Turning to the next page, I’m instantly met with the man from the flashback I saw earlier, confirming my suspicions. My father. Darling, I hear his voice again in my brain, a hint of the warmth returning as I look at a picture of me perched on his shoulders. A lump forms in my throat, and I feel overcome with emotion, but I can’t tell whether it’s sadness or betrayal.

Going through the album, I move through time, watching myself grow up through a stranger’s lens, witnessing an entire life I can’t recall. Though I know we’re the same person, I can’t help but feel as though something went wrong and the old Allie split in two, and now I’m hijacking her life without putting in any of the work to make it what it is. It’s odd to see the familiar faces, different versions of the people I know now.

There are so many moments, conversations, and experiences that have been swept away in the blink of an eye. I don’t know whether I should feel cheated, or if, like Sofia said, forgetting my old life might be an undercover blessing.

I close the album. As I move to set it aside, a loose picture flutters to the floor, stopping me in my tracks.

My heart stops when I register the face that stares back at me.

The boy from my dream, beaming brightly with his arm slung around the shoulders of a younger version of myself. I pick up the photo and flip it over to see the words scrawled on the back:

Mason and Allie, 2007

07 | Ignite

Several days pass before I start to feel normal again.

The images I saw in my session with Dr. Meyer proceed to haunt my dreams, but eventually they fade, feeling even more surreal and hazy than they already did, and I question whether the whole encounter happened at all.

At lunch, I skip out on going to the cafeteria to eat with my friends. Instead, I slip into the computer lab and try to remain unnoticed as I zero in on a seat in the back corner of the room, away from the few other people catching up on homework or playing games.

After signing in with my school ID, I open up an internet browser, fingers hovering over the keyboard. Until now, my accident hasn’t been something I’ve truly wanted to explore. But the longer time goes on, the more it becomes apparent that whatever happened that night isn’t as simple as it seems, and any information I find could be the key to unlocking the truth. Considering the fact that I’m a minor, it might be hard to find a lot of information about it. At the same time, a teenage girl getting into a collision and waking up with amnesia is big news for a small town.