupts me.

"Crap, it's my mom. I didn't even..." I swipe the screen and hold it to my ear. "Mom—hey. Sorry."