Chapter Text
It happens on a random morning in May when Alex, age fourteen, pads into the kitchen to greet his mother and steal a waffle from June's plate and sees a man sitting at their breakfast counter, reading a newspaper, a cup of coffee raised to his lips. Like he belongs. Like it's the most natural thing in the world. June doesn't seem to give the man a second thought. She merely flicks Alex on the forehead and takes back the waffle. Ellen isn't worrying, either. In fact, she's talking to him. Asking what his schedule is like. Making plans for dinner.
Alex has never seen this man before in his life.
He steps back, uncertain. He doesn't know what to make of a stranger in his house.
"Who are you?" he finally gets the courage to ask.
They all think he's joking. June rolls her eyes. Ellen gives an amused snort in response. And the man, the stranger, the outsider; he simply chuckles warmly over his mug of coffee and says, "Good one, Alex." Like it's all some kind of prank. Well, Alex isn't joking one bit. He has never been more serious in his life.
"Mom," Alex says in an undertone, tugging at Ellen's cardigan to get her attention. "Who — who is he?"
"Very funny," Ellen says, not taking her eyes off the eggs she's busy scrambling. "I know Leo's only been living here for two weeks, but honestly, the joke is getting a little old —"
She stops when she finally looks at Alex. At his eyes. There's no lightheartedness in them, no wit. None of his usual giddy spark. Instead there's fear, genuine fear. Confusion. Concern. The sense of loss.
He's not joking.
Ellen fumbles to turn off the stove and kneels down so she's eye-level with her son. "Sugar," she says slowly, "what's wrong?"
Alex bites his lip. Tears start to well in his eyes. "I don't know," he whispers roughly. His fist tightens in Ellen's cardigan. "I don't — why is he here?" His voice shakes. "Where's Dad?"
And that's when Ellen knows something is terribly, terribly wrong.
Alex doesn't have a fever, he says he doesn't have a stomach ache, but Ellen can tell when something isn't right. She sits him down on the couch and explains to him as calmly as she can that the man in the kitchen is Leo, that they've been together for a year and a half, that they got married last month and he moved in with them two weeks ago, don't you remember any of this, sugar?
But the look on Alex's face tells her all she needs to know. "Where's Dad?" he asks again, his voice weak.
The rest of the day passes in tearful explanations and frustrated arguing and desperate reaches for an answer to what is happening. Through it all, they manage to find one conclusion: Alex can remember Ellen. He can remember June, he can remember Oscar. He can't remember Leo. And the worst part of it all is that they can't offer an explanation to any of it. It just happened; no warning, no nothing. It's perfectly simple — Alex can't remember.
Ellen sends him to bed that night, praying that this is only a one-time thing, praying that Alex simply hit his head the other day and caused the temporary memory loss, praying that everything would be back to normal tomorrow. She sits on the edge of Alex's bed well into the night, stroking his hair and fighting off tears that are sure to come if she lets herself think that this situation could ever become permanent.
The next morning, Alex looks just as confused and just as scared when he sees Leo again.
Thus begins a whirlwind of months upon months of doctor's appointments, therapy sessions, and medication. Words are thrown at Alex faster than he can retain them. Underdeveloped hippocampus. Anterograde amnesia. Damage to the temporal lobe. Agnosia. And then there's the tests, all the brain scans. MRIs, CTs, and SPECTs. The doctors never seem to know what's wrong. Alex's brain, they always say, looks healthy. There is no visible damage. There doesn't seem to be any signs of developmental issues. The doctors are just as stuck as Ellen is. All they can do is sign for a prescription for an experimental drug and hope for the best.
Therapy, while it seemed like a reasonable idea at the start, doesn't go any better. Alex sees his therapist twice a week, and twice a week, she greets him with a smile and a warm welcome and picks up right where they left off the previous session. And while Alex always appreciates her kindness, the knowledge that she knows everything about him while he sees her as nothing more than a stranger makes him feel weary. He can never fully open up to her. When she tries to make conversation and casually asks about June, his mind spirals with anxiety over how she knows about his sister. He doesn't remember ever talking to her about his family. He doesn't remember anything they talk about at all. He doesn't remember her — each meeting in his eyes is their first meeting.
He tentatively asks his mother about this on the drive home from the therapy appointment: "Mom, have I seen, um —" He can't remember his therapist's name. "Have I seen my therapist before today?"
Ellen shoots him a worried stare. "Honey, you've been seeing her for the past five weeks." Her grip tightens on the steering wheel. "Why?"
"Um. I can't — I don't remember any of it."
They come to a conclusion fairly quickly after that. It's not just that Alex doesn't remember Leo, or that Alex doesn't remember his therapist. Alex can't remember anybody except for his mother, father, and sister.
Therapy stops. It starts to do more harm for Alex than good. Doctor appointments stop. They make Alex shut down for the rest of the day. Medication stops. It's not doing anything to help him, and it always leaves Alex tired and withdrawn.
Oscar flies in from California. That helps. He's one of the few familiar faces in Alex's eyes.
It takes a few weeks, but they fall into a new routine. Ellen or Oscar or sometimes even June is always there to greet him in the morning, ask him how he's feeling, carefully explain to him what is happening to him and who Leo is. Hearing about the divorce is always hard for Alex; he doesn't seem to remember that, either. But as the days go by, the shock doesn't seem to hit him quite as hard, the interactions with Leo seem to be a little less forced, and Ellen and Oscar and June and Leo all cling onto that hope of maybe. Maybe this will get better. Maybe he'll start to remember again.
It's Leo who comes up with the idea. Of course it is, he's the craftiest one in the family, and it's so simple, yet so brilliant — a corkboard. A corkboard placed right on the wall next to Alex's bed so it's the first thing he sees in the morning, filled with pictures of people he's close to so he can get familiar with them as soon as possible. It's a fantastic idea. Alex even perks up when Leo suggests they can work on it together.
Ellen definitely doesn't shed some tears watching her husband and her son work together on their project. No. Definitely not.
The corkboard is bare except for one corner dedicated to his family. There's a picture of all four of them, of him and Ellen and Oscar and June from years ago, but it's the first thing Alex looks at when he wakes up, and it's so comforting to be greeted by a sweet picture of his family. Then next to that photo there's another, a smaller one, one of Ellen and Leo on their wedding day. Next to Leo's photo is a small note pinned into the corkboard: This is Leo, your stepdad. He likes tablescapes and learning how to properly cook Mexican food and spending time with you and June. He helped make this corkboard with you.
Alex doesn't remember making the corkboard. But he's glad that Leo — his stepdad, apparently — remembers it. He's glad that he's reminded of it every morning.
September quickly rolls around. They have to make a decision about school. Ellen and Oscar knew it was coming. It doesn't make the thought any less nerve-wracking.
"He's starting high school," Oscar mutters late one evening, sitting at the dining room table across from Ellen, a half-drunk glass of whiskey in his hands. It's become a new tradition for them. One in the morning drinks and conversations.
"Exactly," Ellen presses on. "A whole new school, a whole new environment. It's going to be too much for him."
"You don't know that," Oscar says. "I don't know that. Hell, none of us do. But this isn't just our decision to make. We need to know what Alex wants before we make any decisions."
Ellen unscrews the cap of the whiskey bottle and takes a long drink, not even bothering with the glass in front of her. It's one of those nights.
"He's going to want to start school," she says quietly. "You know he will. And he's going to be a stubborn little shit and pretend like everything is fine even if it's not. Or he won't even remember. Fuck," she laughs, resting her head in her hands. "We have no idea what his memory is going to be like in school. If he can't — if he can't remember his teachers, is he going to retain the material? How is he going to make friends if he can't remember them? How —"
"El," Oscar says gently. "You're spiraling."
Ellen groans. "Right. You're right." She runs her hands through her hair instead, matted and unwashed from days upon days of stress. "I'm just... so worried about him."
"So am I," Oscar says. "But he's a tough kid. You're a tough mom. We just gotta listen to him, okay?"
Ellen smiles. She smiles that tight-lipped smile that means she's on the verge of tears, but a smile is still a smile, and at this point, Oscar will take anything. She reaches across the table and squeezes his hand. "Thanks for being here," she says roughly. "It helps him." She clears her throat. "It helps me."
Oscar chuckles. "It helps me," he agrees.
As expected, Alex is appalled at the idea of missing his first year of high school. It takes some convincing, it takes some long emails to the principal and all his teachers, it takes some more tears and more late whiskey nights and a list of all Alex's teachers and classes tacked on his corkboard, but finally, Alex is starting his freshman year right on time.
June sticks with Alex all throughout his first day. She's there to walk him to class, to greet his teachers with him, to explain once again the rare situation he's in to all of them. Alex can tell that she's worried. He tells her to stop. It's her senior year after all, and instead of decorating the halls with the rest of her class she's marching him from classroom to classroom. Alex doesn't think it's fair. June says it's not fair that he has to live like this. And Alex sees her point, but... but he finds school to be not so bad.
Sure, he meets his teachers for the first time every day. And sure, that can get annoying, especially when some of them look at him with such pity in their eyes and Alex doesn't even know why they're staring at him like that. But the information sticks. There isn't a face that goes with information. Alex pours himself over notes upon notes, dives into extra-credit work like the rest of his classmates dive into homecoming plans, spends hours studying for exams that aren't even two weeks away because, well. He's a little lonely.
June tries. Bless her heart, she tries. But no matter how many football and lacrosse games she takes him to, no matter how many parties she lets him crash, no matter how many people she tries to introduce him to, it doesn't matter. The next morning, it's like none of it ever happened. And Alex can't even miss the experience of it all, because he simply can't remember. But he notices groups of people flocking in the halls, and he knows he isn't part of any of those groups, and he knows that everyone sees him as the guy who can't remember while Alex doesn't know who any of them are, and that's it. That's the lonely part. Realizing that he won't ever make a friend that he'll be able to remember.
The worst part of it all is going through that realization every day. Because he always forgets it.
Alex falls into a solid routine over the next few years. He starts to need less help. His memory hasn't improved at all, but he's smart enough to work around it. Oscar goes back to California, promising Alex that he'll call him every day. June leaves for college, promising that she'll call Alex every day as well. He knows it's because they're worried that he'll forget them. He's worried about it as well. He writes little notes for his dad and June and pins them onto the corkboard, just as he did with Leo. He makes sure to read the notes every day.
He doesn't forget.