Do You Remember(5)

My jaw tightens. Is this his smarmy way of getting to see me naked? I don’t think so. “I can manage.”

The tips of his ears color and he nods. “Okay then. I… I’ll go downstairs and make breakfast.”

I wait until Graham has left the room before I venture back into the bathroom. Now that I’m not so shaken by the situation, I can take a moment to look around the bathroom. It’s… well, it’s quite nice. Harry and I fantasized about what we would do to renovate the bathroom when we had enough time and money, and this is much nicer than what we had contemplated. It looks like we pulled up the floor tiles as well and the shower is all shiny and new.

I spy a bottle of soap on the sink counter, and it has the My Home Spa logo on it. In fact, a lot of products in this bathroom bear the logo of my business on them. It was an idea that Harry and I came up with together, back when we were in our tiny little apartment, and I was fantasizing about what it would be like to have a spa vacation but somehow do it in our own home. And Harry said, That’s a million-dollar business idea. It was his idea to…

But no. I need to stop thinking about Harry. I saw the note in my own handwriting. He’s not part of my life anymore, and apparently for good reason.

I just wish I knew what the reason was. What terrible thing did he do?

I can’t bear to look in the mirror again, so I strip off the silk bathrobe and my oversized T-shirt, then I step into the shower. I reach for the hot water and…

How the hell do you turn the shower on?

It doesn’t have a knob, like every other shower in the known universe. It has some sort of computerized control system. There’s a screen, which has the time and little animated graphics of raindrops. Then several buttons to the right, but no label saying what any of the buttons do! One has an up arrow, one has a down arrow, one has the number one on it…

Oh God, I really do need help to take a shower.

I punch a couple of the buttons, hoping something will happen. There is a disturbing whirring noise coming from the plumbing, then all of a sudden, spicules of ice-cold water rain down on me. I scream and back away, panicked.

What is wrong with this stupid shower? Why would I install something so ridiculous?

I take a breath as I cower in the dry corner of the shower, trying to figure out what to do. The computerized display now reads sixty degrees. Is that the temperature of the water? Whatever it is, it’s too damn cold.

I carefully venture back into the water as goosebumps spring up on my arms. I tap on the up arrow, and to my relief, the temperature display goes up. The water warms up and my teeth stop chattering. I start to feel more comfortable when the temperature gets close to a hundred, then I crank it up higher, all the way up to one hundred ten degrees. It’s pretty hot now, but it feels good. The tight muscles in my shoulder and back melt under the spicules of hot water. And the headache in my right temple gradually subsides.

I let the water run over my hair. It’s strange for my hair to be so short. I’m used to it running all the way down my back, but I suppose it will be easier to wash this way. I already see a bottle of My Home Spa shampoo in the corner of the shower. It’s vanilla scented, but not that fake vanilla you get in cheap shampoos. This is a real, rich vanilla aroma. Like in a real spa.

As I run my fingers through my hair, I freeze. There’s something on my scalp.

I feel it on the right side of my skull, under the strands of my hair. There’s a patch on my scalp where no hair is growing—a line of thick raised skin that feels strange when I touch it, like the skin doesn’t quite belong to me. I follow the line with my fingers, noticing that it forms a C shape.

It’s a scar.

You had a brain injury during the accident. You had a lot of bleeding in your brain and the doctors did what they could.

I stand there in the shower, my body shaking despite the burning hot water. It’s true. What I wrote in that letter is all true. There’s a scar on my scalp to prove it. I was in a terrible accident, and I had surgery, but it wasn’t enough.

I drop my head, trying to control my breathing as my legs wobble beneath me. You’re okay. Trust the letter. Just accept that this is your life now and go with it.

I blink away the droplets of water in my eyes. And that’s when I notice something on my upper left thigh. It looks like a message written in black pen.

“What the…?”

I step out of the range of the water droplets, but it’s too late. There was something written on my thigh, but the hot running water has already obscured the message. It looks like it was two words. I stare down at the message—I can only barely make out the first word:

Find.

That’s sort of strange. Considering the location of this message, I have to assume I wrote it to myself. I wrote myself a message, maybe last night, knowing that I might not remember anything when I woke up the next morning. The message was obviously important, but it’s interesting that I wrote it in a place where only I would see it. Graham clearly didn’t know about it.

Find. Find what? What is that second word? I can’t even begin to make it out.

Well, great. Whatever message I was trying to leave for myself, I was unsuccessful. Hopefully, it wasn’t too important.

I finish soaping myself up, and by the time I finish my shower, I feel a lot more relaxed. I’ve almost forgotten about the strange message on my leg and whatever I’m supposed to find. My whole brain feels hazy, like I’ve just woken up from a long sleep, and as long as I don’t try to fight it, the sensation is almost soothing. I recall the last words of the letter I had written to myself: