“I’ve been friends with them a long time?”

  “For the most part. It’s a little complicated.” She patted my arm, and I wondered what could be so complicated about a group of friends.

  “How?”

  “Huh?”

  “How is it complicated?”

  Maybe if she said something familiar, my memory would spark or come to life, and all the pieces of this fucked up, broken puzzle would put themselves back together.

  I watched as she tried to formulate her thoughts into the right words, the way she always did. It only made me impatient, and I was about to snap at her when she said, “You don’t have a normal life, Ryson. You guys aren’t just normal kids.”

  “Mom, please. What does that even mean? Just spit it out already.” I shifted in my bed, pulling at one of the pillows behind my back and moving it up higher.

  “You’re a famous actor.”

  Her lips pursed together, and I laughed.

  “Come on.”

  “I mean it. Those were your best friends. You’re all”—she paused for a breath—“really famous, and you were about to start filming a reality show.”

  “What the hell is a reality show?”

  My mom explained what it meant, and honestly, I thought it sounded stupid as hell and couldn’t believe that people watched that kind of crap. But then again, I couldn’t picture myself as a famous actor either, so what did I know? Acting felt about as right to me as surfing did.

  It didn’t.

  At all.

  Being an actor didn’t feel like me, didn’t sound like me, and didn’t sit right in my guts. And I had no idea why. I mean, if it were true, wouldn’t it resonate somehow, tickle the back of my brain, or at least ring with familiarity?

  I assumed that it would or at least that it should, but it didn’t. It all felt … off.

  “Ryson? Did you hear me?” my mom asked.

  I refocused my attention back toward her. “I heard you. Reality TV. Sounds awful.”

  “You were really excited about it.”

  I felt pressured, pressured to remember, to be exactly the same as I had been before the accident. Everyone wanted me to fit into the mold of who I used to be or who they kept telling me that I was, but I found that nearly impossible.

  “Do you know when we can leave?”

  My mom uncrossed her legs before standing up. “I’ll go find the doctor and ask.”

  When she left me alone, I pressed my head against the pillow and stared at the tiles on the ceiling, half-wishing I could go back to sleep and never wake up. Turning my head to the left, I spotted a cell phone on the table, plugged into the wall. I knew instinctively that it was mine, but I refused to touch it even though the light on it was flashing incessantly.

  It wasn’t hard to guess at what I’d find inside if I reached for it. Part of me was curious, but the rest of me wasn’t ready. I feared that looking at it would make me resentful for all I’d see and not be able to remember. I didn’t want to look at pictures of people who felt like strangers or read messages I knew I wouldn’t be able to decipher. My phone felt like a weapon, and its sole purpose was to hurt me.

  The door reopened, and my mom came through it, a smile on her face. “Your doctor said if everything goes well through the night and your scans come back normal in the morning, we can leave right after.”

  “Awesome,” I said, feeling a small twinge of freedom shoot through me. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized how trapped I felt—in my head, in my emotions, in this world where I apparently had a place but couldn’t remember a thing about it.

  GOING HOME

  Ryson

  When I opened my eyes the next morning, disappointment flooded my senses. I still had no idea who I was or any details about my life. At first, all I felt was sadness. But then it shifted into an anger I hadn’t anticipated. I really wanted to know, wanted to remember, wanted to be normal again. But that wasn’t in the cards. At least, not for today. Maybe it never would be.

  I realized that it had been less than twenty-four hours, but what if I never remembered? It was a possibility; the doctors had said so even if they deemed it highly unlikely. Maybe I’d be in that illustrious small percentile who had to start their life completely over. Only time would tell.

  “Morning.” My mom’s voice cut a hole through my thoughts, and I turned to face her.

  “Morning.”

  “Anything new today?” she asked, a hopeful gleam in her eyes.

  I shook my head to salve the defeat. Her expression shifted, the light dimming from her eyes, and I knew she was sad for me.

  “It’s okay.” She tried to act as if it didn’t matter. “The doctor’s have all said it would take time.”

  I pulled myself up, dying to get the hell out of this bed. “But what if my memories never come back?

  “Then, we’ll deal with it.” She leaned forward, gripping my hand in hers. “We’ll figure it out.”

  “Where’s Dad? Why isn’t he here?” I asked and watched as my mom grew agitated and concerned. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  She winced slightly, as if weighing what and how much to tell me. “He doesn’t live with us anymore.”

  “What? Since when? You got divorced?”

  “Yeah, Ryson, we got divorced.”

  Nothing made any sense. My parents had been solid. At least, I thought they had been. Maybe I was remembering those details all wrong too.

  “Okay, so you got divorced, which I still can’t believe,” I said, my mind racing. “But where is he? He knows I’m in the hospital, right?”

  My mom avoided eye contact with me, and I knew that there was so much more she wasn’t telling me. It made me feel worse, knowing that things were being kept from me even if I had no idea what those things were.

  “We haven’t heard from him in years, honey. I’m sorry.”

  “Years?” I said through my shock. “I hate this. I hate not remembering anything.”

  “I can’t even imagine how you must feel.”

  I was grateful for those words because they were true. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how it felt to be me. No one could.

  “Not to change the subject, but Quinn’s still here.”

  Every time she said Quinn’s name, it was like she expected me to react in a specific way or get some doe-eyed look on my face.

  I blew out an annoyed breath. “I thought she said she was leaving.”

  “She did say that. But she stayed in the waiting room overnight. Just in case you woke up this morning and remembered, she wanted to be here.”

  I had no idea why, but the fact that Quinn had only moved a few hundred feet away angered me even more. “That girl doesn’t know when to quit.”

  My mom clenched her teeth together in some feeble attempt to keep her emotions in check. She was usually so composed, so pulled together, but I was pushing her—that much I could tell.

  “That girl is not the type to walk away or give up on you. That’s not what she does. And it’s not what you do for her in return. Quinn won’t just leave you alone because you keep asking her to.”

  “We’ll see,” I said with a small shrug.

  My mom’s face instantly soured. “Son, you have no idea what you and that girl have been through together. And you clearly have no idea how much you love her.”

  “Exactly!” I practically shouted. “I don’t have any idea! None. That’s the most realistic thing you’ve said since I woke up.”

  “Well, I’m trying to tell you how it was between the two of you. I’m trying to make you see,” she said.

  Hearing how I was supposed to feel about Quinn didn’t make me feel it. Telling me how our relationship used to be didn’t make it real.

  I cut her off, “I feel like you’re telling me a story about someone else’s life. You want me to be invested in the story, but I can’t connect to it.”

  “Don’t you want to remember?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I want.”

  And it didn’t because wanting didn’t make my memories come back. Longing for a single recollection didn’t make one suddenly appear. And trying with all my might to force one free didn’t work either. Trust me, I’d been trying.

  The door slowly swung open, and Quinn poked her head inside. “I don’t mean to intrude. I just wanted to check in and see how you were this morning.”

  Leveling my mom with a hard glare, I looked back at Quinn and announced, “I still don’t remember anything.”

  “Oh.” Her smile faded. “I’m sorry.”

  She stayed at the door, holding it open with one hand like she was afraid to step all the way inside.

  “He’s being discharged this morning after they run some final tests,” my mom informed Quinn.

  I watched the confusion settle in across her face.

  “Where’s he going to go?” she asked, talking around me like I wasn’t even in the room or had a say in the matter. I supposed I didn’t.

  “I was planning on taking him home,” my mom said before adding, “to my house.”

  “I see.” Quinn swallowed as she stepped completely into the room and let the door fall shut behind her. “He doesn’t have any of his things there.”

  “We’ll take the bag that Paige packed.” My mom nodded toward a duffel bag sitting on the ground, and I assumed that Paige was one of the girls who had come by last night. “And I can stop by and get more of his stuff later in the week.”

  “Okay. That’s probably for the best,” Quinn agreed, her eyes meeting mine.

  I could tell that she hoped that I would suggest a different alternative, but I couldn’t do that. What was I supposed to say? Where else was I supposed to agree to go?

  Quinn eyed my cell phone, which I still hadn’t touched, on the makeshift nightstand. “My phone number’s in there if you want to talk or text or anything. “Thanks,” I said halfheartedly, and we both knew I had no plans on using it.

  “I think you have it saved under Honeypot. I know it’s not under Quinn.” She actually looked embarrassed.

  “Honeypot?”

  “It was an inside joke.” She looked at my mom before looking back at me. “Okay, well, this is awkward.” She tried to lighten the mood, but she was right. It was.

  “Little bit,” I agreed.

  “Do you want me to go then?” she asked.

  “I think it’s for the best. Don’t you?”

  Quinn ignored my question and moved toward the duffel bag, pulling some of what looked like her things from inside of it. After she zipped it back up, my mom pulled her tight and whispered something I couldn’t hear into her ear. Quinn offered a quick nod before walking out of the room without sparing me a single glance.

  I felt conflicted by her exit as both relief and guilt pulled at me. Reaching for my cell phone, I searched for Honeypot in the Contact list. Finding it, I changed the name to Quinn before turning it off.

  CRUEL REALITY

  Quinn

  I’d stupidly stayed the night in the hospital waiting room, hoping that when Ryson woke up this morning, he’d have his memory back. There was no way in hell that I was leaving, even after he was so cold to me, so indifferent. I knew that he was frustrated, and I tried to put myself in his position, but it was hard. He’d never talked to me the way he had last night, and his words had been difficult to hear.

  Paige had texted first thing in the morning to ask me if Ryson’s condition had changed. When I’d told her it hadn’t but that I was still at the hospital, getting ready to leave, the four of them showed up, ready to support me any way they could.

  Once I was out of Ryson’s hospital room, I filled them in on what had happened. Madison and Paige each gripped one of my arms as I lost it. They held me, the three of us in some awkwardly positioned hug, as I cried out my frustration and anger and pain onto their shoulders.

  “It’s going to be okay. He’ll get his memory back, and then everything will go back to normal,” Paige said, her voice so sweet that I knew she really believed it—or at least, she wanted to.

  “What if he doesn’t? What if it takes years?” I asked, the shocked realization hitting me like a blunt force.

  Days without Ryson would be one thing, but years …

  “We won’t let it,” Madison said, her tone strong.

  I let out a guttural laugh because she was insane. “We don’t really have control over his amnesia,” I argued.

  She tsked me and held up a finger. “I’m going to research the hell out of this and look up every single thing they say can help cure it, fix it, shorten it, or whatever. If it exists, I’ll find it.”

  Madison was the fixer. There was no problem too big that she wouldn’t at least attempt to tackle. And I loved her for it. Her heart was always in the right place. It was what made her such a damn good agent and friend.

  “Last night was awful,” Tatum said, his hand rubbing across his jaw. “I mean, it was awful for me to see him like that. I can’t imagine how it must be for you.” He pulled me into his arms and gave me the tightest hug.

  “Having the one person who holds your heart in his hands look at you with zero emotion in his eyes? Pretty fucking brutal,” I said as the tears welled again. “I’ve never felt so small and insignificant before.”

  “It’s like he’s a completely different person,” Tatum added before we started toward the exit. “He even talks different. It’s weird.”

  “But all the doctors still say it’s temporary, right?” Walker asked as we headed near the lobby where a slew of paparazzi waited outside, their hands pressed against the windows as they tried to see in.

  I nodded. “They do, but they don’t know for sure, you know? They can’t make any promises.”

  “Right. Of course not. But still,” Walker said, “it shouldn’t last.”

  “I don’t know,” I said through my frustration and hurt. “They’re still here?” I gave a nod toward the waiting paparazzi. I had noticed them the minute we rounded the corner, cameras in hand, phones stuck to their ears, waiting.

  “They came when we did,” Madison said through a grimace. “Sorry.”

  I shrugged. “It’s not your fault. And it’s not like you can do anything to stop them.”

  Paige stepped in front of my body to shield me from prying eyes, but it was no use. She was too thin to hide anyone from anything. “Did you want to go home alone? I think I should come with you,” Paige offered, and I knew that I needed her. “Tatum can take my car back to our place, or he can follow us to yours. Up to you.”

  “How many are at the house, do you think?” I asked, referencing the potential amount of press that would be there.

  “A lot of them,” Madison said.

  “A lot of them?” I practically choked.

  “Especially once they spread the word that you’re leaving the hospital”—she paused—“without Ryson.”

  My heart started racing. This was one thing I hadn’t considered or had time to think about—dealing with the press and their inquisition.

  Pulling myself together, I looked at Madison. “What do you think I should do?”

  I trusted her opinion, valued it actually, and knew that she had the ability to think more levelheaded than I could ever be in this moment. It wasn’t her heart that had been ripped from her chest.

  “I think Paige should go home with you,” she insisted, looking between me and Paige, who was nodding in agreement.

  “I’m not sure sending two girls into the lion’s den alone is the smartest idea,” Tatum interjected, his jaw flexing. He wasn’t a fan of the suggestion, I could tell.

  “It’s not like we haven’t done this before.” Paige attempted to calm him down, but Tatum was adamant.

  “We have no idea how many people are there. And if you two show up alone, with no security or protection, who says they won’t make it impossible for you to drive or get inside the house? What if they try to stop you from closing the gates and they get on the property?”

  “And you’re going to what, manhandle them?” Paige teased him.

  He stood up tall, his chest puffing out. “If I have to.” He tossed an arm around Paige and pulled her body against his. “You two are not going alone. I’m going with you. This isn’t negotiable.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, agreeing with Tatum. “He’s probably right anyway. It will be helpful to have him there.”

  “Why can’t we all go?” Walker asked, his deep voice cutting through mine, and I could tell he wanted to be involved, wanted to help, and hated being left out of this.

  Madison cleared her throat. “I think we start small. If we all go there like some united front, the press will think we have something to hide. Quinn showing up with just Paige and Tatum won’t necessarily ring any alarm bells.” She tapped a finger against her lips as her wheels continued to spin. “I need to think about how we’re going to handle this going forward. Especially if Ryson doesn’t regain his memory anytime soon.”

  Madison was in full-on work mode. She turned to me. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s the truth.”

  “Okay. So, you and Paige should drive together in your car. Tatum, follow behind them. Do not get physical with the paparazzi unless it’s absolutely necessary and you can’t avoid it.” Madison dished out directions to Tatum, and he listened intently. I would have thought it ridiculously sweet and adorable if we had been in some other situation. “They’re going to ask you questions, Quinn. Feel free to play it by ear. Stay silent, offer a small smile as you walk into the house, or make a statement. Totally up to you, and I’ll handle things on my end, depending on what you choose to do. Sound good?”

  This was why Madison was the absolute best, and everyone wanted to be represented by her. She gave me options, choices, and then handled her job accordingly instead of the other way around. Most agents would force you to fit into whatever made their job easier. They hated giving you a choice, wanting you to do things their way and usually insisting upon it. But Madison seemed to instinctively know that I had no idea how I would handle this situation at my front door until I was actually in it. She trusted me to do what felt best, and I was grateful for her level of understanding and compassion.