Aerin blew another exasperated breath out.

Bette continued, fingers still tracing circles on the mat. “I really hope you’re okay, Aerin.  We’ve only managed to talk once since you recovered from everything that happened in LA.  And I remember that was such a serious conversation, just you and me.  I thought you would call me a week later, like you said you would, but then Dan said you dropped out of therapy … and we got really worried when you stopped taking calls.  Even Jules had a tough time reaching you …”

“I know … I know, Bette,” Aerin interrupted her softly. “Really sorry that I didn’t check in.  But I needed some quiet time to think about her.  To try as hard as I could to remember about what had happened between us … you know how desperate I was, right?  I sought all kinds of therapy … you can’t believe all the crazy treatments I tried.”

“Jules did say something about you flying around the world, seeing all kinds of doctors, ping-ponging from one brain center to another …”

They smiled at each other and fell into a companionable silence. After, a minute they linked their pinky fingers and “shook.”  Bette mouthed to her, “we were just concerned, Aerin.”

“I’m not giving up on my memories, you know …” Aerin said quietly after a pause. “I still believe I have the key to a place in my brain where those memories of her are stored, but I just haven’t found it, yet.”

She blew a breath out and exchanged another smile with Bette. “But I will.  I know it.”

“In fact, that’s one of the things we’d argued about just before leaving for Savannah. I refuse to give up on my memories, while Alyssa is telling me to move on … what’s weird is I understand where she’s coming from.  This is hard for her, too.  Guess it’s a Gordian knot…”

What supreme irony. Aerin’s trying so hard to try to remember something in her past while I’m struggling to forget.  And yet both of us feel that we have access to this secret “something” inside each of us that would deliver us … from, or to, our memories.  Well, I sincerely wish her all the luck the universe can spare her, since I’m not having any luck at all in that department.