|photo by Shopify Partners from Burst|

The window in my room is small but the sill is deep, like a shelf. Or a desk. It would be the perfect place to write if I wasn't obsessively fixated on the parking lot. I press my palm into the center of my journal, an attempt to flatten the bowing pages. My pen has leaked a smeary bullet point underneath the line where I've written the word home.

Sometimes I wake up thinking we still live in North Carolina. But then I look around this bleak white room and everything is wrong, and I have to remind myself that it's gone: the tree fort Dad built in our backyard, Mom's organic vegetable garden. My little sister, the way she's supposed to be, eleven years old, silly and fun.

A flare of light crosses my hand—and my pulse kicks up a notch. But the car turning into the parking lot is nothing like Mom's. It's old and blue. Except for the driver's side door, which is rusty and grey. The overly loud clock hanging over my doorway says it's almost noon. Where are they?

Oh, wait. Maybe Mom sent a text message.

I grab my phone out of the bedside drawer, but my stupid brain refuses to surrender the passcode. Which is why it's written down in my—

"Knock, knock."

Mom. "Hi. You're..." I glance at the clock again. She's right on time.

"Are you all right, honey?"

"Yes, I'm fine. Just..." She deposits her purse at the end of my bed—along with an extra bag made of canvas. She opens her arms, ready for a hug and I slump against her, resting my chin on her shoulder.

The mystery bag flops onto its side and molds around something book-shaped.

"I was waiting for you," I say, giving her an extra squeeze before I pull away. "Dr. Dabney said you were bringing something special today—he called it an experiment—and the um...suspense?"

I shake my head, because the word feels wrong, but Mom gives me an understanding smile. "Then let's get right to it," she says. She lifts the red bag from the wrong end to spill its contents onto the bed: a large book with a navy cover—and a copy of, Blue Lily, Lily Blue, the novel I've been dying for.

"You're going to let me read an actual book?" I ask. "Dr. Dabney said it's okay now?"

"No. I'm sorry, honey. Our library doesn't have the audio version of this novel. But I could read it out loud for you, if you'd like."

"Oh. Sure." I smile to hide my disappointment. "So then. I guess that's not the experiment he was talking about?"

Mom's smile is genuine. She holds up the larger, flatter book and says, "This is your yearbook from eleventh grade." And I get that familiar hitch in my chest that comes with the reminder. I'm seventeen now. A rising senior if I decide I'm ready to "pick up where I left off" in school.

"Allyson?"

I focus on Mom's greenish-blue eyes and smile the answer to her unspoken question: Yes, I'm okay.

The cover of the book in her hand is embellished with a silver image of a lion. Its sheeny mane spirals and swirls around the words: Springfield High School. This is my yearbook, another artifact from the chunk of time I can't remember. Like the phone with the glittery purple cover Mom gave me so I'd have access to my text messages. Because she wanted me to see how many friends I've made since we moved to Virginia.

She opens the yearbook at a yellow sticky note, marking a double-paged spread of photographs. "Can you find the boy you told me about?" she asks.

What? "Are you talking about the boy from my dream? You think he's real—someone I met at this school?"

Mom gives me a one-shoulder shrug. But there's a curious spark in her eyes. "There's only one way to find out."

There are more girls on the pages than boys, so it's easy to spot mine. His hair is longer than the image in my head, and maybe a little lighter. It's impossible to determine the color of his eyes in the tiny black and white photograph, but I remember them. They're blue.

"It's this one," I say, pointing.

Mom takes a fortifying breath before her eyes drop to the photo. Then she exhales a word—a name maybe—and my arms break out in goose bumps. "Mom, who is he?"

"Noah Dodge," she says, reverent. Like she's talking about her favorite chef. "He's the lifeguard who pulled you out of the pool after you hit your head."

My stomach drops. Down and back up again. Like a yo-yo.

"You said you remembered the color red," she says. "Lifeguards wear red."

I didn't actually see the color red—it was more of an impression. What I remember most is all the blue. Everywhere blue: the boy's eyes, the sky, the water.

The boy in the yearbook is the lifeguard.

The boy from my dream saved my life.

"What does that...am I..." No. "I can't be remembering the accident. I don't remember anything—or anyone I've met since the move."

"There are fragments," Mom says, but I shake my head, cutting her off because they don't count—not to me. The bits and pieces I can recall from my life here are mixed up. Misleading. I was so sure I started ninth grade with my best friend in North Carolina. I could see the two of us, our ponytails swinging as we ran laps around a track that circles the football field. But that memory is wrong because we moved three years ago. The high school with the football stadium is here in Virginia.

"Maybe it's one of those..." Crap. What was the word he used? "You know. The thing Dr. Dabney talked about—where my unconscious mind sort of plays back information I've learned since my injury? That can make it seem like a real memory, but it's really not."

"Confabulation," Mom says. "But I don't see how that could be possible in this case." She lays the still-opened yearbook on the end of my bed, digs into her purse and hands me a photograph.

It's me, looking more like the girl I remember—back when my curves were less womanly and my hair was still brown. "Who is the boy standing beside me?" I ask.

"Noah Dodge. This was taken a few months after we moved here."

"Um, wow." I guess a boy can change a lot in three years too. Ninth-grade Noah has shaggy blond hair, braces and a round boyish face. If Mom had shown me this picture first, I'm not sure I would've recognized him as the smiling young man who visited my dream.

"Do you remember seeing this photograph?" she asks.

"No, not at all."

"That's normal. Some of the recognition tests were administered while you were still in post-traumatic amnesia."

"Have I already seen his yearbook picture?" I ask.

"No, honey. You read the newspaper article about your accident but there wasn't a photo—or even a description of the lifeguard. I can't think of any reason your unconscious mind would've made that connection."

My eyes sting and the image blurs. "Dr. Dabney said..." I clear my throat, trying to dislodge that too-tight feeling. Like there's a fist clamped around my neck. "He said it's unlikely that those memories will come back."

"He said it's unlikely that you will obtain complete, sequential recall," she says, confident and practiced.

"Okay, but..." It doesn't make sense. "The dream didn't look or feel like a memory—not even a fragment, because there was nothing. No movement. No emotion. He didn't even have a body, Mom."

"We don't have to put a label on it, Allyson. No one truly understands the complexities of the human brain. All I know for sure is that you had a strong connection to Noah."

"A connection? Meaning we were..." I blink the tears out of my eyes so I can focus on the picture in my hand. It was taken outside and there's an awkward amount of space between me and the boy version of Noah. But we don't look uncomfortable. His eyes are down and his smile is shy. And I look like I know a secret. "We were friends," I say. "Right?"

"You were good friends."

The way Mom emphasizes the word good makes me think she means we were more than just friends. She sits on my bed, pulls the yearbook into her lap and flips through the pages, stopping on a group photo of the swim team. I perch beside her and she points to a girl in the front row.

My cheeks go warm because it's me, the age I am now, wearing nothing but a navy blue swimsuit. But I don't look embarrassed in the photograph—not the least bit. My chin is high, my smile wide and my highlighted hair is twisted and pulled in front of one shoulder.

I remember having that kind of confidence as a kid, but it must not have survived the accident. Because I don't know if I could stand there—in front of all those teenaged boys—with my curves on display.

Yes, I do know. There's no freaking way.

"Do you recognize the boy standing behind you?" Mom asks.

"It's Noah Dodge."

His body is partially blocked but the half I can see—half of a muscular chest, one sturdy arm, a long powerful leg—sets off this weird sort of shifting in my stomach muscles. And my stupid cheeks get hot again because I know what that means. I can't say whether or not I've experienced the feeling before, but I've listened to enough audio books since my accident to know all about the various goings-on inside a girl—or boy's—stomach when he or she is looking at, or talking to...or doing other things with an attractive boy. Or girl.

"His number is in your cell phone," Mom says. And my whole face goes molten.

"What about Samantha?"

Mom and I twist in unison. It takes a moment for my brain to register that the salty teenager who called out from the doorway is my little sister—because the Lindsay I remember didn't have boobs. And then I get this monster twinge of guilt, because in all the excitement of Mom's yearbook experiment, I hadn't even noticed Lindsay was missing.

"Samantha Zhao is your best friend," she says. "If you're going to contact anyone, it should be her."

There's actual inflection in her voice and a determined glint in her eyes. This is more words—more emotion—than she's shown me in the entire seven weeks I've been living at Faircrest.

"Allyson isn't ready to reach out to Samantha," Mom says.

My not-so-little sister lets out a judgmental sigh that sounds like dragon fire. I stand, ready to defend myself, but that would require an explanation. And I haven't told Mom the reason I'm not ready to contact Samantha. I haven't told anyone about the scary text conversation I found in my phone.

A few days before my accident, Samantha Zhao caught me in a lie. The conversation was vague, so I don't know why I skipped school—or why the idea of me ending up like someone named Oscar was scaring the crap out of her. The last sentence of my "best friend's" pre-accident text said I should let her know when I decided we were still the kind of friends who told each other secrets.

Obviously, that's not going to happen any time soon.

Mom snaps the yearbook closed and tosses it on my bed as she stands. "We should head to the cafeteria," she says. And Lindsay's face goes instantly blank—back to that non-expression, the creepy zombie stare.

And yeah, okay. Maybe this is a "normal" reaction for a teen, but all this...inertness is not normal for my little sister. Grandma Clark used to say Lindsay had ants in her pants, because she could never stand still. Especially not when she was in the "hot seat" like she is right now, judging by the perturbed frown Mom is aiming her way.

Lindsay takes a calm, almost robotic turn away from my door and plods down the hallway. And I want to kick myself because she was right here, ready and willing to talk to me and I froze.

"Are you hungry?" Mom asks, using both hands to rake her short, blond hair behind her ears.

Not anymore. But I want to follow my sister, so I loop my arm around Mom's and lead her out of my room. "Noah helped you get the lifeguarding job at the club," she says.

That familiar hitch is more like a kick this time. Because it's so hard to imagine myself with a job. But it's true. I saw pictures. There's like this members-only pool in the neighborhood we live in now and I was a lifeguard there at the beginning of this summer. But my very first job only lasted three weeks, because somehow I slipped on the diving board and hit my head. And this boy—this young man—pulled my unconscious body out of the water.

"He came to the hospital after your accident," Mom says, her voice shaky. "I can't even think about the look on his face without..." She points to the tears clinging to her bottom lashes. "He was devastated."

Samantha Zhao came to the hospital too—and she's called several times since my accident. There's also a get-well card from her on my dresser. The cover photo is funny: a fluffy ginger-striped cat with a gauze bandage wrapped around its head. But the message inside was written by some random greeting-card poet. The only thing Samantha added was a little heart with a smiley-face beside her signature.

"I don't mean to sound like I'm pushing him or any of your friends on you," Mom says, swiping a careful finger under each eye. "I can only imagine how strange all of this must seem. But I promise you, honey, Noah and Samantha care about you. If you could find the courage to reach out to them, I think they could make this transition so much easier for you."

If I could find the courage?

I drop Mom's arm, because it takes two hands to open the heavy door at the end of my hallway, and I breathe into the sick feeling in my stomach. The Allyson I remember was courageous, but I'm not so sure about the one in the text conversation with Samantha. I was hiding something scary and "complicated" from my best friend. And I don't know if I'm ready to find out what it was.