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“The first thing I remember is waking up in the hospital,” I admit.
“Which hospital?” Birdie watches me attentively, and I can’t make direct eye contact with her because I know she’s dissecting everything I’m saying.
“In New Orleans.”
“New Orleans?” she echoes, her voice tinged with disappointment. “When was this?”
I try to count back the years, but I can’t recall how many it’s been. It feels like a lifetime. I don’t even know how old I am. Most of the time, I don’t know what day or month it is either. Those details aren’t important when you’re just trying to survive every hour.
“I’m not sure,” I tell her. “Eden and I have been living on the street for years. Time just seems to pass, and sometimes it’s hard to keep track of.”
Birdie offers me a sad smile. “Believe it or not, I get it. When you’re in survival mode, all the other details tend to fall away.”
“Were you homeless too?” I ask.
“Not really,” she answers. “We always found places to stay, but my sister Gypsy and I moved around for a long time. We tried to outrun our mistakes, but eventually, they caught up with us anyway. If it weren’t for Ace and my sister’s husband Lucian, we’d probably still be living that crazy life.”
When she mentions Ace, her face softens, and it makes my chest ache a little to witness the purity of her love for her husband. At first glance, he did seem terrifying to me, but I can tell Birdie meant what she said when she told me he’s a good person. And now, I’m convinced he really did save her in some capacity.
“Anyway, this isn’t about me,” she says. “Tell me what happened when you woke up in the hospital.”
“I just remember feeling disoriented,” I recall the day that it happened. “The nurse told me I’d collapsed in the street, and someone had called an ambulance. I was filthy and malnourished when they picked me up, so they thought I must have been homeless. They started asking me questions, and that’s when I realized something was wrong because I couldn’t answer any of them.”
Birdie frowns. “What was the last thing you could remember?”
“Nothing.” I shrug. “I had no idea who I was. No memories from my childhood. Nothing at all. Everything was wiped clean, like a hard drive. That’s what the doctor said, anyway.”
“So what did they do?” she asks.
“As much as they could. They ran tests and checked me for head injuries, but they couldn’t find any abnormalities. There was no explanation for it. And after a while, I got the sense they weren’t entirely sure they could believe it either.”
“I’m so sorry,” Birdie says. “That must have been terrifying.”
“It felt strange,” I admit. “Like I didn’t belong in this world. It was almost as if someone had just dropped me here one day without an instruction manual. I knew how to do things. I could tie my shoes and brush my teeth, and eventually, I figured out I had other skills, but I had no idea where I’d learned those things.”
“What happened after that?” Birdie presses.
“They kept me in the hospital for a week, but nobody came for me. After that, they sent me to a state facility for a month. The doctors tried to get my memory back, and when they couldn’t, they released me. They referred me back to local shelters, and that was where I stayed for a while. I worked with counselors there, but there wasn’t much else they could do. A caseworker tried to get me some identification so I could work, but the state wouldn’t approve it. It all seemed pretty hopeless until I met Eden. She wanted someone to watch her back, and it just fell into place that we teamed up from there. I knew she had her own issues, but neither of us could afford to be picky about who our allies were at that point.”
“So you’ve just been wandering around with her ever since?”
“Yep,” I sigh. “We did try to earn money at first. We washed windows, pumped gas, that sort of thing. But one day, we saw a guy singing on the street with his guitar, and I understood the music he was playing. When I told Eden, she thought it would be a good way to make money, so we saved and bought a couple of used guitars, and I taught her.”
“Well, I’m glad she was good to you when you needed it,” Birdie murmurs. “Because she’s been causing all kinds of hell down at the clubhouse.”
“What do you mean?”
She glances at the door, almost as if she knows she shouldn’t say anything, but the fact that she does tells me I can trust her. At least somewhat.
“She slept with one of the married guys, and now all the women want to toss her out on her ass. And apparently, she has a bit of a habit. The guy she was banging has been sneaking her coke, but now that she’s off it, she’s going berserk.”
