Loud Awake and Lost

All been over what? The smarter move? Was there a dumber move? What did my parents think might happen to me at school? “Dad, what do you mean, no matter what happens?” I asked. “That sounds so dire.”

“No, I just meant, because we need to gauge your recovery. That’s all. Take it day by day.”

“Right.” Though I wasn’t sure that Dad was saying all that he meant.

“Hey, Chef.” Rachel waved a spud-speared fork across my line of vision. “When are you whipping up a dinner here? We’ve gone too long without a Leferrier Friday Folly. Might be fun—a chance to bring the whole gang together.”

“Oh.” I hadn’t hosted a Folly in…a year? Over a year?

“You didn’t forget how to cook, did you?” Rachel gave me a look of mock inspection. “I can handle the lost memory. I can handle the Frankenbolt in your spine, but you’ve been a kitchen genie since fourth grade.”

“I didn’t forget. Actually, I’ve been saving recipes like always. I was making files at Addington.” What I couldn’t say was that every time I’d started reading one of my floppy, dog-eared cookbooks or visited some of my favorite gourmet websites, it had been like the language of a country I’d studied but had never visited. Except for now—boom!—here was some taste back. Homegrown rosemary. Bright buds of whole-grain mustard in the potato salad. The blackberries baked soft and sweet under their biscuity cobbler blanket. “We’ll do something this Friday,” I said impulsively. “Let’s invite the crew. Why not?”

“Done! Deal!” Across the table, Rachel leaned forward and high-fived me. “I’ll come over early and chop stuff.”

“Sweet.” But this Friday felt close. Could I? For real? I glanced down at my hands, soft and pink, the only part of my body that was less marked up than eight months ago. Hardly any evidence of my chef’s nicks, scars, or blisters on them.

“And maybe we’ll ask Holden?” Rachel’s voice gave away how much she was pretending that this was a casual question.

Holden Wilde. My ex and Rachel’s other bestie—plus Holden and Rachel were first cousins, a thicker skin of closeness. Rachel had been shocked at our breakup, almost a year ago now. So had my parents. Everyone adored Holden.

Obviously I had, too. I’d adored him most.

Holden had visited me at the hospital right after it happened. Then, a few weeks after, when I’d transferred to Addington, he’d come to see me again. I could hardly remember the first visit. I’d been on drips, feeds, the IV. In pain, out of it.

But when I saw him in the doorway at Addington, my eyes had stung with gratitude. He’d brought me a teddy bear and a six-pack of cozy socks, and he stayed with me past the soup and custard lunch. He’d looked cute that day, too, in his preppy Mount Gay Rum insignia hoodie and with his hair swooped over one eye. His casual put-togetherness had made me feel even more mortified about my scars, my straggly hair, and my stubbly legs. Holden being sweetly Holden, he’d seemed to understand this. He’d let me grip his hand, he’d let me cry, he’d let me lash out in rage—it had been so hard, in those first weeks, to hold on to any one emotion for longer than a minute. Every feeling had been an imperative, and they’d all needed to be exorcised like demons.

“You’ll get through it, Ember,” he’d said, cupping my face in his hands and pressing a kiss to my chapped mouth and my chin, just before he’d left. “I know you’re feeling pretty beat up, but never forget it’s what’s inside that counts.”

Which had confused me. As bruised and damaged as I knew I looked, it was me-on-the-inside that felt the most in need of repair.

After that visit, Holden had called a few times—conversations filled with more clumsy brakes-and-goes than a driver’s ed test. Eventually, the calls stopped. And I didn’t call him, either. We were broken up, after all. Besides, it was his senior year. I owed him the kindness of not dragging him down into my mess.

And then one late-in-August weekend, Mom had arrived at Addington with some family albums—Mom preferred the old-fashioned process of cutting and pasting and hand-note captions to anything digital. I opened the most recent album, not quite knowing what I’d find. What I found was Holden. Through the months and holidays, Holden kept staring back at me. Navy eyes, walnut-brown hair. His signature smile that was almost fierce, even though he was one of the gentlest, most unassuming people I’d ever known.

I’d unpeeled my favorite shot—Holden and me last fall, at Clarence Pumpkin Patch on Long Island—and hid it under my flat-foam Addington pillow. For company. For privacy. For memories—although, truth be told, by the time that picture had been memorialized in the scrapbook, we’d been walking the plank toward breakup.

But still I didn’t contact him. Not until a month ago, when it looked like I’d be released. I sent the first text. He answered in thirty seconds. The texts turned into Gchats that lasted for hours. Suddenly we had so much to say.

And so we’d gotten close again. On laptops at least.

“Not sure you’ve heard, but Holden’s started NYU. He’s on campus, but he’s home some weekends.” Rachel’s voice broke my reverie. “I’ll invite him from you? Super casual?”

“Yeah, that’d be cool. We’ve been texting a little bit, actually. So maybe I’ll invite him myself.” Obviously I knew about NYU. I’d helped Holden pick out his classes, and I’d heard about his sweaty, clarinet-playing roommate and his brilliant Intro to Psych professor. Holden had even let me in on some details of his crush, Cassandra Atwater from Toronto, who lived down the hall and was on the diving team.

“Oh! Well! That’s great!” Rachel couldn’t hide her surprise. Holden plainly had kept Rachel in the dark about us being in touch. I was relieved and grateful for his discretion, but not surprised. Holden wasn’t exactly Mr. Overshare.

“Friday Folly. Oh my goodness. There were times I thought I’d never…” Mom’s voice broke. She cleared her throat and lifted her glass of water. “To Ember. Good as new.”

And now everyone raised a glass to knock mine in loving bumps. The thanks for my second chance beaming in their faces. After all, I, Ember Grace Leferrier, beloved only child of Sam and Natalie Leferrier, had survived a car accident that should have ended my life. Instead, February 14th had cost me a broken jaw, two major spinal fusion surgeries, a shattered right kneecap, and nine teeth.