“Let me find the fuse box,” she said, realizing too late that she didn’t really know her way around this apartment. She checked a few obvious places—the front closet, the tiny laundry room—then emerged, perplexed but trying to cover her confusion.

There was no hiding it, though.

“Wait. You don’t know where the fuse box is?” Miguel said. It was hard to read his expression in the dim light, but from the tension in his voice she knew it wasn’t good.

“I’ve never blown a fuse before . . . My landlord showed me when I moved in, but I just . . .”

“Forgot.” He finished the sentence for her, and Cass couldn’t tell if he bought her story—but he started helping her look anyway, using the flashlight from his cell phone.

Finally, they found it, in the bedroom closet, a housecoat hanging in front of it. Miguel opened the panel, flipped the correct switch, and everything in the kitchen whirred to life. Cass ran back into the room just in time to see whipped cream spraying everywhere. She turned off the blender and grabbed a rag. The lights were glaring; she felt exposed.

“Charlie.”

She didn’t look up, just kept wiping the counter, rinsing the cloth. “Yes?”

She could feel him close, although she kept her eyes on the now sparkling clean countertop instead of meeting his eyes, afraid of what she would reveal.

“Have you been having any other lapses in memory? For example—and I can’t believe I didn’t realize this before—have you forgotten big things you used to know how to do before? Like, for example . . . how to surf?”

“What? You think I lied to you about that?” She realized how absurd it was for her to be so indignant: she was lying to him about literally everything else. But she still pressed forward. “That was the truth: I never learned how.”

“And you just kept all this equipment for your sister?” She had never seen him like this. He seemed confused, maybe even a little angry—and how could she blame him? He didn’t believe her. It was all unraveling. Her heart was racing. How could she fix this?

But she could tell from the expression on his face that it had gone too far. It made her feel sick, how many lies she had actually told him. She truly cared about him—which meant she had to tell him the truth.

“Miguel . . .” She opened her mouth, then closed it again. The right words to explain what she had been up to escaped her. “I . . . ah . . .”

Miguel shook his head and momentarily rubbed his palm across his face in agitation. “I should have known better,” he said. “This is all my fault. I got too focused on my . . . on whatever this is between us”—he waved his hand like he didn’t know anymore, like it was all meaningless—“and forgot about my obligation to you as a medical professional. You came to me with a concussion, and I—God, what is wrong with me? I ignored all the signs.”