THIS KISS (e-book)

A love beyond memory.

The first time I lost all memory of Tucker, we had just met.

We were seventeen, stuck in the disco room of the children’s hospital, both of our heads covered in electrodes wrapped in gauze.

Not exactly attractive.
Except we were—attracted, that is.

I never got to meet boys my age back then. Or any boys. Mother made sure of that.

There was no point, she said. I would forget them the next time I had a seizure.

That’s right. I didn’t mention that. I have epilepsy. It started in kindergarten. Spacing out. My eyes clocking back and forth. Then the whole enchilada. On the ground, shaking all over.

Not all my seizures erase my memory. But some do. Every year or two I go down, and bam, that’s it. My entire history evaporates like water on a skillet.

But on that first magical day, Tucker yelled, “Come here often?” over the mechanical thrashing of a song I’d never heard, at least not since my last memory reset.

“Never! Do you?” I yelled back.

That was all we got. The disco lights switched to strobes, the kind designed to cause a seizure. That’s why I was there. For the wires on my head to collect data. To show the doctors what was going on inside my brain.

And hopefully, to help me.

I took one more look at him as my legs gave way, and the sizzle in my head turned my vision black.

Tucker.

I had no idea then that I had just met the love of my life.

In a few seconds, I wouldn’t remember him at all.
___
This Kiss is an extraordinary romance between two people with epilepsy who fall in love in the toughest of circumstances. As Tucker unfailingly convinces Ava to return to him over and over again, he teaches her that even when memory fails, the heart remembers.

The first time I lost all memory of Tucker, we had just met.

A nurse in pale pink scrubs led me to the disco room of the epilepsy ward of our children’s hospital, assuring me that the lights and dancing would help induce a seizure. Once the doctors had the data they needed, I could go home.

Colored starbursts cut through the semi-darkness, music pulsing from a speaker in the corner. A tall man in scrubs stood by the door and nodded at me as I stepped inside.

The nurse had assured me the disco room would be swarming with other teen patients, but at first it appeared completely empty.

Then I saw him.

A boy leaned against the far wall, a mirrored ball spinning confetti bits of light across his face. White gauze fastened with blue tape covered the electrodes glued to his head.

The colors muted and changed, breaking my view of him into fragmented pieces like a puzzle not yet put together. Even so, I could tell he was close to seventeen, same as me.

I never got to meet boys my age. Or any boys. Mother made sure of that.

My fingers trailed along the textured wall, my head angled down to conceal my interest. Music blasted through the space, thrashing like a mechanical monster trying to escape. I didn’t recognize the song, but that wasn’t unusual. I wasn’t allowed television, movies, or the internet. My mother controlled my home environment completely.

But not here.

I paused to adjust the cluster of wires snaking from my scalp to a backpack on my shoulder. There was no point in getting to know this boy, even if I dared to approach. Once the seizure struck, everything would be lost. My favorite food. The books I loved. My entire history. Even my name.

The person I knew as myself would be wiped, and I’d be transparent as newly Windexed glass. Vulnerable, too. My hard-won toughness would be replaced with confusion. The next iteration of Ava might be meek. She might even enjoy her mother’s company, at least for a while.

I’d been through this before.

I stole another glance. The boy tapped a glowing white shoe. I couldn’t tell if he was looking at me. We were supposed to dance, get overheated and tired. They needed data from our heads to flow down the wires to our backpacks. The disco room was the last resort for those of us whose brains weren’t cooperating. This boy was probably in the same boat.

We stood on opposite polarities, on the brink of the next terrible thing. Would we collapse at the same time, or would one bear witness to the other?

I began walking again. The two nurses remained near the door, one occasionally checking the bright rectangle of a phone. But they weren’t close to us, which meant I still had time.

Before today, I’d never known precisely when the erasure was coming. My seizures struck on their own schedule, often years apart. Scarcity was my condition’s only good point because it took weeks, sometimes months, to read my journals and reorient myself to the girl I once had been.

But this hospital visit was a planned reset. I’d prepared as best I could, spreading notes to myself throughout my room. My mother was undoubtedly searching for them while I was away, ready to remove any evidence of my past that she disliked. She had her reasons.

I left easy ones to fool her, placed between clothes in my suitcase or sticking out of books. But the good stuff would be impossible for her to find, words in Sharpie written along the edge of the shower curtain in the hospital bathroom. Others were bits of paper hidden in plain sight, tucked among the safety notices tacked on the bulletin board.

The absolutely critical information was written on my body, low enough on my belly to prevent easy detection. I’d been writing on myself since I was old enough to understand that I should.

Trust only this handwriting.

Find your notes.

Remember your life.

I moved within a few feet of the boy, and he looked right at me. I froze, not sure what I was doing. If I had no record of him, no notes or references, he’d be lost to me completely as quickly as he’d arrived.

But maybe that was good. I could live in this moment, only this very one.

His brown hair spilled out beneath the strips of gauze and covered the tops of his ears. I spotted a name stitched on an oval patch over the pocket of his shirt. I couldn’t read it from here, and I didn’t want to stare.

The song ended, and in the moment of quiet, I could almost hear his breathing. My heart thumped so loud it could have been the opening beats to the next melody.

But then another edgy pulse of notes filled the room, making my body vibrate.

The male nurse approached the boy and nudged his shoulder. They both looked at me. I could only assume his nurse wanted him to introduce himself.

Did I want that?

Maybe.

I shifted in my sandals, tugging on the bottom of my shirt. Mother had forgotten I would need a button-down due to the wires. Ransacking my closet this morning before we left turned up only a girl-sized, pink-flowered number. It was snug.

The boy pushed away from the wall. His gaze remained on the floor until the very last moment, when he stopped in front of me and our eyes met.

His mouth made a sound, but the music drowned out his words. I shook my head, uncomprehending. He stepped closer. I caught the scent of laundry detergent and something chocolate. He must have eaten the cake that arrived on the dinner tray. I had, too.

“I’m Tucker!” He was so near, I could have turned my head for a kiss. Not that I would. I’d seen precious few kisses on screen and none in real life.

My head buzzed with anxiety as I said, “I’m Ava.”

“I think we’re already there!” he shouted.

“What?”

“We’re already there!”

I had no idea what he meant. “Where?”

He pointed at the speaker. “Hell.”

I didn’t know why he was bringing this up, but I said, “Sure.”

He tilted his head, then laughed so loudly that the sound cut through the music. A swoop fluttered through my belly like a butterfly leaving the safety of its perch to wing into the sky.

“What’s so funny?”

He leaned in again, and this time I felt the heat of his nearness. “It’s the song. It’s called ‘Highway to Hell.’”

“Oh!” He’d made a joke. “Yes, we’re already there. In hell.”

“Come here often?” His eyes penetrated mine, dark and filled with amusement. I couldn’t tell their color in the crisscross of light, but they made me smile.

“Never. Do you?”

He laughed again. “God, I hope not.”

He tapped his foot, his head nodding to the beat. His proximity made me feel off-center, as if the core of who I was no longer resided in my body but in the narrow slice of air between us. No book I’d read had ever described a feeling like this. Even with my faulty memory, surely I’d recognize it if I’d felt it before.

The music began to wind down, and our nurses approached. My elation washed over with fear. Was it time to go back to my room? Or to lose everything?

The light changed from its gentle confetti to a flashing strobe. My head spun like I’d been turning in circles. I felt sick and reached out for anything to steady me.

The regular lights popped on as the music died out. A warning tone sounded. The dizzying whirl sharpened to a buzz. I sizzled like a lightning rod, head to belly to hands and feet.

My legs crumpled, and the nurse grasped my body to help me slide safely to the ground. The last thing I saw was his face, watching me with concern.

Tucker.