Jason frowns. “My parents have been on a cruise for the last two weeks.”
“They went on a cruise?” I can’t even fathom the heartlessness of parents doing that while their kid is in hospital, unconscious. And here I thought they adored him beyond anything. “God, I’m sorry, Jay.”
“Zadie,” Jason says carefully. “Do you remember the accident?”
“Of course I do.” Even answering the question feels pointless to me, but I do it anyway. “We were coming back from the dinner where…” I swallow. Jason shifts where he’s standing. He doesn’t want me to say it any more than I want to say it. Funny how I can suddenly read him. Now, after he’s screwed me over and there’s nothing left of us. “We were coming back from our anniversary dinner, and Jason, you suddenly braked, I think? And that caused a four-car pileup.”
Mom and Amber are nodding, so I go on confidently. “Which put Jason in a coma for a month, and gave me a slight head injury. I remember everything.”
They are all wearing the same look, a mixture of pity, fear, and concern. I start to pull out more facts that everybody knows. “We were working on college apps. I decided to take a gap year. Amber, you decided to apply to UMaine as well. Mom, you resigned, and Marcus played Jason’s position. And…”
I freeze.
Marcus.
My heart pinches.
I so desperately want to see him, to touch him.
“Where’s Marcus?” I ask.
“He came out of it before you did, thank God,” Jason says.
I’m back to being confused again. “Came out of what?”
“Marcus was also in a coma,” Amber says. “The three of you were in the crash—you and Jason, and then Marcus was in his truck, two cars behind.”
“Jason got a little roughed up,” Mom says, “but he’s been okay. We’ve been waiting for both you and Marcus to wake up.”
“Let me get this straight: You want me to believe I’ve been in a coma while all of you have been awake? And Jason has been awake all this time, but Marcus has been asleep?”
“Unconscious,” Mo says, trying to use precise terminology.
“Do you understand how ridiculous—how unbelievable—that sounds?”
“You have to know that it sounds even less believable for us,” Mom says, “that you feel you’ve been awake. I mean, on what planet would you take a gap year?”
Mom calls in my neurologist.
“Explain to her why she’s confused,” she orders.
The doctor, a bald man in his forties, starts to ramble, something about how coma patients can often hear and interact with the world mentally even when they’re unconscious. “REM intrusion theory proposes that the brain can live in this hybrid state of being awake and sleeping, so it could be something like that going on,” he says. “We don’t know nearly enough about comas or sleep, if I’m being honest. But as for what you remember, you probably overheard a lot of conversations and mixed in fantasy with reality.”
Partway through, I look at Mom and Jason, and they’re eatingthe whole thing up. Mo will buy anything someone in a white coat sells her, but Amber? Her usually unmovably supportive face is slack, worried.
And that’s the point where I stop fighting.
They won’t believe me no matter what I say.
It’s their word against mine, the four of them a united front. But I do have one more ally, the person who has witnessed my life, witnessed with me the start and end of Jason’s and my relationship, the only proof I have that it happened: Marcus.
“Can I talk to him?” I ask after the neurologist leaves. “Can I talk to Marcus?”
Jason looks hesitant. “You want to talk to my cousin? Sure, but…I don’t know that it will help anything. You know how he can be.”
“Yeah, I do,” I say, trying to keep my voice in check. “I know exactly how he can be.”
“I’ll tell him you want to see him,” Jason says.
