We were at High Rock. The sea was stormy in the background, waves pounding the beach like it held a grudge, and the sky was a deep gray.

“It looks just like your eyes,” Brian said to me, his hand on my cheek. I huddled closer to him, our bodies shielding each other from the wind that whipped my hair around my face and tugged at his clothes.

We were the few teenagers out at High Rock today. Usually, when the weather turned ugly like this, everyone fled. But I didn’t want to go, not yet. I wanted to spend a little more time with Brian. Lately, I hadn’t been able to get enough of him. He’d been the guy I wanted to spend all my time with. I knew it was cliché, the football player and the cheerleader. It was like everyone expected us to be together. But this was for me and for him. It had nothing to do with what everyone said. It was what we wanted.

Brian’s hand was still on my cheeks, those blue eyes boring into mine, and I couldn’t think anymore. The first kiss was something every girl thinks about. I had been dreaming about mine for a long time, but until now, I didn’t know who I wanted it to be with.

Now, I knew. Brian seemed to get what I wanted. He wasn’t behind the way I was. He’d kissed before. But he seemed nervous around me, like this kiss really mattered.

He moved toward me, closing the small distance that was left, and his eyes slid to my lips. I was barely breathing. I closed my eyes at the last moment and when his lips touched mine, everything fell into place. The boy I liked was kissing me. My first kiss! And it was perfect.

Brian was perfect.

When I woke up, it took a moment for the world around me to slip into focus. The dream had been so vivid. It hadn’t felt like a dream at all. In fact, it had felt like a memory.

I closed my eyes and tried to conjure it back up again, and it was still there. Not a dream at all. I clutched onto the feelings that had come with the memory, infatuation, warmth, acceptance. Protection. Brian had been all of that for me, then. On that rock, the one I hadn’t visited since the accident, the boy of my dreams had kissed me.

I opened my eyes again. I lay on my back, the covers cocooned around my body, and I tried to hold onto the feelings that swirled inside me. It was hard not being able to remember what had happened. It was also hard to know what was real and what wasn’t.

It happened so often that my mind made up stories of its own to fill in the blanks where memories had been ripped away. I didn’t always know how to tell the difference between reality and fantasy.

But this? This was real. It didn’t feel like the others. It felt right.

I closed my eyes again and thought about the Brian I knew now. Muscular, fit. He was as broad as he was tall, and his presence was breathtaking. When he was around me, I felt delicate. When he’d run into me at the stadium, his body had been rock solid. I could just imagine what it would be like to sleep with him.

I knew it was wrong to think like that about him, but my body responded. I was turned on immediately. I arched my back, felt the sheets across my body, and I became wet. What was I doing? I didn’t know Brian, not really, but the memory that I’d just had suggested otherwise. And my body wanted what it wanted. Which, right now, seemed to be Brian.

I slid my hand over my breasts and my stomach, moving my hips. I pushed my hands into my pajama shorts and slid them over my pussy. I was getting wetter, and Brian was on my mind.

When I pushed a finger into my slit and slid it toward my entrance, I gasped softly. I dipped a finger into my wetness and slid it back up to my clit. I drew circles around my clit. With two fingers, I skated around my clit, my fingers splitting to finger along the folds.

The orgasm built hard and fast because I knew what I wanted and where it felt good. The memory of our first kiss came to mind again, his tongue slipping into my mouth, gentle, testing, and his lips hot on mine. His arms had pulled me tight against his body, and it had been taut, if not as muscular as it was now.

I moved my hips, mimicking sex, fingering myself, and I gasped, breathing hard. The orgasm came in a wave of pleasure that rushed over my body, and I squeezed my eyes shut, opening my mouth in a silent scream. My toes curled, and I rolled onto my side.

When the orgasm passed, I lay gasping on the bed in a pool of bliss.

The dream, the memory, had been so vivid and so real, I knew it was what had happened. I had remembered another thing about my past. Things were changing. Was it because I’d seen him and spoken to him? Would that happen again?

I hoped so. At the same time, I was terrified of it. I had started to accept myself as a person who had missing pieces, blanks where everyone else had indicators of who they were. I had gotten used to it. I was scared that changing it would feel like someone who had starved for a long time and was fed a rich diet again.

I was scared I wouldn’t be able to handle it. Whatever happened, I’d said I would meet him for brunch. It was a giant step for me.

When he’d asked me out to dinner, I had originally hesitated, telling myself not to go on a date with this guy who knew he had been my boyfriend when I didn’t even know that— not really, not in my memories or my consciousness or my experience— not to open my heart up to the risk that it could be broken. Or his heart either, for that matter.

One of my first thoughts when he had invited me out was that he didn’t even know what he was getting himself into, but I did. I knew myself— the “new me,” anyway— and it wouldn’t be fair to invite him back into the madhouse that is me.

But his face was so damn cute and hopeful. How could I have let him down? And I had to admit, I wanted to see where this would lead despite my very strong reservations. So I had suggested brunch, and it was too late to back out now, even if I wanted to, which, I wasn’t so sure I did.

I had to get ready. I got up and climbed into the shower, letting the hot water run over my body. I felt warm, the effects of the dream still clinging to me.

When I got out of the shower and dried myself off, I had a missed call on my phone and a message from Brian asking me to meet him at Blue Collar at eleven-thirty. I had heard of the place but never been. I typed a reply and got dressed in beige capris and a white blouse. I put on cork wedges and gold jewelry, and I was ready to go.

And nervous. How did you have breakfast with a man who had known you for so long and you couldn’t remember it? How was I going to spend time with him when he knew me so much better than I knew myself?

I wasn’t sure. But I knew I was about to find out.