Page 3 of Heidi Lucy Loses Her Mind

“Well,” the doctor says, and I give my attention back to him. His frown is deeper than ever as he says, “It looks like we need to run some more tests.”

* * *

It is roughlyone million hours later that I finally get to go home.

Or three. Whatever.

Soren is being uncharacteristically gentle, and it’s nearly as strange as waking up in the hospital in the first place. His hand hovers over my bandaged head as he helps me into the passenger seat of his car, and his murmured “Careful” is so low I almost don’t hear it.

“Does it hurt?” he says once he gets in, buckling his seatbelt and looking at me.

“Yes,” I admit. Even with the ibuprofen they gave me, there’s a dull throb in my temple.

He starts the car and pulls out of our parking spot. “I’m sorry.”

“Eh.” I shrug. “I’m not worried about it.” I’ve grown somewhat adept at sitting with my pain. An odd thing to say, maybe, but it’s true. I taste it, touch it, find its textures and flavors and teach myself that no two hurts are the same, no two wounds will ever scar the same way—that some pain is sharp, some is bitter, some is sweet.

Maybe I collect my hurts like children collect spare change on the sidewalk. They don’t look for it, but if they stumble upon it, they tuck it in their pocket and ferry it home.

Pain tells me that I’m alive; this pain will be no different.

“My grandmother would call that a goose egg,” Soren says, pulling me from my wandering thoughts.

I poke the bump on my head gingerly; I might get a Harry Potter scar out of this. “More like an elephant egg,” I mutter.

“Hmm,” Soren says. He exhales loudly and shakes his head. “I have bad news for you about elephants and their egg-laying capabilities.”

I turn to look out the window so he won’t see my fleeting smile. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he says. When he sighs, though, I look at him. His expression is stormy, his brows pulled low. His arm is draped lazily over the wheel, but the drumming of his fingers gives him away.

Something is wrong. That feeling returns, a nervous fluttering, a tremor in my veins.

“Soren—”

“What’s going on, Heidi?” he says at the same time. “You really don’t remember anything that happened today? Or yesterday, I guess, now that it’s past midnight—whatever.”

“I told you I don’t.” And it’s bothering me. “I don’t understand what happened.”

“You called me,” he says. He flicks the turn signal, a littleclick-click, click-click, click-clickfilling the space between us as he waits to turn out of the parking lot. “At…I don’t know. Nine-thirty-ish, maybe.”

“I called you?” I say. “That doesn’t sound like something I would do.” It’s mostly true. Soren and I have a bit of an odd relationship. We’re friends, I guess, but there’s an awareness to our friendship that makes it nearly impossible to relax completely.

He snorts. “Well, you did. And you left a voicemail.”

My eyebrows shoot up at this. “Did I?” I never leave voicemails.

But Soren nods, his eyes still trained on the passing cars. He hands me his phone. “Listen to it. It’s…odd.”

There’s a strange note in his voice, something I can’t place. I take the phone, swallowing my nervousness. It falls back down my throat and congeals in my gut.

“Passcode,” I say, holding the phone out to him.

I expect him to take it and enter the code himself; I don’texpect him to answer immediately. But he does, without hesitation.

“One, zero, one, five,” he says.

I start, tapping the numbers in quickly before I forget. “What’s the significance?” I say. It’s not his birthday.

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