Forgotten First Kiss

An explanation about me, an accident, the hospital, and a bad outcome that had lasted two months.

“You’re joking.” I coughed on my reaction. More like choked. “I didn’t have amnesia. No way.”

“It was awful, seeing you at the base of the uneven bars. I called the ambulance. You were out cold.”

When she mentioned the uneven bars, the moment came crashing back on me. I recalled the falling sensation, but nothing after that. “Please say no students saw my lifeless body on the ground.” We’d have to organize trauma counseling or something. Moms would be pulling their kids from the program en masse. “What happened afterward to everyone else?”

Tennille smiled. “That’s just like you, Danica. Always worried about how other people are affected. You didn’t even ask about your ambulance ride or the hospital stay or anything. Of course, that’s probably stuff you remember.”

Uh, no. “Believe it or not, I’m drawing a blank on everything from the moment of the accident until …”

“Until you woke up with Jeremy Hotston’s cologne wafting all around you? Friend, you had better never take up drinking. You’re just the type who would run off to a Vegas wedding while drunk and wake up pregnant in a hotel room with who-knows-whose baby.”

I recoiled. “No, I wouldn’t. Even when incapacitated, I still have a moral compass.”

Tennille placed her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow of accusation. “Sweater evidence?”

Fine. “Well, that must have been a lapse. There had to be a good explanation. Did you see him with me during that time?”

“Just once.”

What! “You … Why didn’t you lead with that?” Geez, some friend. “You knew I was brainless, you saw me with Jeremy Hotston and didn’t—what? Step in and save me from his evil designs?”

“You were in a fragile state, okay?” Tennille looked at her nails. “And let’s be real. He’s a goofball, but not a dangerous man. It’s two different things altogether. Plus, when you were kicking him out, did you catch a glimpse of him? Hotter than asphalt on a summer day in Phoenix.” She fanned herself.

“I didn’t look.” Oh, but I had. I’d looked—long enough to realize Jeremy Hotston was one of the better-looking men I’d ever seen. And my body had reacted to his presence quite strongly. It was reacting now, too, as I recalled his face and form.

But that hurt look on his face put a halt to my rising tide of whatever that was for him. Whammo. Done.

“You didn’t look. Ha,” Tennille snickered. “From what I heard, you spent quite a bit of time with him. Someone saw you playing tennis together.”

“Tennis!” I hadn’t played tennis in ten years. I rushed to the front hall closet, expecting to have to dig my racquets out from behind the coats and the suitcase. “They’re on the top of the snow boots,” I said. Tennille was at my shoulder. “And they’re not dusty.” I turned to her. “Anything else?”

“Golf.”

Golf? “Do I golf now?” I took a golf class in college, thinking I’d be able to use those skills if I got my MBA, but I’d stopped with a bachelor’s degree in business, and that’s when the opportunity came up to buy the building my third great-grandmother had owned. “I golfed with Jeremy Hotston? Was anyone else there? Were we being coached by Tiger Woods?”

“Um, no. The only person doing the coaching was you. And according to Rufus Swalwell, you were coaching Jeremy on the finer points of a different kind of game while you were parked in a golf cart behind the clubhouse.”

Stop. I shoved my hands over my ears, letting a tennis racquet clatter to the tile floor and another one land atop my bare foot. Ouch on all fronts. “This is just—no. Who am I? And what have I done with Danica Denton?” This was more than amnesia going on. “Was I possessed or something? Am I a changeling? Should we call a priest and have an exorcism done?”

My nose started running, and my eyes pricked. What had Jeremy Hotston been doing back in Wilder River, anyway? I wished I could squash him like a bug.

Tennille gave me a maternal hug. “You’re going to be fine. You’re yourself again.” She patted my back.

That was the second time I’d heard that phrase tonight. It shouldn’t feel this unsettling.

“Let’s go look through the costumes. You can give me your approval, and then tomorrow, you can come into the gym and help me pass them out to the kids. The show is in three weeks, on Saturday afternoon.”

Already our fall showcase. Well, I had better resume my life. She was right.

But what had I done to destroy my life in the meantime?