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Dr. Allen pats my mother’s shoulder.
“The same goes for you, Mrs. Jeffries.” He glances at me. “I’ll send a resident to check on her and run some tests, but she is stable and everything looks good right now.”
“Everything looks good?” I shake my head. “Then why can’t I remember…?”
“Don’t force yourself, Cathy.” Dr. Allen grabs my hand. “Your body has done well to get you to a point where you are now awake. Do not waste all that effort.”
He squeezes my hand.
“Besides, maybe it’s better that you don’t remember,” he mutters.
I look at him. “What?”
Dr. Allen leaves my side. He gives my mother a nod before walking out of the room.
I throw my mother a questioning look. “What did he mean? What happened to me, Mom?”
She approaches my bedside and takes my hand but says nothing.
“Mom, please.”
I’m just so confused right now. I feel so lost. I feel like I’m missing something important.
I look into my mother’s eyes. “I need to know what happened.”
She nods and draws a deep breath. Hal places his hand on her shoulder.
“You drowned,” my mother tells me.
My eyes grow wide. Drowned?
“In a lake. You were vacationing with… with friends, remember?”
No. I don’t remember. I don’t even know the last thing I do remember.
Think, Cathy.
Well, I remember my mother, obviously, and Hal, my step-dad. I remember going to school. I’m in… ninth grade?
“What grade am I?” I ask my mother.
“You’ll be starting tenth grade in a few weeks,” she answers.
Right. So I am in ninth grade. I remember that much. I remember the last day of school, which Trisha and I celebrated by eating all the Ben and Jerry’s we could afford.
Trisha. Yes, I remember her. My best friend. I remember her sleeping over. I remember us watching DVDs from Netflix. I remember us making our own pizza – mine with loads of cheese and bacon and hers with those olives she loves so much. I remember her birthday, which we spent at the mall – just the two of us because everyone else was already busy with their summer escapades. And I remember her jumping up and down as she told me we’d be going to her uncle’s lakeside cabin with her cousin.
Lakeside cabin.
Lake.
I look at my mother. “You said I drowned in a lake?”
She nods. “Well, nearly. Or should I say you drowned but were resuscitated?”
No way. I can swim. Well, not as well as Trisha, but…
My thoughts skid to a halt.
“Where’s Trisha?” I ask. “She was there, right?”
I’m sure she can explain everything to me. Why isn’t she here, anyway? Back when I had my appendectomy, she was right by my side.
My mother doesn’t answer. She just pulls her hand away and purses her lips as she bows her head.
My chest tightens. I’ve seen that look before, back when she told me that my father would never come back so that I wouldn’t keep waiting for him.
What is it she’s hiding from me now? What bad news is she trying to keep from me?
“Mom…”
Slowly, she lifts her head. The look of grief in her eyes makes tears well up in mine.
“Trisha… didn’t make it, sweetheart,” my mother tells me in a trembling voice which seems to echo from a world away as she places her hand over mine. “They… couldn’t save her.”
My jaw drops. No.
What is she saying? That Trisha’s dead? Impossible. Trisha can’t be dead. She’s only just turned sixteen. She’s perfectly healthy. I was just with her.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
It can’t be. Trisha wouldn’t leave me. We said we’d graduate high school together, go to college together, share an apartment in the city after we started working and then live next door to each other when we had our own families so our kids could be best friends and we could cook meals together and keep watching movies together and talk about our husbands while we drank wine.
I shake my head as tears trickle down my cheeks. Trisha can’t be gone. She’s my best friend. She’s like a sister to me. She’s…
I clasp both hands over my heart as I feel it break.
“No!!!”
Chapter 1
Cathy
I kick off my high heels and drop myself onto the couch. The worn out cushions sink beneath my weight. The old springs creak. I lean back but wince as I feel the teeth of my amber hair clip dig into my scalp. I take it out so my hair tumbles past my shoulders and try again. This time, I feel the cool softness of cotton against the back of my head and I let out a sweet sigh of relief.
Finally, I can relax.
All day long, I’ve been walking and waiting. I’ve been trudging around in two-and-a-half-inch heels from one building to another. I’ve been to corporate offices, a bank, a hotel, a department store and a cafe. And that’s just today. I’ve been waiting in lobbies, corridors and yes, waiting rooms, for minutes and even hours just to hand someone a resume and then be told to wait for their call or worse, be turned away for not having any experience. How am I supposed to get any experience if no one will give me a chance?
