Page 6 of This Love
I pressed my palm to the blooms, reveling in the cool, delicate petals. My fingers trembled.
Was I nervous? Of course not. Marrying Tucker was the best thing I could imagine.
But an alarm went off in my chest. Something was wrong. I held up my hand. The tremor was growing, moving up to my wrist.
My arm dropped to the seat, no longer under my control.
Dad snapped to attention at the thud of my hand on the leather. “Ava?”
I realized with a jolt that I never took my seizure meds this morning. The most important part of my day. The most critical.
They were back in the cabinet over the boxes of leftover pastries from our decadent brunch.
I forgot about them. I was off schedule. Off routine.
I opened my mouth to tell my father, but it was too late. I couldn’t speak.
“Ava?” Dad asked. “Are you okay?”
I wasn’t.
A mechanical whine buzzed in my head. My vision grew dim in degrees, like someone was punching a button to turn the brightness down.
“That’s a seizure,” Dad said. “Damn it.” He grasped my shoulders as I began to tilt.
I could still think, although everything moved in slow motion. Maybe it would be short. Maybe it wouldn’t generalize to my whole body.
But as I listed sideways into my father’s arms, I knew I would not get lucky here.
This one would be bad.
Something will go wrong. It always does. The makeup artist had predicted it.
But this time it wouldn’t be okay.
My seizures differed from most. They caused complete amnesia. My entire memory got erased.
Tucker. My love. My rescuer.
My father, my sisters, Vinnie.
In a moment, I wouldn’t remember who anyone was.
As the blackness took over, I tried to hold them in my mind.
Tucker. Father. Amanda. Jennifer.
I said their names over and over inside my head.
I couldn’t forget them.
I couldn’t start over.
Not today. Not on my wedding day.
Surely, I could hold on.
But then, it all winked out.
