The Upside of Falling Down

by Rebekah Crane

  ALSO BY REBEKAH CRANE

  The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland

  Aspen

  Playing Nice

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Rebekah Crane

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Skyscape, New York

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Skyscape are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503954250 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1503954250 (hardcover)

  ISBN-13: 9781612187228 (paperback)

  ISBN-10: 1612187226 (paperback)

  Cover design by Adil Dara

  Cover illustration by Leah Goren

  For Drew and Hazel—may you be daring and embrace the adventures in life . . . and love.

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has asked that you remain in your seats for the remainder of the flight. Please put away all portable electronic devices and return all tray tables to their upright and locked position. The flight attendants will be coming through the cabin one more time to collect any remaining items you wish to discard. Thank you for your help, and we appreciate you choosing Western Air.

  We never believe we’ll crash . . . until we’re falling.

  PROLOGUE

  I was born twice. The first time was on July 9 to Paul and Mimi Haas in Cleveland, Ohio. My mother died six years later. My parents hadn’t conceived another child, and my father never remarried. I was born with brown eyes and brown hair, and for eighteen years, I was, for the most part, healthy.

  I was delivered again on June 18, just weeks before my nineteenth birthday. The nurses said I was born unconscious with ash tangled in the burned ends of my hair. Rescue workers pulled me from the belly of an airplane, where I was stuck between two seats, like a cushioned sandwich. There was no mother to gaze down at me in amazement or cradle me if I cried, but according to my nurse, Stephen, there were a plethora of camera crews and flashing lights.

  Out of the wreckage of that day, which included thirty dead bodies, I was a miracle. Amid so much death and destruction, I was born.

  For a day, I lay in the hospital, unconscious, before I opened my eyes to the world for the first time. I had bleached blonde hair and a nasty bump on my head.

  When the doctor sat down gently on the chair next to my bed and asked me a question, I could only think to respond with these words: “There are four emergency exits on this plane—two at the front of the cabin and two at the back.”

  A handful of nurses and other staff broke into laughter, but my doctor didn’t. She asked me another question, a puzzled expression on her face, to which I replied, “Please take a moment to locate your nearest emergency exit. In some cases, your exit may be behind you.”

  That’s when the room went silent. All the laughter fell out of the air.

  “Can you tell me where you are?” the doctor asked in an accent unlike my own. It took me a moment to understand her, partly because of the accent, but also because of the odd question.

  “Where I am?” I said, feeling around. “Clearly, I’m in a bed.”

  A perplexed expression crossed the doctor’s face as the others looked on at the miracle that I was. “Yes, but do you know where? Specifically, what country?” she asked.

  I thought for a long while, touching the bump on my head. The bump was a flaw, and something told me that’s not how this was supposed to be. People are born perfect, right?

  “What happened to my head?”

  “You don’t remember how that happened?” When I shook my head and didn’t offer an answer, the doctor asked me another question. “Can you tell me your name?”

  It was a simple question, but at that moment, the complexity of it weighed me down, so much so that I had a hard time breathing.

  “Or better yet, can you tell me anything about yourself?” the doctor asked.

  “About myself?” I thought long and hard. As if the people gaping at me weren’t clue enough, my confusion should have been. A person shouldn’t have to think so hard about that question. It should come naturally. It’s me. I know me, right? But concentrating so hard made my head start to ache, and I thought I might pass out. And for all that thinking, nothing happened.

  Nothing.

  The doctor glanced at the nurses, who stared at each other, but all the looking didn’t find them any answers. I started to think answers don’t come that easily.

  I died and was reborn on June 18 in a plane crash in Ballycalla, less than eight kilometers from Shannon Airport, and I awoke to a new life a day later in the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Ireland, not far away. When the nurse called me by name, I didn’t respond.

  He touched my arm. “Your name is Clementine, love.”

  “Clementine.” I said the name over and over in my head, hoping one idea would stack on top of another and another and create something concrete. A person filled with a lifetime of memories.

  But nothing happened. Instead, I said, “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

  CHAPTER 1

  Day one. I have a tattoo of a green heart on my foot. It’s on the inside of my ankle, down by my heel, like it’s trying to hide itself. Who gets a tattoo they want to hide? This tattoo is small and totally lackluster, and its meaning is lost on me. I’m left wondering if I’m the kind of person who gets a tattoo only to hide it.

  My hate for it is visceral. So much so that when I see it, my stomach turns, and I feel like I might puke. Hating this tattoo is one of the only things I know about myself.

  When I changed my socks, I caught my first glimpse of it. Stephen brought me fuzzy blue booties because I complained that my feet were cold, and there it was—the world’s most boring tattoo on my body. A high-pitched squeal tumbled out of my mouth when I saw it.

  I can’t bring myself to acknowledge it. All it does is remind me that I have forgotten my entire life. And I want it back. However, this tattoo isn’t a good sign. Hate for something I chose to put on my body doesn’t speak well for the person I was.

  For now, my conclusion is to stay still and wear my booties to cover up my tattoo. Avoidance shouldn’t be underestimated in these circumstances. Avoidance seems like a pretty solid idea right now.

  In a way, losing my entire memory might not be so bad. Everyone has bad memories they want to forget. My situation wipes them all clean.

  But there
’s the other side—the not so good side. All the pieces of my past I want to remember, the ones that explain who I am, are gone.

  Like a breath. My life decided to exhale.

  That’s the part that gets me. I know I’m gone, even when Stephen shows me my chart and the minimal details he’s collected about my life—all from a brief conversation he had with my dad.

  “Cleveland, Ohio. Sounds lovely!” Stephen’s voice is chipper. “I’ve always wanted to go to America. Do you think you know Justin Timberlake? He’s lovely. I’ve always wanted to meet him.”

  “I don’t think I know Justin Timberlake.”

  “Well, what’s Cleveland like?”

  Nothing happens, so Stephen tries another tactic.

  “I spoke with your dad yesterday. He sounds like a lovely man, too.”

  “Lovely,” I say.

  “So you remember him?” Stephen’s whole face brightens.

  “You use that word a lot—lovely.”

  Stephen seems deflated. He pats my bootie-covered feet. “Your dad will be here soon. I’m sure once you see him, your memories will fall into place. Don’t fret.”

  “What happens if I don’t remember?”

  “Let’s not think about that.”

  But it’s all I can think about. My mind has already forgotten so much, there’s not much else to focus on. Who am I?

  I’m a girl with a bad tattoo whose only memory is waking up in a hospital bed with a roomful of strangers. I try to cry for everything I’ve lost. Eighteen years. Vanished.

  My doctor uses the term “retrograde amnesia.” A loss of access to memories before the plane crash. So while I may know what a television is, I can’t recall a single memory of actually watching television. Worse, Stephen informs me that my mom died when I was six, and I can’t recall a single thing about her. When my doctor sees the panic-stricken expression I must be wearing on my face, she’s quick to tell me that the memories usually come back.

  “Usually,” I say.

  “Yes. Usually.”

  “But not always.”

  She sits down on the bed, folding her thin hands in her lap. The scrubs she has on are too big for her waiflike body, and her brown hair is pulled into a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck. “Your memories might be gone, for now. But your soul remains intact.”

  “But what do I do?” I ask.

  “Wait. That’s all you can do,” she says. “Don’t lose hope, Clementine. You’ve survived worse.”

  It’s a gentle reminder of the plane crash. Thirty other people didn’t survive. I should have died with them. No one knows why I didn’t. According to Stephen, whose accent is thick, making his words run together, the plane was flying into Shannon International Airport in western Ireland from Heathrow Airport, in London. A fire broke out in the cargo hold during the flight and burned its way into the electrical and fuel systems, causing a shutdown of the entire plane. The pilots tried to land, thinking they could make it to Shannon before the fire took complete control. But in the end, the plane went down just kilometers from the runway—there was just too much damage. I am all that remains.

  The doctor leaves, and Stephen returns. I ask him, “Why was I on that plane?”

  “Let’s wait for your dad to get here.” He bites his lip, busying himself with my blankets. That’s when it hits me: What if the clue I’m searching for is so bad it would be easier not to know? I nod in agreement, feeling a numbing sensation overtake me all the way down to my tattoo. The more I search, the more lost I get in darkness. Crying isn’t even the solution. What am I crying for? Who am I crying for? As far as I’m concerned, what’s lost never existed in the first place.

  The memories mean nothing to me if I can’t recall them. Except for the small fact that . . . they mean everything. No matter what people want to believe, life is locked in the past. It’s all we are—a timeline of events that make up a person.

  My father flew into Dublin early this morning and is driving across the country to take me home to Cleveland, Ohio, so I can get back to my life and out of the media chaos that’s created a sensation around Ireland. Apparently, the mystery of a lone survivor of a plane crash garners a lot of attention, perfect for Irish tabloids. People are loving the sensational nature of it all, according to my doctor, but she repeatedly tells me that everyone in the hospital is working to keep me safe.

  Oddly enough, it’s not the public I’m most afraid of. It’s myself. And the large, impending reality that going home to America means getting on another airplane.

  Later in the day, Stephen walks into my room, pushing a rolling cart as I stare at my covered foot.

  “No more tests.” I cover my eyes and cringe. “I can’t take it anymore.”

  Stephen chuckles, and I peek through my fingers to see what he’s laughing at.

  “I thought,” he says in a bubbly voice as he wheels the cart over to me, “we’d have some fun.”

  “Fun,” I say hesitantly, dropping my hand from my face. This feels like an odd time for fun, but it’s better than wallowing. “I think I like fun.”

  “Here.” Stephen hands me a notebook and a pen. “Write that down.”

  “Write what down?”

  “Clementine likes fun.” Stephen smiles and winks at me. “So you don’t forget.” When I don’t laugh, he says, “Sorry. Bad joke.”

  I open the notebook and ogle at the blank page. This is me—blank. It would actually feel nice to fill in the space with something, even if it’s just words.

  “Actually, it’s not a bad idea,” I say, pushing myself up in bed and writing in the notebook I like fun. “OK. What else?”

  “I figure we’ll try a few things out. See if we can add more items to your list and maybe jog that memory of yours. You never know.”

  He sits on my bed and unfolds a gigantic map of the United States.

  “This is America.”

  I cock my head at Stephen. “I’m aware.”

  He chuckles again and points to Ohio. “This is Ohio.” Then he points to a dot at the top of the state. “This is Cleveland. It’s on”—Stephen squints as he reads—“Lake Erie. Lake Erie is one of the five Great Lakes in America.”

  I sit back in bed. “This is a lovely geography lesson, but how is it supposed to help me?”

  “Close your eyes and think about water for a minute.”

  I take Stephen’s advice, and for the next few minutes, I envision water, touching water, tasting water, the cool crispness of it . . . but nothing happens.

  Stephen waves away the moment and gets out another map. “This is Ireland. Ireland is an island.” And again, I cock my head at him, making Stephen giggle once more. “This is where Limerick is in Ireland. It’s on the west side of the country.”

  “OK,” I say, trying to take in exactly where I am right now. “What else?”

  “It’s the third-largest city in Ireland. And”—Stephen dusts his shoulder off—“the friendliest.”

  “Really?”

  “You landed in a good spot, Clementine.”

  “I believe I crashed.”

  Stephen laughs. “You have quite a lovely sense of humor.”

  “I do?”

  He nods. “Write that down.”

  I add I have a lovely sense of humor to my list, my spirit lifted slightly. Stephen starts reading off the names of the cities on the map to see if any strike a memory.

  “Galway . . . Cork . . . Waterford . . . Dublin . . . Any of these sound familiar?”

  The cities are easy to find on the map, but accessing a memory isn’t so straightforward.

  “Maybe maps just aren’t your thing.” He sets them both back on the cart. Stephen then holds up two books—one with a woman and half-naked man on the cover and the other with a man in a trench coat with a gun.

  “Romance or suspense?” he asks. “Do you like a little sex or a little violence?”

  I take the books from him and examine the covers. “I definitely prefer the half-naked guy ove
r the violence.”

  “The guy,” Stephen says. “So you’re not gay.”

  I shrug. “I don’t think so.”

  Stephen perks up. “A development. This is good. Write that down.”

  So I do. I am not gay (most likely).

  On closer examination of the books, I notice the guy is pretty hot. “I definitely like this one more, and I might need a little distraction. Can I have it?”

  An excited expression spreads on Stephen’s face. “I think we’ve found your thing.”

  “What?”

  “Clementine likes sex!” Stephen announces with enthusiasm.

  “I’m not writing that down,” I say with a small laugh.

  “There’s no shame in liking sex. It’s natural.”

  “But I don’t even know if I’ve had sex.”

  Stephen looks at me with a keen eye. “Oh. You’ve had sex.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “A nurse just knows these things,” Stephen says. My face heats.

  “I’m still not writing that down.” I smile.

  We go through a few more items. I discover I like tulips over roses, broccoli over green beans, and I don’t like balloons. At all.

  “Knowing what you don’t like is as important as knowing what you do like,” Stephen says when we’re almost done with all the objects on the cart.

  “Where did you get all of this stuff?”

  “I popped over to the shop next door.” Stephen hands me a piece of chocolate cake. “But this I took from the cafeteria. Try it and see what happens.”

  My first bite of the cake is spongy and delicious. I shovel in more and speak with my mouth full. “Decent texture. Not too dry. Definitely made with butter, but it would be better with dark chocolate and applesauce. Cream cheese frosting is a nice touch.”

  Stephen seems impressed. “You can tell that just from a bite?”

  “Is that unique?” I down another huge bite.

  “Definitely.” Stephen takes an extra fork and eats a bite of the cake. “Write that down.”

  As I do, Stephen instructs me to take another bite.

  “Now,” he says, “maybe there’s a hint of a memory from a birthday party or a holiday hidden somewhere inside . . .”