A Season for Fireflies (8 page)

I swallow hard and just launch into it. “May, I'm freaking
out. I don't know what's going on. I lost a lot of memories in the lightning strike. My mom told me we're not friends anymore. I don't remember.”

It seems to make sense that she be the first one I tell about my memory loss.

“Your
mom
told you?” She doesn't follow what I am saying. Shivers run over me because I'm sitting in the midst of the scrapbook of our lives and I don't know what to say to my best friend.

“A lot of things happened,” she says, and the tone of her voice, while soft, is guarded.

I want to say I'm sorry, but I don't know how to say I am sorry when I don't know what happened between us. I just miss her and the way she makes everything lighter,
funnier
even when I can't see the humor.

“I know I must have done something really stupid. Like quit theater and let you all down,” I start to say, but May cuts me off.

“You think that's what happened? You think because you quit theater that we all decided to stop being friends?” When she says it like that, I feel stupid for assuming so.

“I don't know,” I go on. “I guess you guys had to pick up the slack or something. I just—” I am about to say, “miss you” when May says, “Look, Penny. I don't want to talk about this when your memory is so messed up. It's not right.”

“No, I have to know. I need to know why I have twenty get-well cards and none are from you, Wes, Panda, or Karen. Or why none of my friends came to see me in the hospital.”

She takes a deep breath. “Fine. You decided Kylie was a better friend to have. So you ditched Panda, Karen, Wes”—she pauses
before she says—“and me. You wanted to party instead of be onstage.”

“I wanted to
party
? That sounds made up.”

“It felt like that to me for a long time too.”

A tear rolls down my cheek and I was so deep in her words I didn't notice I was going to cry. I wipe my nose with the back of my hand, not caring that it's gross and my skin is sticky. “But I don't remember,” I whisper. “I don't remember why”—I swallow hard—“we aren't friends.”

May stumbles over her words and I hear things like, “secrets,” “popular,” followed by “you got kinda mean, people didn't want to walk by you in the halls or sit near your crew at lunch.”

I don't want to hear anymore.

“You were an ice queen all of a sudden—”

She's midsentence when I hang up.

I lower my cell, placing it back on the carpet next to me. I hold down hard to turn it off so I don't know if she calls me back.

I gently place the newspaper clippings and photo albums back into the trunk in the order I took them out, making sure to close the lid, sealing all the photos, the scrapbooks, and the memories back inside. I rest a shaking hand on top of the trunk. An ice queen?

“Penny!” Dad's voice. “Kylie's here.”

My stomach tightens when I hear Kylie say, “Thanks, Mr. B.” It's so weird to hear her voice in my house. Now that I've heard it again, it's definitely the same voice from the hospital corridor. God, I don't want her to see the doll collection but my hand isn't strong enough to get them all in and tucked away fast
enough. I stand up from the floor and head back to sit at the edge of my bed.

I smell Kylie's perfume first. The rose essential oil that I've coveted since freshman year is made bitter by the overwhelming taste of metal still lingering in my mouth. There's a quick smack of Kylie's flip-flops on the hardwood landing and they stop at my doorway. I haven't covered my arms—it will be the first time anyone other than my parents and the people in the hospital have seen the strange burns on my body. I push up on the bed, scurrying to pull on the cardigan resting on my night table, but it's inside out and I'm not fast enough to slip it over me.

Kylie steps into the room and before “hello” can escape her mouth, her tight puckered lips ease and part. There they are—the figures, twisting across my skin, and shiny from the oodles of burn cream I put on last night. I can't hide my embarrassment.

But Kylie grins.

“Wow!” she says about the figures. “Pen, you are badass.”

“Thanks,” I say, not sure if that's the right response. I cross the floor to my desk and place the weight in my heel so I am grounded as I walk. It doesn't matter; my right foot drags a little anyway until I lean my hand on the back of the chair for support.

“You're limping,” Kylie says. She tries to keep it cool, but it's easy to see concern in her eyes.

“Thanks for trying to come see me at the hospital. I heard your voice, I think, in the hallway.”

“Ugh, I was so mad. They wouldn't let me in the ICU.”

“I remember,” I say. “I remember that.”

“I was like, my best friend's in there!”

Kylie plops down on my bed and leans back on her hands. She is in a black tank top and cut-off shorts. She has on what used to be white Converse sneakers but she's drawn crazy designs all over them. My name is in block letters on the sides of the right shoe.

“So what are they?” she asks with a little lift of her voice, and nods to the branches. She is trying to be more casual now that she's gotten over the shock of the figures, which I appreciate.

“Lichtenberg figures. They're like bruises from where the lightning hit. They'll fade eventually.” I wonder how many times I am going to have to say this when I get to school. Maybe not so many now that I'm telling Kylie. Her body language makes it obvious that she's been here, at my house, in my room, before. I try to recall it, but I can't. Nothing comes up.

Kylie takes a deep breath. “Look, I'm sorry about what I said at Tank's party. It's exhausting when you don't tell me what's going on. It's like you keep all these secrets. . . .” She is talking so fast I have no idea what to say first or how to respond. She takes a big breath. “And I had to try to put it together on my own.”

Put
what
together?

“I watched you act all shady. Your mom would be drinking and you would act like it was no big deal. And it started me thinking about how
I
was acting. And I don't want to be like that, you know? Closed off?”

I'm not closed off,
I think, and tuck some hair behind my ears. The spot where the IV was is still tender. Kylie thinks we're friends. She knows about Mom's drinking. She doesn't know about my memory yet. I have to tell her something.

“So when you were being all dodgy, I just snapped.” She exhales really sharply. “Sorry,” she says. “I've been wanting to get that out forever.”

“I'm sorry too,” I finally say. “For whatever I did. But . . .” She looks up at me, waiting for me to finish. “I don't actually
know
what I did.”

“What do you mean?” She grins. “Too drunk to remember the party? Maybe I was wrong about one and done?”

“No,” I say, and I want to pace but my numb foot makes it hard to talk and walk at the same time. “Not just the party.”

“Oh, I bet you can't remember the night of the strike. They say that can happen after traumatic accidents, right?” Kylie asks.

Kylie's eyes follow all of my movements and I don't want to lie to her.

“It's a lot more complicated than that,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

I can't explain it but I feel like I owe her the truth. “I can't remember anything from the last year. Since last May, actually.”

Her grin fades. “What are you talking about?”

“The lightning . . . it affected my memory.”

She frowns and it makes her features sharp. Thick mascara is the only makeup she seems to be wearing. She blinks hard and her mouth makes a tiny O shape as she understands what I am saying.

“May of last year?” she repeats. “Like before eleventh grade?” Her voice rises an octave.

I taste metal more than ever. I want lemonade or a lollipop.

She crosses her arms over her chest. “You don't remember Tank's party?”

I shake my head. She doesn't want to believe it.

“The Howl shows at the Joint?”

Again, no.

“My house? Pool parties? Riding around on Tank's tractor? Smoking weed in Patelli's basement?”

No. No. No. No. No.

“Fuck!” she cries. “Do you remember being friends with me?”

I whisper it this time. “No.”

She flinches at my response and stands up. My shame sits on my shoulders.

“I'm sorry,” I say, because I am. I'm so sorry.

Perfect, popular Kylie Castelli's eyes tear up and she looks down at the bedspread.

“You don't remember being friends.” She has her hand over her mouth. It's only then that I see she's wearing a ring, a thin silver band with a small blue stone. It's identical to the one I'm wearing. They gave it to me at the hospital but I hadn't thought much of it. I assumed it was a gift from Mom and Dad.

If I try really hard, maybe something will come, some shred of memory from the past year. I will it from the darkness. I struggle for any clue, but my mind is pitch-black and I can't find my way to the light.

My legs aren't strong enough, so I have to sit down. I grip the bedpost with my left hand. I have to press my heels into the floor to steady myself. If I grip too tight I might set off a spasm.

“I don't know what happened. Or why I stopped hanging
out with my friends.” I quickly rebound when she flinches. “My other friends. You know, May Harper, Panda Thomas, Wes Peterson . . .”

Kylie's frown sets even deeper. “You said you didn't want to be in theater anymore. That you wanted something different,” she explains.

I take a step closer to Kylie.

“When? When did I say that?”

She drops her eyes and searches the floor.

“All the time.”

“All
the time?” I repeat. “I don't talk to Wes? Or May? Or anyone from the theater?”

“No. Not really.”

“Why? There has to be some reason!”

She slaps her hands to her thighs. “God, Penny.
I'm
standing right here.”

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You're right.”

After a moment she explains, “There's not much to tell. My car broke down. You picked me up. I took you to Alex James's party. That was the night we became friends—we've been friends ever since.”

“Alex James? The guy who always wears bright-colored Polos?”

“He asked you out right before Tank's party. We were dying over it. Penny? Remember?” I don't know what she reads from my expression but her eyes widen. “God, you
really
don't remember, do you?”

“I wish I did. I remember you from school and stuff. It's
just . . . Kylie, I don't
know
you.”

Kylie breaks into a sob and turns, running for the door. “I have to go,” she cries.

“Kylie, wait!” I call, and move too quickly. The screaming, needling pain blasts from the center of my right palm. The seizing comes in waves. The pain cuts off my words. The muscles in my palm clench so tight that my fingers are drawn together, straight and awkward. I have to bend over to tolerate the pain.

I yell out and fall to my knees in the middle of the room. My back shudders and my fingers close, pinching together tighter and tighter, until the fingertips touch. The spasms run from my neck to my tailbone.

I cry out and heavy footsteps run up the stairs. Not Mom's, but Dad's.

“It's okay,” he says, and wraps his hands around me to steady the pain. “It's okay, Penny. Just breathe.”

But I can't.

THAT MONDAY MORNING BEFORE SCHOOL STARTS,
I finally get access to my computer for a carefully timed twenty minutes.

My online accounts show a world that has existed, up until now apparently, only in my wildest imagination.

In many of the photos, Kylie and I drink from the same bottle of vodka at parties, wear matching leather jackets at concerts, and have coordinating face paint at football games. In each photo Lila and Eve are in the background, but
we
are in the foreground of the picture, arms draped around each other. We are the stars. We're clearly best friends.

It's weird but—I'm jealous of this photograph version of me.

It's been ten days since I was struck in Tank's pool. Ten days that I have been covered with these markings, and that my memory has been blank. On the computer, I scroll back through all the days I was in the hospital, through the well wishes and various notes. I stop when I get to the feed from the night of the strike.

There's a photo of Kylie and me wearing dark crimson lipstick. We make kissy faces in the rearview mirror of a car. That's right! I can drive! I missed my sixteenth birthday. I scroll back up to the top of the page and do a double take at some of the posts right before the lightning strike. I actually scoot closer to the monitor.

Congrats on homecoming nom!

You were nominated, Penny!

I
was nominated for homecoming queen? I wait to be excited. I should want to jump up and down in my seat.

But I'm not. I fixate on the names of the people writing me messages. None of them are people I know. Acquaintances, sure, but none of them are my friends.

I scroll back as many months as I can, but it's a flutter of posts that all look similar. Kylie and I are out at live music shows or riding around in my car or hers.

I keep going and the first post is from late May, 2015. Right after I quit
Much Ado About Nothing.

“Penny!” Dad calls. “Let's go! We don't want to be late for your meeting!”

I've had online accounts since seventh grade—the year Mom let me get my own laptop. But there's
no
evidence of the
two years before this. I must have deleted my original accounts and started new ones. A memory, like a firefly, darts around in my head. If I could only catch it, I might be able to figure out how any of this happened. But that firefly darts deeper into the black of my mind and pulses like a faraway star. If only I could get to it.

I close the laptop cover; I don't want to look anymore.

After a minute or two, I'm almost done with my morning rituals of burn cream and medication. Last but not least, the superfun process of getting dressed. I stand before the clothes in my closet, but I don't recognize a single item on a hanger. I tug at a pair of jeans and pull them closer to me.
La Brea?
Kylie is always wearing them. These are the most ridiculously expensive designer jeans and I have
two pairs
in my closet. I sit on the bed and pull the jeans on. The fabric suctions to my leg. With a tug upward using my left hand, the tight denim sears along the vines on my skin.

“Holy hell!” I cry out, and kick them off. They coil on the ground near my feet. I rub some silver sulfadiazine cream to help with the stinging burns.

I grab a pair of leggings and slip them on instead. The fabric is soft against my skin. Even though they stop at the ankle, I use some stage makeup I find in the trunk to cover the last branches that coil onto the top of my foot. After slipping on a tank top and a long-sleeved cardigan, even though it's seventy-five degrees out, I tap a little concealer along my collarbone as well. I limp to the bedroom door.

Last night, after another round of the burn cream for my
figures, Mom gave me a fresh bag of fruit-flavored sucking candies. I still taste metal no matter how much sweet gum or lemonade I have. I eat a cherry one anyway and throw the rest in my school bag.

I trudge down the stairs slowly. Even with the makeup covering my skin, I'm still self-conscious about my limp.

The streets are nearly empty as we drive up toward school. It's well before any students will be there because I get to kick off my first day back with an early-morning meeting with the headmaster, my teachers, and the school counselor.

“I guess they're going to want to talk to me about everything,” I say.

Dad sighs. “Look, Pen. Your mom and I wanted you to find out from us first, and well, your mom slept in today, but I—”

“What?” I say, and turn to him. I forgot to move slowly; the figures ache and I suck in a sharp breath. “I'm okay,” I say quickly. “What's going on?” Dad pulls onto the path that leads up to the double doors of the school. “You said the meeting was to get me up to speed and get back on track.”

“Are you sure you don't want me to come?” Dad says. We're idling outside school. “You can take more time off. We can homeschool.”

“
What's
going on, Dad?”

He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“They have to put you on a probationary period as a senior. We don't know how much information you've retained and what you've lost since the strike. Or if it will affect how you learn new things.”

My heart sinks. “They're keeping me back?”

All I can see in my head are Wes, May, Panda, and Karen, walking across the stage at graduation without me. I grip the seat cushion but the middle of my right hand zings and I have to relax. Except, they're not my friends anymore. I try to picture myself walking across the stage with Kylie, Lila, and Eve, but it doesn't feel the same.

“No. They're not holding you back—not yet, anyway. But they've taken you out of AP for now.”

“But I've always been on the honors track. I worked so hard—”

“I know, I know. But Pen, eleventh grade was really hard academically and we don't know yet what you've kept and what you might have lost. We just have to wait and see.”

“I just want my life back,” I say.

“I know. Just go in and talk to them, and you can call me after to let me know what happens.” He pauses. “But I really think I should come with you.”

“I have to do this myself,” I say, and look up at the double doors. “I have to.”

Dad nods and kisses me on the forehead. He pulls away to rummage in the backseat for something.

I double-check that I have the stage makeup concealer in my bag so I can cover any stray ferns throughout the day. I don't want the headmaster, or anyone for that matter, to see them and think I need to be kept back. I am about to open the car door when Dad says, “Wait. I got you something.” He pulls out a small brown paper bag. I pull out a leather-bound journal with
my initials engraved in tiny gold letters on the front: PLB.

“I
love
it,” I say.

“Dr. Abrams said you should do your best to note any inconsistencies with your memory. I thought you could use a journal to keep track of it all.” He smiles. “And I thought it was cool.”

“It
is
cool,” I say. “Thanks.” I kiss him quickly on the cheek and let him go back home to write his typical nine thousand emails to people about his new inventions.

“You can call or text me after the meeting?” he says through the window, once I'm already out of the car.

“Text you?” I say. “Do you do that now?”

“I try but I'm not that hip,” he says. “Lots of typos.”

“Get with the times, Dad,” I say, and note the irony of my situation with a cringe.

“Hey! She's already back to punning!”

I laugh, and limp my way up toward school.

“Well, I think it's important that we be realistic here.” The headmaster's voice is as annoying as ever. Six thirty and I'm sitting here in between Headmaster Lewis, School Counselor Ms. Winters, and Ms. Reley, who's been assigned as my faculty advisor while I readjust to school. Reley is notorious for being a hard-ass. Yippee.

“Penny was third in her class last year,” Reley says.

I
was
?

“She'll catch up quickly.”

“I just don't know,” Headmaster Lewis says with a shake of his head. “It's a lot of work to make up.”

“Know what?” Reley retorts, and I can hear the aggravation
in her voice. “The state said it's our discretion given her academic record. We've already taken her out of accelerated classes.”

“Look.” Ms. Winters sighs. She seems to be sighing her way through this whole meeting. “I think we should hold off on taking any drastic measures like holding Penny back a year until we see just how permanent her memory loss is. We might be overreacting for nothing.”

I nod. I like that idea.

Headmaster Lewis flips through a file folder, which I would love to get my hands on. Over the top, I can see a typed letter with the Memorial Hospital logo.

“Penny's memory loss is very extensive,” Headmaster Lewis says. “And eleventh grade is an important year academically. I fear without the memory of last year, she won't be adequately prepared for college next year.”

“She may not remember the events of last year but it doesn't mean that her development and skill set are compromised,” Ms. Winters explains, and I hope that it's true.

“What do you want to do, Penny?” Ms. Reley asks.

I can hear the chatter from the hallway as it begins to fill up with people.

“It's strange. I feel like I should be in eleventh grade and taking my SATs. The timing feels off. But I want to be with my friends. I want to be with—” I am about to say their names: Wes, May, Panda, and Karen. “I need to get back to the way things were. Apply to college,” I say quietly.

The headmaster looks thoughtful. “If we keep you where you are, we'll need to establish some ground rules to help you succeed
academically.” He ticks things off on his fingers. “Someone will have to get Penny up to speed on her standardized testing scores and work with her on her college applications.”

That's right. I took the SATs already.

“We will also need to provide her with a note-taking buddy and a peer tutor.”

An idea rushes into my head. I know the
perfect
tutor.

“May I suggest someone?” I ask.

“I don't see why not,” Headmaster Lewis says. “It will need to be someone you work well with, after all.”

“May Harper would be great.”

They all share a glance, one that says,
bad idea
. After a pause, Ms. Winters says, “We'll check with May today. If she agrees, we'll get you guys working straightaway.”

The meeting is adjourned and I limp out of the room. I hesitate before stepping out of the administrative offices and into the hallway. I don't know who I will sit with at lunch or who will make room for me. I haven't heard from Kylie since she ran out of my bedroom. I sit down in a chair near the doorway. In my new notebook, I write down the two questions from last night and scribble a third question below the other two:

    
1.
Why
did
I
quit
theater
?

    
2.
How
am
I
friends
with
Kylie
Castelli
?

The third is probably the most important . . .

    
3.
How
do
I
apologize
and
get
my
friends
back
?