There are no safe spaces…

When Tess Porter agrees to pick up her boyfriend’s college pal at the airport on a snowy December night, she has no idea she’s about to embark on the most dangerous ride of her life. Two days later, the 17-year-old wakes up in a hospital with broken bones, and unable to remember how she got there. Her parents are acting strangely, and neither James, her boyfriend, nor her best friend Izzy has visited. As she struggles to physically recover, Tess wrestles with haunting questions: What happened? Will her memory ever return? and what if she’s better off not recalling any of it?

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Excerpt
I can handle the broken bones, the bruises, the bald patches—all of it. But there’s one thing that’s bothering me more than absolutely everything else combined: I can’t remember the last time I saw James.

We’d had plans for the night I ended up here, in this hospital bed, in a trauma center, miles from my home in the middle of a snowstorm. Big plans. That was two days ago.

I woke up this afternoon feeling as if I’d been trampled by circus elephants, with no idea where I was and no memory of seeing him. No clue what happened on the night I’d been looking forward to for nearly four months.

It’s crazy. And terrifying.

At first, I hoped I was trapped in one of those dreams where you try your hardest to wake up by telling yourself you’re still asleep and everything is fine. Everything seemed so bizarre and unfamiliar. I was sure I’d roll over in my bed, James beside me, as I’d planned, plastic glow-in-the-dark stars arranged in madcap constellations on my ceiling. I tried to speak, scream, and jolt myself awake, but I could only gasp.

The moment I lifted my right arm— the one not in a cast—to touch my head, because, honestly, that hurt the absolute worst, Mom shrieked, “Tess, don’t!” and rushed over. When she lowered my hand back down to the bed, I felt it, and I had a terrible thought: I’m not dreaming. This is real.

I turned from her and toward the window. It was dark outside. I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection and shut my eyes.

Bandages cover most of my head. I look like a last- minute Halloween zombie costume. Too bad that holiday’s long over. It’s the week before Christmas and, at seventeen, I’m too old to trick-or-treat anyway. Still, I can’t help feeling like I’m starring in my own personal horror show.

When I first opened my eyes, I saw Mom and Dad pacing opposite sides of the hospital bed, a weird, worried march that I assumed was somehow part of my nightmare.

“What is this? What’s happening?” I blinked a dozen times as if that would change the scenery.

“Oh, Tess! Thank God you’re awake,” Mom said after making sure I didn’t mess with my bandages. “It’s all going to be okay, honey. We’re right here.”

She squeezed my right hand in hers. I had the oddest reaction. Complete revulsion. If forming each sentence didn’t feel as impossible as suddenly speaking fluent Mandarin, I’d have said, “Leave me alone.” Where did that come from?

I tried to move my left leg. Bundled in a giant white plaster cast, it matched my left arm. Even something as simple as attempting to wiggle my toes sent sharp needles shooting through my body.

“You’re in the hospital, Tess.” She paused and turned toward Dad as if for guidance or confirmation that she should keep talking. He looked at me, his eyes wet and red-rimmed as a basset hound’s. Mom kept staring at him as if willing him to speak. He didn’t.

“There’s been an accident... a bad accident,” she said. Deep lines formed a tiny number eleven, creasing the spot between her eyes. “You don’t remember?”

Author Bio:

Liz Alterman lives in New Jersey with her husband and three sons. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Parents, McSweeney’s, and other publications. He’ll Be Waiting is her first young adult novel. When she isn’t writing, she spends most days microwaving the same cup of coffee and looking up synonyms.

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