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He makes a face. “I don’t have time for that. I just want to know if it’s doing well. Which… I mean, books that are good sell well, don’t they?”
I snort. “Can I see your phone?”
Knox slides that toward me. I open the internet browser and search the author’s name. She’s got a website. She publishes on her own. Or rather, she owns a publishing company for her works.
I click on one of the sales pages and scan the reviews—there are over ten thousand of them—and the sales rank.
Both are impressive.
“Where’d you buy this?”
“The bookstore down the street.”
“Well, there you go.”
He shakes his head.
“Bookstores don’t just stock indie books, Knox. Like, self-published books. One, those authors don’t have a team at a publishing house getting those books on shelves.” I hold up a finger. “And two,” I add another, “they don’t do a thousand-book print run, it’s all print-on-demand these days.”
“So…”
“It’s popular enough that the employee in charge of inventory heard of the book and got approval for them to get it in stock.”
“How do you know that?” Jacob asks.
I frown. “I… I did my undergrad thesis on the changing environment of publishing.”
He smiles.
“What?”
“What do you mean, what? You just remembered all that.”
Oh. It’s startling, but I find myself smiling back. “But it wasn’t like a memory. It was just there when I started talking about it.”
“That’s okay.” Jacob leans in. “What did I do when you got in my truck for the first time?”
I wrinkle my nose. “You stuck your face in my lap.”
Knox bursts out laughing.
I cringe, but Jacob is grinning ear to ear. “Youremember.”
“Maybe,” I mumble.
But the thing is, I don’t feel different.
I thought remembering—or at least remembering some of the big stuff—would mean my old personality would come back, too. But even though I remember getting to my classroom only to realize there was a snow day, and Jacob finding me and goading me into joining him, it doesn’t mean I’m the same woman who followed him to the parking garage and let him twist me toward him.
But at the same time, who am I if not her?
Who am I if notme?
“Melody.” Jacob holds my cheeks. “Breathe, songbird.”
I blink rapidly, focusing on his face. On the whistling, exaggerated breaths for me to mimic. I match his speed, trying not to let myself go out of control again, until my pulse slows.
“Sorry.” I cough. “Sorry.”
