|photo by Eathan Hood from Pexels|

There is a long list of medical reasons why I should consider myself lucky—and I swear I do. But. The reason I wrote them in my journal was so I could remind myself on days like today, when my sister is visiting and it's hard to hold onto that feeling. Especially right now, because I'm having a hard time convincing myself that those few moments of semi-normal behavior back in my room actually happened.

Lindsay takes another bite of her hamburger, and there's barely any interruption to the rhythm of her chewing. She's like a dead-eyed zombie cow. With a glob of mayonnaise clinging to her chin.

Mom must notice it too, because she slides a napkin across the table. The movement catches my sister's eyes. They shift to the paper napkin, to Mom and then back to the wall of windows across the room. But that's the extent of her reaction—if you can even call it that. There's no real acknowledgement, no change of expression. And Mom seems to accept this. Which is even more disturbing because this behavior, this lack of engagement is not acceptable.

Or at least, it wouldn't have been. Three years ago there would've been parental concern. And a barrage of questions. Am I the only person who can see how wrong this is?

"Allyson," Mom says. She waits for my eyes to meet hers so she knows I'm paying attention. "Is there something wrong with your sandwich?"

"Oh, um." I don't know. Because I haven't tried it yet. I reach for one of the halves, shooting Mom an apologetic smile before I take a bite. The food here is always good. And the grilled cheese with tomato is my favorite. But today it tastes like salted cardboard. And so my chewing falls into tempo with my sister's.

"Okay," Mom says. The word comes out like a sigh. Like she's surrendering to a battle she never even tried to fight. "We need to pick up the pace. I have an appointment this afternoon and Allyson, honey, you should be getting ready for your art class."

It's art therapy. And I'd rather spend my afternoon looking through my high school yearbook.

Mom rummages around in her cavernous purse and comes up with her jumble of jangling car keys. Lindsay's hamburger drops to her plate and she stands so abruptly, the legs of her chair grate the polished wood floor. "I have to pee," she says—loud enough to turn heads. And I almost laugh out loud—but not because it's funny. My smile is relief because this is the most Lindsay-like thing I've seen my sister do since the accident.

"Please hurry," Mom says. "I'll get a to-go box for the rest of your lunch and wait for you on the front porch."

Lindsay doesn't hurry. She scuffs off in the direction of the closest bathroom, which is in the tunnel-like hallway that stretches under the grand staircase at the mansion's main entrance. But when Mom and I pass by—after our leftovers are wrapped and the bill is paid—the tiny bathroom is dark and empty.

"Mom," I say, pointing this out.

Her face tenses and she quickens her pace. She opens the extra-tall, hundred-year-old front door and we're blasted with mid-August heat. But the stately brick porch is empty. Mom digs into her purse again. "She must've gone back to your room," she says, hooking a pair of oversized sunglasses on the collar of her shirt. "I have two more appointments tomorrow—both brand new clients." She delivers the new-client addendum with an obligatory smile, like she's forgotten she already told me the truth. Mom's life-long dream of starting her own catering business came true a little over a year ago. But it has grown too big, too fast. She was feeling overwhelmed, even before my accident. "We'll come up Friday morning. Okay?"

"Yeah," I say. "That's—wait. Does we include Dad this time?"

"No, honey. Your father has to work Sunday morning. He wasn't planning on coming home this weekend. Unless..."

Mom blinks her eyes, three times fast, and squints out at the parking lot. This is something she does—something she's always done—when she's trying to decide if she wants to say what's on her mind.

I don't press because the whole situation makes me uncomfortable. Dad's new job in Virginia fell though—but not until after my parents had sold the house Lindsay and I grew up in and settled us here. So it was "lucky" that he was able to go back to the company he worked for when we lived in North Carolina. Except that now he only lives with us on the weekends.

"I had this idea on the drive up this morning," Mom says. "I wasn't going to ask today because I didn't want to overwhelm you—but maybe it would be better to say it now. It will give you time to think about your answer."

This is a new thing Mom's been doing. She puts out these warning statements before she asks a question, like she's trying to make things easier on me. I know she means well, but it's kind of frustrating, because it gets me all tense and worried. And half the time the question ends up being something totally insignificant, like "What brand of shampoo do you want?"

"I'm fine, Mom. Go ahead and ask."

"If your father came back to town this weekend, would you consider coming home with me on Friday? It would only be a visit. You could spend a couple of nights with us and I'd bring you back to Faircrest Sunday afternoon."

"Oh, um." That's incredibly significant. "I don't know if that will work because..."

The only reason that comes to mind is the concern my therapist shared with my neurologist: I'm not emotionally prepared to leave the facility. But that's not...we didn't decide... "I'll talk it over with Dr. Dabney," I say. "Our appointment was cut short today, and I think maybe he still has some questions for me?"

"Of course," Mom says, wrapping me in a smothering hug. "There's absolutely no pressure."

She puts her sunglasses on as soon as she lets me go. Like maybe she doesn't want me to see the disappointment she's trying so hard to keep out of her voice. "I should cool down the car," she says. "Would you please find your sister and tell her I'm waiting?"

Mom turns away from me and jogs down the steep brick steps. I push into the over-sized door, breathing in. The mansion air is stale, but it's cool enough to take the edge off my sudden case of nausea.

"Hurry up and close the door," Lindsay whispers.

I do and there she is, standing behind it. "Oh, hey. Mom wanted me to—"

"Yeah, I heard." She holds up her phone.

Wait, no. The cover on the phone she's holding is glittery and purple. It's mine.

"There's something I want you to look at," she says, talking low and fast. "Can you type in your passcode?"

"Um..." Yes, I remember it now. I punch in the four-digit numerical equivalent of M-A-G-S. Which is short for Magnolia, the family cat I don't remember us adopting.

"You pitched the biggest fit when Mom made the rule about us having to tell her all of our passwords," Lindsay says.

It takes me a moment to work out that she's talking about something that happened in the past—during the chunk of time I can't remember. And so now I understand the dark tinge of amusement in my sister's tone. If Mom hadn't enforced her rule then, we wouldn't be able to get into my phone now.

But I don't think that's funny. "What did you want to show me?" I ask.

"See the yellow square with the black-and-white bumble bee? Bottom row, second from the left."

"I opened all the apps the day Mom gave me this phone."

Or. I guess it was the day she gave it back.

"You're still logged in?" Lindsay asks, touching the black and yellow square.

The app answers by opening to a screen that asks if Ally, the name my sister assigned to me when she was first learning to talk, wants to share an update. "It's mostly advertisements," I say. "And photos of people I don't recognize."

"Yeah, but there's another part to it. Did you press the IM button?"

She points at a tiny silhouette of a bee in the top right corner and I shake my head. "I guess I thought that was just for decoration."

"It's a way to send an instant message," she says. Then she taps it and the screen changes to a list of names. "It's like texting, but you can do it without a phone."

What? "How?"

"From a computer, Ally. Mom wouldn't let you get a phone until you were almost sixteen."

She stresses the first "you" in smug sort of a way. I get what she's hinting at because I remember Mom's rule—and I've noticed that Lindsay already has a phone.

"This app is how you and Samantha talked to each other when you first met," she adds.

"Oh, um. What Mom said before. About Samantha. I'm not..."

Lindsay kind of sneers her way into a frown. But I can't tell if she's reacting to my inability to express myself—because my stupid brain still shorts out when I'm under stress—or if she's remembering what Mom said about me not being ready to talk to Samantha.

"I'm not asking you to text her right now," Lindsay says. "I just want to see if all the old stuff is still there."

She changes the screen again and swipes her thumb down and down until it stops loading new information.

And then my little sister actually smiles.

"This is what I was hoping for," she says. "It doesn't look like you've deleted any of it. The entire history of your friendship with Samantha is right here—starting in ninth grade."

"Okay. That's...um...good?"

"It's great," she says, putting the phone in my hand. "I want you to read it, Ally. Starting at the beginning."

There's a date at the top of the screen: September 23. And two different colors of text bubbles, but I can't tell... "How do I know which set of bubbles is supposed to be me?" I ask.

"You're profile picture is the cartoon owl," Lindsay says. "Don't ask me why."

Okay. So if I'm the owl with giant googly eyes, then Samantha is the buck-toothed panda bear who starts the conversation: Have you finished the French homework?

"Hey, I've gotta go," Lindsay says.

Her hand is wrapped around the brass door pull. And the tattered stack of crocheted bracelets she wears on her right arm have fallen back, exposing a bit of black ink on her wrist. Hidden, I'm sure. Because every once in a while my sister comes here with some amazing picture drawn on her arm, and every time Mom says something snide about it that ends up sounding like a public service announcement warning against the dangers of tattoos.

"Don't log out of the app," Lindsay says. "And don't tell Mom I showed it to you."

I shake my head, inching closer because I think it's a word this time, but the ink is faded and I can't quite make it out.

"Ally, I'm serious. Please don't tell Mom."

My sister's eyes aren't quite the same as mine, because my irises have these greenish-gold flecks that keep the brown from looking so dark and intense. The way hers are right now. "I won't," I say. She bobs her head once and opens the door; then closes it so hard the impact shudders the narrow windows on either side.

The letters on Lindsay's arm register, and my knees go a little weak. So I let myself sink to the extra wide landing step at the bottom of the fancy staircase. I'm eighty-five percent certain that the word hidden on my sister's wrist is liar. But is that an accusation or a proclamation?

A chill creeps down my spine and I shake off the thought, kind of the way a freshly-bathed dog shakes the water out of its fur. My phone has gone black. I touch the home button to wake it up and focus on the cat photo layered behind the keypad on my lock screen. My little sister wants me to read the history of my friendship with Samantha Zhao, and I don't want to disappoint her again. But what if I stumble across an explanation for my school-skipping lie—or for the "intel" that's going to complicate my relationship with the "man-whore?"

But I have to admit, I am a little curious about my relationship status. Especially now that I have a name to match the face in my dream.

These instant message transcripts are probably loaded with information I'd like to have. Obviously, because je parle français even though I don't remember learning it. Well. I mean, I haven't actually tried to speak French, but Dr. Dabney tested me so I know I can read it. And now I know that Samantha Zhao was in my French class. I type in the four-digit code. The app is still open. Waiting at September 23.

Oh. My friendship with Samantha started in the fall of our ninth-grade year. The scary text conversation didn't happen until much later—almost three years. I could start at the beginning of the IM transcripts and if things start to sound like they're headed in an uncomfortable direction, all I have to do is stop reading, right?

Yes. Absolutely. I skim though the first few conversations: the innocuous, almost boring, beginnings of a friendship. But then Samantha asks about a boy in our French class, whose name happens to be Noah Dodge. She congratulates me for finally working up the courage to talk to him—and I'm hooked.