Page 68 of The Do-Over
But that’s different. He didn’t lose all his memories of high school.
When he’d called his friend Bradley, though, he had reacted positively to the sound of Bradley’s voice. She’d noticed that. He hadn’t sounded the way you sound when you speak to a stranger on the phone. There’d been no formality or anxiousness, only a bit of confusion that he had worked to hide.
If he remembered feelings like that, why had he forgotten his indifference toward her?
She had thought it was because he had forgotten about their breakup. But now she wasn’t so sure. He remembered the breakup now. It had come back to them when they’d been sitting in his father’s kitchen.
And he kissed me after that.
Maybe it was just going to take his heart a while to catch up to what his mind knew. Maybe he was still feeling things for her for the simple reason that feelings had roots and took time to fade.
She certainly knew that firsthand, after what she’d experienced when he had left. She’d been devastated. She’d spent her whole first year of college trying to get over him and failing.
Time heals all wounds, her mother had said. And she had been right. The pain of losing the life she and Rob had fantasized about together had faded to a dull memory. It was like something out of a dream now.
And as soon as Rob’s memories returned, he’d feel the same way.
He hadn’t pined over her the way she had over him. He wouldn’t want to linger. He’d want to move on.
With a sigh, she got up and went out to the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee.
When she got there, though, she stopped abruptly.
Rob was out on the porch. She could see his silhouette through the window, gazing off into the distance. He looked lost in thought.
I should go out to him.
She put the coffee on and then opened the door. “Rob,” she called softly.
He turned toward her. His face was drawn and pale. It worried her.
“Come back inside,” she said. “You don’t even have a coat on. It’s freezing out here.”
“Thea,” he said. “What if my memories don’t come back?”
“That’s what you’re out here worrying about?”
“Of course. What did you think?”
She’d assumed he would be thinking about his father. They had just been in his childhood home, after all. He’d just revealed the fact that his father had been abusive toward him. “Rob, you’re getting your memories back already,” she said. “What about earlier, when we talked about your basketball coach?”
He shook his head. “A basketball coach is nothing,” he said. “What if this is as good as it gets? What if I’ve lost seventeen years of my life? A whole medical career. I’m supposed to be accepting an award soon. How am I supposed to get up in front of a bunch of people and be congratulated on something I have no memory of doing? Something that I know for a fact I wouldn’t be able to do again if I was asked?”
“They’re not going to ask you to perform field surgery.”
“But I want to perform field surgery!” he cried. “It’s my whole life now, Thea. I’m thirty-five years old, and I don’t have a wife or a family. My work is my whole life. I must have loved it so much. I can imagine loving it. I just can’t remember it. It’s gone, and I don’t know if I’m ever going to get it back.”
“You will,” Thea said firmly.
“But if I don’t—”
“If you don’t, you’ll find something else,” Thea said. “You’re still young, Rob.”
“I’m thirty-five.”
“That only feels old to you because your last memory is of being eighteen. Think about it, though. Do you really feel eighteen?”
He sighed. “No,” he said. “Everything hurts. I thought it was just because of the accident at first, but this is just what my body’s like now, isn’t it?”
