The nurse is fussing.

I may be feeling weird and kinda out of my body here, but I’m not stupid. She has fixed the covers over my legs, like, ten times, and asked me if I need anything else for the third? Or fourth time?

Or was it another nurse?

I frown, and then grit my teeth because frowning makes the headache worse. I’m pretty damn sure it’s the same nurse. Or else I’m going crazy and nobody’s got the balls to let me know the truth.

Matt would tell me, though, right?

Right?

I close my eyes, wishing the pounding in my head to go away and my mind to fucking clear.

When I blink them open again, the nurse is gone and my mom is sitting in a chair beside my bed.

God, I hate these weird little time jumps. So fucking disorienting.

“Mom.” My voice sounds like rusty nails so I grab for the glass of water by my bed only to find it gone. “What the fuck.”

“Kaden, language.”

The chiding is familiar – mom still can’t accept I swear like a sailor, although according to Matt I started doing it in the womb – but her heart isn’t in it.

I sit up as best I can, because the damn room keeps tilting to one side, and what’s up with that, huh? “You all right, mom? Is…?” I rub my forehead, as if that will stop the pain. “Is Hailey okay? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Psh,” she says and looks away, her cheeks coloring. “Nothing.”

Okay, Mom is a really bad liar.

“You know I can tell there’s something you’re not saying.” My mind automatically cycles back to my girl. “Is it Hailey? Is that why she’s not here? Were we in an accident together?” My eyes burn and I hate this emo shit. Why are my eyes burning? I haven’t cried since I was a toddler. “I need to know. Please.”

“Oh Kaden.” She hauls herself out of the hard, plastic chair – she has gained some weight since dad died, and it doesn’t help with the arthritic pain she has in her hips and knees. She leans over the bed, and pats my cheek, giving me her warm smile, the one that always made me feel like a winner as I grew up, even when I lost. “Hailey is just fine. Stop worrying about her. She will be here today, okay?”

I nod, not trusting my voice, or my eyes that keep doing that burning-wet thing.

Fuck me.

“Did you feel like that?” I eventually ask, after she has sat back down and I’ve gotten my face and voice under some semblance of control. “With dad?”

“Like what, honey?”

“Like…” Talking about feelings is hard. Never done that before. The only person I’ve ever been real close to is Matt and he left town when he turned eighteen to work in fucking Milwaukee. He met his wife, got married, had kids, and we barely saw each other. Not that I’d talk to him about something as girly as feelings. Matt was always a tough, serious older brother. I never felt I could…

“Like?” Mom prompts. “Feel like?”

Oh yeah. Why do I keep losing my train of thought? I feel like a train wreck. “Like… life really fucking sucks when she’s not here, you know? Everything sucks.”

She doesn’t scold me for my swearing. Her gaze grows distant. “Yeah,” she admits. “Yeah, I felt that way about your dad. Still do sometimes. I miss him so much.”

Oh shit, now I’ve made mom sad. “I’m such a fuck-up. I think…” I try to remember, but my skull feels just about ready to explode. “I think…”

She looks at me, waiting, and fuck if her eyes aren’t wet, too. “Yes?”

I lift one shoulder in a shrug. Not sure. I think I fucked up with something important, but can’t recall what it was.

“Hey mom… Did I hit my head or something?”

She snort-laughs, and it’s funny enough that I grin at her, despite feeling like shit. “Yes, you did.”

“That’s news to me.”

Her face does that guilty-blushy thing again. “Ah-huh.”

“Okay, so it’s not news. You told me before?”

She bites her lip and nods slowly, her gaze flicking to the door. What the hell?

“You told me and I forgot. I have a concussion?”

She nods again.

“And someone here told you not to tell me about it?”

She sighs and wipes at her eyes. “Yes.”

“Why the hell?”

“Language.” She sighs again. “They didn’t want us telling you what happened. Said it was better if you remembered on your own. But.” She lifts one finger when I start to protest about the stupidity of this. “We did tell you anyway. It’s hard…” She swallows. “Hard to see your child so distraught. So I replied to your questions. But you…”

She waves a hand.

But I forgot.

And keep forgetting. Time after time.

Christ, this is so fucking not good…

* * *

I wake up some time later to find Matt’s girl, sitting in the plastic chair Mom had been in last I looked.

I think.

Argh. I rub my eyes and the painful spot between my brows, and search my memory for her name.

How can I not remember her name? Matt always talks about her. I met her before. How the fuck could I forget the name of my brother’s girl?

“It’s also the drugs, you know,” she says softly, and I find her observing me with her big blue eyes. “Pretty strong painkillers. Things will look clearer once you’re off them.”

Ugh. Now that she says it, I notice for the first time the discomfort of a needle taped to the inside of my wrist, a tube leading up to two bags of liquid. “What am I on?”

She shrugs delicately. “Not sure. You’d have to ask the nurse.”

Right. The fussing nurse, who may or may not be a different nurse and I wouldn’t know, because I can’t fucking remember.

“Hailey,” I whisper. I realize I sound desperate, or yeah okay, downright psychotic. Obsessive? Maybe. “Where is she?”

Matt’s girl – Olivia? Octavia? I’m pretty sure it’s Octavia –gets up and smiles. It’s a sweet smile, and I can see why Matt fell in love with it. “She’s right outside. Shall I tell her to come in?”

Does it snow at Christmas? “Hell yeah.”

Since when does she need permission? Alarm bells are going off in the back of my skull and I close my eyes, fighting dizziness.

Ow, dammit.

Low voices penetrate the haze of my thoughts, and I realize I’ve squeezed my eyes shut. I open them slowly, cautiously, making a mental note to ask the nurse what she has flowing into my veins – and maybe up the dosage.

Then it hits me that one of the voices belongs to Hailey and I blink, sitting upright, reaching for her.

“You came.”

And she’s standing right there, in front of me, more beautiful than ever, and yet… different.

Since when is her hair so long it touches her shoulders? She looks… thinner, somehow. And sad.

Still the most gorgeous girl in the world.

“Hi Kaden,” she says, waving with a wiggle of her fingers and shooting me a tiny, unsure smile. “How are you?”

Oh fuck yeah, something’s definitely wrong.

But what?