I pointed to my head. “I bashed my head,” I said, not wanting to elaborate. “I saw her in a magazine.”
“Yeah, she’s a fitness blogger I follow. Frankie. She and her boyfriend—well, I should say ex-boyfriend—do these great workout videos.”
I looked at the screen. Frankie and a Ken of a man were doing exercises, huge smiles plastered across their faces. They looked happy together. Happy and perfect, and they weren’t even sweating. He had the biggest, whitest smile I’d ever seen and she, well, she looked every bit the fit, blonde, perfect Barbie.
“They broke up?” I asked. It didn’t seem possible. I mean, look at them.
“He broke up with her on Instagram. Can you believe it! And now she’s missing.”
“What?” I suddenly felt a deep concern for this stranger I didn’t actually know.
“Look.” Maxine picked her phone up and flicked the screen on, showing me what I recognized as Twitter.
“Hashtag Find Frankie. It’s been trending.”
“So, where is she?” I asked.
“No one knows. It’s a real social media mystery. Anyway . . .” She moved off and picked up a bottle of thick, green liquid and sipped. “What happened to your head? You didn’t tell me you were in hospital.”
“Apparently I was in an elevator accident, but I don’t remember anything.”
“What do you mean, you don’t remember anything?” She took another massive sip of the gooey green stuff and then held it up. “This is Frankie’s protein shake. Want to taste?” She thrust the drink towards me and I shook my head. “How much don’t you remember?”
“I remember almost nothing about anything,” I replied.
“What, like your name?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“No way. This is crazy.” She put the drink down and stepped closer to me. “Your age?”
“Nope.”
“Where you live?”
I shook my head again.
“Fuuuuuuck, that is seriously weird.”
“I know!” I agreed with her.
“Man, I’m sorry. I had no idea, or I wouldn’t have been so . . .wait, when I was joking about you and Noah having sex—”
“What?” Noah cut her off. “You were what?”
“Chill, I was just pulling her leg, you know. Like I always do.”
Noah rolled his eyes. “Yeah, your subtlety is well known.”
“Do you even remember sex?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No. I know what it is, obviously. But I don’t remember having it.”
“Waaaiiit!” Maxine held her hand up now. “You’re like a newborn virgin.”
“A . . . What!?” I gasped. “I . . . what? Well, that’s just . . . um . . .” For some reason, her words made me wildly uncomfortable, made my skin flush and prickle.
“Maxine!” Noah chided her now. “Not everyone is as comfortable with talking about—”
