Page 26 of Hello Stranger

“I’m not very good at arguing, either.”

“Maybe this is a chance to get better.”

But I’d learned long ago that arguing didn’t get you very far. “Can you give me a hint?”

“Try to step back and look at the big picture,” Dr. Nicole said. “That’s where you can see it more clearly.”

“See what?”

“That no matter what happens, you will find a way to be okay—whether your prosopagnosia is temporary or permanent.”

“My proso…” I asked, giving up on the word halfway through. “What’s that?”

“That’s the condition you have right now,” Dr. Nicole said, “based on these test scores.” Then she handed me a diagnosis: “Acquired apperceptive prosopagnosia.”

I waited for those syllables to make sense. But they didn’t.

So she said it again. “Acquired apperceptive prosopagnosia.” Then she added: “Also known as face blindness.”

Five

AND AFTER ALLthat, to add massive insult to once-in-a-lifetime injury, who should I run into in the elevator of my building on the very morning I came home?

You guessed it.

The one-night-stand guy. The Weasel.

Fresh back from the hospital, I had walked in slow motion through the lobby of my building, holding my breath as faceless people wandered blithely around me.

I kept my eyes to the carpet, stepped gingerly through the elevator doors, and pressed the button to the top floor—my hair smelling of hospital shampoo and gathered in a careful, stitches-covering ponytail. I was trying with all my might not to accidentally knock that cork in my skull loose while also holding back a tsunami of life-altering realizations about the week I’d just been through… just as the Weasel himself catapulted through the closing doors and tossed his arms up in victory as he cleared them at the last second.

Let’s just say he wasn’t matching my fragile energy.

I couldn’t recognize his face now, of course. Or anything else abouthis rather nondescript self. What I did recognize—other than his terrible personality—was the red-and-whitenon-vintagevintage bowling jacket.

There couldn’t be more than one of those walking around.

Oh my god! The Weasel! I’d forgotten about the woman in his bed. I’d meant to go find his apartment that night and wake her up and get her the hell out of there—but in all the hubbub of, ya know,the brain surgery,I’d forgotten.

He wasn’t still holding her captive in there, was he?

I thought about asking.

But that’s when he turned to me, all friendly and breathless, and said, “Made it!” The way a nice person might talk to another nice person.

I kept my eyes down and edged away.

Really, pal? You think you can just wildly bad-mouth your one-night stands and also get to be a normal member of society?

Not on my watch, buddy.

I wasn’t going to be complicit in this nice-guy gaslighting. Also: What the hell? What adult just sprints through a building lobby willy-nilly like that? What if he’d slammed into me? What if I’d hit my head and the plug in my skull had popped like a champagne cork—and then it was right back to the hospital?

I wasn’t used to feeling fragile. And I definitely didn’t like it. So I glared at him, like,Thanks a lot for reminding me.

I could deduce that he was smiling, even despite his puzzle-piece face. Those big teeth were pretty unmistakable.

How dare he?

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