Page 22 of Manhattan State of Mind

“Great, so that’ll be why he hasn’t come looking for his amnesiac girlfriend then,” I mutter as we cross the street. “Not like I’d know him from Adam anyway. The hospital is just one big blur. I don’t remember seeing you guys. And supposedly my boss Andy stopped by. People just morphed into this nondescript blob.”

“We know.” Libby laughs. “We were there. It was like you were high on weed gummies all the time.”

Priya shoots me a quizzical look. “There’s no way you can recover the data from your phone?”

“I’d been lazy about backing it up to the cloud.”

“But you’re anITperson.”

I shrug, feeling at a loss. “I don’t keep anything important on that thing! My laptop is really my only source of information now, and all it shows is work-related stuff and some chat logs with Matty. It’s times like memory loss when I wish I wasn’t so anal about my online life. My social media posts are just pics of us, and a single photo from Comic Con. Guess I went alone, right?”

Priya offers a faint smile. “I think so, Luce. Had I known you were going to end up in the hospital, I would have come along, even though after the last time—”

“You’d rather dunk your head in a toilet,” I complete her sentence with a nod. “I know, it’s okay. It’s my thing.”

“After that guy in the latex suit started humping my hip, I was out.”

“Elastic Man.” I smile ruefully. So last year I went alone. I feel sorry for myself.

Either you’re all in for Comic Con or you’re out. Priya’s more of a feet-on-the-ground gal while I’m a head in the clouds gal. For me, Comic Con’s all about the thrill of pretending to be someone else for the day—like a superhero.

“So, a quick recap of my year: no promotion, still living in the same apartment, started a relationship destined to fail, and the only positive thing is that the doctor finally figured out why I got a rash on my elbow.”

Priya smiles smoothly. “Tiny, manageable increments. Remember? We don’t want to inundate you with a year’s worth of memories at once. Doctor’s orders.”

I side-eye her suspiciously. Does the lack of events indicate my dull life or are the girls holding back?

Priya’s poker face is intense. That’s why she’s a hotshot lawyer. She’s not lying; she just knows how not to show her hand.

Right now, I feel like she’s got a whole deck up her sleeve.

Libby, on the other hand, looks on the verge of a full-scale verbal vomit. “The pamphlet recommended we feed you bits and pieces of your life,” she stutters, practically trembling.

My eyes roll. “The pamphlet called ‘Forgotten Memories But Never Forgotten Friends’?”

It was written in a lovely, soothing font that would make any graphic designer proud.

There was an illustration of three people resembling me, Priya, and Libby hugging each other. One was goofy, with big googly blue eyes and brown hair; the second could have been American-Sri Lankan like Priya, and the last had curly blond hair like Libby. Does the swanky clinic personalize the brochures for the patient?

“I bet my plants are all wilted, and my fridge is a science experiment,” I grumble, navigating the obstacle course of garbage bins. “The hospital had really nice food. Funny how I remember their menu but can’t recall one twenty-seventh of my own life.”

Actually, it’s not at all funny.

A dickhead cyclist almost mows through us just as we’re about to cross the street, and I jump about seven feet in the air. My nerves are frazzled.

Priya pats my arm. “It’ll be okay, Luce. Your first therapy session went well, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, but I still can’t remember anything. On the bright side, they gave me a calendar with daily mindfulness memes.”

I stop abruptly in the street, my mouth hanging open. “Are you kidding me?”

I gawk in horror at the fast-food fried chicken joint occupying my beloved Perky Pot Café’s spot. “Oh, for the love of—this is the absolute worst.”

The girls exchange an anxious look.

“Mm-hmm,” Priya says gently. “You started going to another coffee place two blocks away.”

“No wonder,” I moan, glaring daggers at the smug chicken winking at me. This is an unmitigated disaster.