I tried to steady my voice long enough to explain how I’d woken up on the beach in Maryland the night before and found my way to Maine without understanding the need to be here. “I thought my name was Brad, because—” I pointed to my wrist, already knowing how pathetic I’d sound “—because it says so on my watch.”

Her face fell and she put her hand on my arm, her touch soft. “It was your dad’s.”

“Brad’s my father?”

“Yes. Your mom, Rosalie, gave it to him.”

“Brad and Rosalie are our parents?”

“No. I’m your stepsister. My mom, Ophelia, and Brad met when we were teenagers. You and Brad moved to the US from England after your mom...after she...” Maya’s eyes went wide and she swore softly under her breath before continuing, “After she died.”

“My mum’s...dead?” I said, and Maya bit her lip as she looked away. “What about my dad, and your mum? Do they live close? Can we see them? Maybe it would help, if—”

“Oh, Ash,” Maya said. “They’re gone, too.”

“Gone as in...dead?” My feet stopped cooperating and I stumbled as Maya’s hand went around my waist, propping me up. “All of them?”

She rubbed my shoulder. “It’s been the two of us, you and me, for years.”

I waited for this information to do more to me, make me feel something, anything—grief, anger, despair. Whatever I’d hoped for didn’t hit, and instead, emptiness expanded inside my heart. My parents were both dead, Maya’s mother, too, people I must have loved and mourned, but no longer remembered. All of my memories, history, identity...gone.

“I can’t deal with this,” I said, fight-or-flight instincts kicking in, making me want to run. Except I couldn’t run from the person I wanted to leave behind, the most terrifying one of all: me. “I can’t do this,” I whispered again. “I don’t know how to—”

“I’m here, Ash, I’m here.” Maya wrapped her arm around my middle as she guided me to her car. “I’ll help you. Let’s go to the hospital—”

“No.”

“You need to get checked out. You’re hurt.”

I took a step back, escaping her grip. “I said no.”

“Okay, okay. We’ll go home. Get you cleaned up, and afterward we’ll take our time and figure out what to do. It’ll be okay, I promise. You can trust me.”