My mom wheels me through the courtyard after breakfast while I continue my scroll through all of the “Marley” Facebook profiles within a two-hundred-mile radius. No matter what search filters I’ve tried so far, I’ve gotten nowhere.
I try to think of new filters I can add to the search. I pore over my memories for mentions of her last name but still come up empty.
Her school? I brace my fingers eagerly over the touch keyboard, but my brain has nowhere to direct them. An entire year, and I never asked her about that? Not once?
I can practically hear Dr. Ronson already: Does that make sense, Kyle?
Dick.
The more I think about it, the more it actually does make sense that I don’t know these things. I think about all the times that Sam told me how much I was making things about me. My stupid freaking selfishness. We spent so much time talking about me when Marley and I were together, there must have been a hundred things I forgot to ask her.
It just means I wasn’t paying attention to anyone but myself.
Just a usual day in Kyle’s world.
My eyes blur as I turn back to the profiles, searching for her features, her familiar smile, frustration slowly getting the better of me.
I shut off the iPad with a sigh. I mean, who even uses Facebook anymore besides my mom and her friends? It’s no surprise I haven’t found her on there. Sam deactivated his last year.
Instagram. I need to try Instagram.
I look around at the sprawling trees and shrubbery and gardens taking up the entire center of the hospital grounds. There are brightly colored flowers everywhere, framing the small plants and wrapping around the roots of the trees.
I freeze when my eyes land on a patch of pink Stargazers, identical to those sprouting around Laura’s grave. The warm breeze brings with it the sweet smell of the honeysuckle growing around the oak tree, and my stomach twists as Dr. Ronson’s face pops into my head.
The wheelchair slows as we near a huge fountain at the center. I reach out to lightly touch the stone, little sprays of mist floating toward me from the frothing water.
A blossom falls slowly into my lap, and I pick it up, staring at it. When I look up, I see cherry trees lining the path, blowing softly in the wind. For a moment I remember the identical soft pink petals blowing around Marley, her eyes fixed on mine that day at the park.
I’d do anything to get back to that moment. A moment that everyone and everything is trying to get me to question.
I crush the blossom in my fist; then my head falls into my hands, a single flower somehow bringing with it a tiny wave of doubt. And that scares the shit out of me.
“What is it?” my mom asks.
“Do you think it’s true?” I ask, throwing it onto the ground. “Do you think Marley is really gone?”
My mom stops pushing the wheelchair and kneels in front of me, her face serious. Just like it is every time I’ve brought up Marley. “She’s not gone, honey. She was never here.”
She’s so sure about it. So matter-of-fact.
I stare back at her. I need to make her understand.
“What if you woke up tomorrow and I was gone and everyone told you I never even existed?” I ask quietly. “Would you stop loving me, Mom?”
I see her falter, her hand finding the armrest of my wheelchair, just the thought of it overwhelming her. Tears fill her eyes, and her fingers grab ahold of my arm and squeeze, almost like she’s checking I’m really here.
“I can’t either,” I whisper.
* * *
When my mom leaves later that afternoon, I grab my iPad from my bedside table, but I somehow can’t bring myself to scroll through Instagram, the images of all the different Marleys. I know in my gut that she doesn’t have one. I mean, she refused to write on the computer, opting to handwrite in a notebook instead. There’s no way she has an Instagram.
So what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to find her?
“Can I come in?”
I look up to see Kimberly standing in the doorway, her arm sling-free, a small blue brace wrapped around her wrist. Her blue eyes lock into mine. The fire is gone, replaced with some sense of understanding. She’s looking at me like she’s reading me better than I can.
“Sam told me,” she says. “About your other life.”
Your other life. The words cut me like daggers. I try to contain it, to keep my shit together. But the tears come spilling out, no matter how hard I fight them.
She hurries over, wrapping her arms around me. “It’s okay,” she says, holding me while I sob. “It’s gonna be okay.”