“I’m okay.” Using his body as leverage, I heave to my feet. My knees ache where I slammed them on the pavement, but I ignore the pain. Devin stands.
“I remember you. Both of you,” I add, nodding at Mercedes.
“What are you talking about? We’ve been working together all summer. I should hope you’d remember me,” she says, a skeptical look of concern on her face.
“No. I don’t mean that.” Shaking my head, I return my attention to Devin. “I finally know why I woke up from my coma thinking I knew you. I was there, on your first date with Mercedes. I was sitting at the table next to you, and I overheard everything. Your entire conversation.”
Devin’s mouth falls open and his arms go slack at his sides. After several seconds of stunned silence, he shakes his head. “No, that’s… that can’t be.”
“It can. Last July, I was in Columbus for the bar exam. I’d finished earlier that day, and decided to explore the city. After touring a couple galleries, I treated myself to dinner. You were seated next to me at one of those tiny two-person tables they squash together—Mercedes, you sat in the booth beside me, and Devin, you were across from her. The tables were so close together I could see you clearly, which must be why I was able to draw Devin so accurately. Except for the scar, which I must not have noticed since he was seated on my right and his scar is on the left side of his face.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you woke up thinking I was your boyfriend,” he splutters.
Pursing my lips, I rub my forehead. “My brain must have scrambled my memories when I had the accident, conflating actual events with imagined ones. You told Mercedes… Sadie”—I correct; the name tastes strange on my tongue—“all about your life, your interests, your parents, Blooms & Baubles, everything. You wore your scarf—the red one with white squares. And you brought Mercedes flowers. I didn’t have anything better to do, so I listened. Later that night, I was driving back to Cleveland when I fell asleep at the wheel and crashed my car. I guess I’d been thinking about your date, and your stories sort of soaked into my consciousness. When I saw you two standing together just now, it all came back to me.”
“Holy shit,” he breathes. “I can’t believe you finally figured it out.”
Mercedes raises her hand like she’s in class. “Excuse me, what in the world is going on here? Cass, when were you in a coma? And what’s all this about thinking Devin was your boyfriend? I thought he was your boyfriend. You two were together this summer, right?”
“Yeah, but it’s complicated…” I trail off, looking at her hard. “Wait. How did you know that? I never told you Devin was my boyfriend. In fact, I made it a point not to mention his name because, honestly, I didn’t trust you.”
Her cheeks flush. “I overheard you talking to him on the phone last month. The day he stopped by the office to see you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me he was your ex then—that you were Sadie?”
Devin snorts. “Because she wanted to manipulate you. That’s what she does.”
“Screw you, Devin,” she spits, eyes blazing with hatred. “I wasn’t trying to manipulate anyone. Cass, I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how.”
“I’m sorry, but I find that hard to believe.”
“Put yourself in my shoes for a minute. You find out that your colleague, who appears to strongly dislike you, is dating your ex-boyfriend—the same ex-boyfriend who left you bleeding at the hospital on the most traumatic day of your life, and who has since made it his singular mission to convince everyone he knows that you’re a monstrous, lying harpy.” Her voice cracks, and I’m alarmed to find tears streaming down the side of her nose. “Would you have believed me if I tried to warn you that Devin is an arrogant, self-righteous know-it-all? That you should run far, far away because he can’t be trusted? Or would you think I was just playing to character and trying to manipulate you?”
With a derisive snort, Devin folds his arms across his chest. “I can’t be trusted? I can’t be trusted. Wow, Sadie. That’s rich. I’m not the one who faked a pregnancy and lied about it.”
“For the last time, it wasn’t fake!” She screams so loud people thirty feet away shoot us questioning looks from inside the festival. “You were there when the first doctor delivered the news: I wasn’t pregnant. But you left before they sent in an ob-gyn to explain what she actually saw on the ultrasound: an empty gestational sac. Gestational sac. Which means I was pregnant, but I lost the baby early on, around six or seven weeks.”