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What?
Snapping out of my daze, I pick up the phone and clear my throat. “Hello?”
The caller sighs in relief. “I’m sorry to have resorted to that, but I really need to know you’re okay. I know it’s a lot to process, and I’m sorry we couldn’t get to you before he passed away, but—”
“Who passed away?”What’s going on here?
“Are you sitting down?”
I look around to check, but it’s dark. Why is it dark? I thought I turned a light on. I feel faint. I—
“Miss, miss, it's okay.” I thrash around as arms pin me down. Wasn’t I just on the phone? What the hell is going on?
“Miss, you fainted and hit your head, but there was only minor bleeding, and you’re okay.”
I fainted? When?
“What?” My voice comes out croaky, so I clear it and try again. “Why did I faint?”
When my eyes finally focus, I see a young lady bending down in front of me, signaling for the person behind me to let me go. When her gaze meets mine, her eyes are full of sympathy.
“You don’t remember?”
Do I? Racking my brain, I search for any hint as to what the hell is going on, but nothing springs to mind.
“No.”
“Miss Greco, you were listed as an emergency contact to Eric Lancaster. Is that correct?”
I swallow a lump in my throat as fragments of this morning come back…
“Single car accident.”
“Passed away just after one a.m.”
“Passenger died at the scene.”
“Are you alone?”
All of those things tell me one thing… He’s gone.
Clearing my throat again, I nod. “Yes, that’s correct.” And tell her I’ve got my memory back, I remember. And yet, I can't process the information. I'm staring blankly at the woman in front of me, but can’t see anything. It's all a blur.
She runs through what I have to do, and it all starts to makes sense, until…
“He wasn’t in San Fran and he wasn’t alone?”
“No, miss. He wasn’t.”
What? He never said… Where was he? What was he doing? Who was he with? And why? Why? Why?
“Dani! Dani! Are you sure you’re ready?” the dean of Heartwood University, Charles—my dad’s college best friend—repeats, pulling me from my memories, his face full of concern.
I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment before putting on a smile. “Yes, sorry. Got lost in my thoughts. I was thinking about something I forgot at work.”
Charles’s sympathetic gaze tells me he’s not buying my story, but he graciously pretends otherwise. Today, I’m moving out of the dorms. Well, I’m starting the process. I’ve been here too long already. Charles pulled some strings to find me a place here—after my world turned to shit—and I’ll forever be grateful for that. But I have to move on. Physically anyway. It’s been eighteen months since that accident, and I’m almost thirty. I shouldn’t be here.
“I’m ready,” I say with a little more conviction than my previous attempts. “I found a cute little studio off Main, and I got the keys today.”
