“I…I just don’t know,” I said. “The truth is, I don’t even know you. I don’t even know what we have in common.”

“There’s lots of stuff,” Ace said.

“Tell me, then. I’d really like to know.”

“Tennis. School.” Ace sighed. He wouldn’t turn back around. “I love you, Naomi.”

“Why?”

He shrugged violently. “Jesus, I don’t know. Why does anyone like anyone? Because you’re super-hot?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“I’m asking you. I mean I’m telling you. I don’t know. You’re confusing me.” Ace turned around and looked at me helplessly, hopelessly. “Because you’re good at school, but can also hold a drink. Because we used to talk about stuff. I don’t know. I just did.”

“Did or do?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Did in the past, or do in the present?”

“Do! I meant do. Isn’t that what I said?” He collapsed onto his bed, so that he was staring up at his ceiling. The box spring squeaked in agony, which started Jonesy barking again. I opened Ace’s door, and Jonesy ran in. Luckily, Jonesy wasn’t in the mood for sex anymore either. He wanted cuddling and intimacy. He jumped onto the bed and lay down next to Ace.

“But honestly, you’ve been acting so weird lately,” Ace said quietly.

Maybe because I can’t remember anything? I thought bitterly.

“Like yelling at Alex in the car, what was that about? And now you’re in this play? And your hair!”

It was the first he’d mentioned it since the day I’d cut it. I had no idea he was still thinking about it. “What about my hair?” I asked. Not because I cared, but because I was sort of curious.

“I loved it long.”

It was the second time he’d used the word love all night, but it was the only time I believed him.

“I’m not used to it this way,” he continued. “I honestly don’t even know what to think.”

“Say what you mean, Ace.”

“I hate your stupid hair,” he said, his voice rusty with truth, bitterness, feeling. Everything else he’d said the whole time we’d been together had sounded merely confused or frustrated, but this was different. This was unmistakable. This was passion! It was what was missing from every other element of my relationship with Ace. It was what I’d heard when Alice spoke about the play, or Will about yearbook, or Dad about Rosa Rivera. It was what I’d heard when James had said he’d wanted to kiss me in the hospital.

For the record, I didn’t know boys could care so much about hair. Maybe this was asking too much, but I wanted someone who felt as strongly about the rest of me. Poor Ace. The boy had been in love with a haircut.

I knew what I had to do.

“I think we should take some time off. From each other, I mean,” I said. Then I tried to make a joke. “Give my hair some time to grow.”

Ace didn’t laugh. “Are you saying you want to break up?” he asked. Did I detect a hint of relief in his voice?

“Yes.”

“But that’s not what I want!” Ace protested a little too adamantly. “I want you to get your memory back and for everything to be like it was.”

“Well, maybe that will happen. But in all likelihood, it won’t. And you’ll be in college next year anyway, so this was bound to happen sooner or later,” I reasoned.

“Is it Will?” Ace asked.

This annoyed me. It only confirmed how much Ace didn’t know me. If anyone, it was James, and it wasn’t even James. It was no one. Or, more to the point, no one except Ace. “Will’s my friend, which is more than I can say for you.”

Ace closed his eyes. “This wasn’t the way I saw tonight going.”

I asked him if he could drive me home. When we got to my house, he walked me to the door. I kissed him on the cheek.

“I know this is probably dumb, but I feel like I’m never going to see you again,” he said.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ace. I’ll see you at school,” I replied, but of course I knew exactly what he had meant.

“What I said about your hair…” he began.

“It’s okay. You were being honest.”

By the following Tuesday, everyone at school seemed to know about our breakup. The story got back to me that Ace had dumped me because I was a “prude” in bed since the accident and “not entirely there,” both of which had some basis in truth while not conveying the essential nature of what had happened. I didn’t know if Ace spread these rumors or if they were just the idle speculation of my peers. People like Brianna, who’d had it in for me even more since I’d tried to stand up for her in the car. She could really let loose now that Ace was no longer required to defend my honor.

I would have understood if it had been Ace—maybe he was saving face, or maybe that was how he actually saw things? In any case, I did not go out of my way to set the record straight. People could think what they wanted to. Screw them.

6

I STILL HADN’T TOLD WILL ABOUT THE PLAY. Maybe it was because I felt like I was betraying him; maybe it was plain cowardice. I was late to yearbook about half the time and I let him think I was either with tutors or at the doctor. If my chronic tardiness annoyed him, Will was too much of a friend to let on.

He probably wouldn’t have found out about it at all, if Bailey Plotkin hadn’t shown up to photograph rehearsals. Bailey was the arts photographer for The Phoenix, the same position I’d held my freshman year, according to that year’s masthead. If I’d been paying any attention to yearbook matters, I might have guessed someone from the staff would eventually come.

Bailey was a mellow person in general, and he didn’t appear particularly surprised to see me. “I didn’t know you were in the play, Naomi. Cool,” was pretty much all he said about the matter. Still, I knew I had to tell Will, and preferably before he saw the pictures.

I went to the yearbook office as soon as rehearsal was over, and Will barely glanced up at me when I came into the room. He asked me if I’d had time to look over the cover mock-ups. I hadn’t, so I went to do that. The cover Will liked was all white with just the words The Phoenix in raised black text, all caps, right justified, halfway down the page. It was extremely plain and not the sort of thing you usually see on a high school yearbook. He had mentioned that it was a reference to an album or a book, but I hadn’t been paying enough attention. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it yet.

For the next two hours until yearbook was over, Will said nothing to me about the play. He was all business the whole time: very polite questions and no wisecracks. This was unlike him and only confirmed my belief that he already knew but was waiting for me to bring it up.

At the end of the meeting, I asked him for a ride home. “So that we can talk,” I added. He was quiet on the walk out to the parking lot. It was the end of October and I felt a chill, but it wasn’t from the weather. That fall had been particularly mild, and I was wearing a hoodie and a parka besides. I think the chill might have been something like déjà vu. I felt as if I had taken this very same walk before. Of course, I had. I had gotten many rides from Will since I’d been back at school, but there was something specifically familiar that I couldn’t quite identify.

“Are you cold?” he asked me when we were halfway to the parking lot. “I should have offered you my gloves.”

I shook my head. Will was always so concerned about me—even now, when he likely knew I’d been lying to him for weeks. It made me feel like the smallest person in the world.

When we got to the car, he stood there for a second without unlocking the doors.

“So?” I said.

“So, you’re the one who wanted to talk, Chief.”

“Well, um, in the car’s fine,” I said.

“I’d rather hear it here,” Will said.

I told him. “I’m in the play. I don’t know why I didn’t mention it before. That thing about the additional therapy was a lie.” I glanced over the roof of his car to see his reaction. He didn’t have one really, so I rambled on. “It happened almost by accident,” I continued, “but it’s only another two weeks, and then I’ll be back full-time.”

Will nodded for a second before replying, “You had sure as hell better comp me, Chief.” He loosened his school tie and then he laughed, so I asked him what was funny. “The thing is, I’d been afraid you were going to quit.”

“Why?”

“For the last couple of weeks, we’ve barely spoken. At least now I know there was a reason.”

I assumed he meant the play.

“And your heart hasn’t really been in it for a while. It’s only natural that I wondered. I want you to know I would probably have understood if you had quit with everything that’s happened to you, but I’m relieved that you didn’t.”

Will unlocked the doors to his car and we got in.

“The play…is it fun?” he asked me.

“Yeah, it is,” I admitted.

“I’m glad.” Will nodded and then he started the car.

When he got to my house, he asked if he could come in. He said he hadn’t seen my dad in a while.

I asked him why in the world he wanted to see my dad.

“Well, I really like his books. We’re pals, Grant and me.”

I told him that Dad was probably writing.

“Come on, Chief,” he said. “I haven’t been over to your house in eons.”

We went inside, but Dad wasn’t even there. Instead of leaving, Will sat down at the kitchen table. “I heard you and Zuckerman broke up,” he said.

“Yeah.” I didn’t really want to talk about it with Will, but he wasn’t taking the hint.