"Stop!" The disc obeys. A blanket. A blue one. A canteen.

I think I know what comes next.

A flutter runs through me. I know. I picture a scene, fully formed. Jenna, cross-legged on a blue plaid blanket on the sand. A mug of steaming hot chocolate in my hands. Hot chocolate with three fat marshmallows. I loved hot chocolate. Taste! I am shocked at my first memory of taste. How could I forget taste? Chunk after chunk pieces together. It is like a window has been opened and memories are breezing through it. Days. Weeks. Three weeks of details collect and run through my mind, every one remembered and sharp.

I pull myself closer to the screen on my desk. My head vibrates. "Play," I command. The scene shifts from the campfire to me. I'm sitting on a blue blanket. I lift a mug of hot chocolate to my lips and offer a frothy, chocolate-mustached grin.

"Stop." I lay my head on my desk. I close my eyes and soak in what it means.

I knew. A whole chunk of my life is mine again.

Three whole weeks' worth. It seems like a lifetime.

My eyes blink open. "Mother!" I call. I race from my room and down the stairs to the kitchen. "Lily!"

No one answers. I see Mother out the window, talking with a workman and pointing to panes in the greenhouse. Lily is no doubt somewhere within. I run to the pantry and search for ingredients. I pull cocoa and then sugar from the shelves. Marshmallows! Lily has marshmallows, too! I tuck the bag beneath my arm and let them all tumble onto the kitchen counter. Milk! A sauce pot! I remember! I pour. I stir. I make sense of a stove I have never used before. I feel full, powerful, like I haven't felt since I woke up. I'm making hot chocolate. I love hot chocolate! I search the cupboards for a mug. I pull the largest one I can find from the shelf and pour the steaming mixture in. I rip open the bag of marshmallows, and just as I plop them in, Lily and Mother come in through the back door. They stop and stare at me and the helter-skelter mess I have made.

"I remember! I love hot chocolate!"

I raise the mug like a toast to celebrate this new memory. I expect a smile — at least from Mother— but instead, as I bring the mug to my lips, her face wrinkles in horror and she yells, "No!"

Taste

Maybe I don't like hot chocolate.

And maybe the three weeks' worth of memories aren't real at all.

Maybe I don't remember sneaking on makeup in the bathroom at school.

Or completing a double pirouette and finishing as gracefully as if I really did have wings.

Or snuggling on the sofa with a golden dog I named Hunter.

The hot chocolate was tasteless.

Just like my nutrients.

I know you can forget a lot of things, but how can you forget taste?

When the mug slipped from my fingers.

Lily caught it.

And hardly any spilled on the floor.

School

I'm certain it is Claire's fault. Everything. Why does she whimper and cower so? Is she guilty? She cried when I dropped the mug. I wanted to hit her. It's mine, dammit. Mine. But it must be hers, too, with the way she takes it on. It is like she owns every shortcoming I have. Maybe she just plain owns me. She tried to explain it away. It's temporary. Your taste will return. You shouldn't have food anyway. I spent the next hour locked in my bathroom, staring at my tongue. It's normal. Rough and pink and fleshy. What's wrong is somewhere else inside. Something that is disconnected within me. I don't trust her. She hovers, smiles, cries, and controls. Too much of everything. I need to get away from her.

I open the car door. She opens hers, too.

"No," I say. "I'm seventeen. I can do this on my own."

"But, Jenna — "

I've learned how to smile in the space of just a few short weeks. I'm learning how to control, too. "Claire," I say to hold her to the seat.

She shuts her door. "That again?" she says, looking straight ahead. She is hurt. Everything backs up inside me. School, control, distrust, and doubt, they all get shoved behind the hurt on her face.

I hear words, words from long ago that were snarled inside me. I'm sorry. So sorry. Words that were trapped in my head and couldn't be said, frozen behind lips that wouldn't move. And that made me want to say them more.

It's okay, darling. It's all right. Shhh. Everything will be fine. Claire answering over and over again when I hadn't even spoken, looking into my eyes and reflecting all the pain she saw.

I get out of the car and lean down, looking at her through the window. Claire forces a smile. Her eyes cling to me. I'm so sorry. She rolls down the window. I say a dozen more redundant things — things we have already discussed— just to keep her from talking. I will take my afternoon nutrients. I will not discuss the accident. I will be outside at three o'clock. I will call if I need her. I'm afraid she will have a last-minute change of heart, will control me in that way she does and force me back into the car just by saying my name. It is like we are both fighting for control of Jenna Fox.

"I'll be fine," I finally say, and thankfully, like a miracle, she leaves without saying another word.

I turn and face the village charter. School. It is nothing more than an abandoned real estate office. I see the defunct sign dismantled and leaning against the side, almost obscured by overgrown weeds. Dusty blinds hang in the windows. A pale coat of yellow paint makes a faint attempt at sprucing it up. It looks more like an old farmhouse. Maybe it once was. Their emphasis is ecosystems? I went to a central academy in Boston — Claire told me— but even before she confirmed it, I knew. I remember when Kara, Locke, and I ditched a seminar. We were afraid but hoped we wouldn't be missed among the hundreds of students who were in our class. I don't know what a charter is like except that it is small. Hundreds, maybe thousands of students smaller than an academy. They go to school only a few days a week. What kind of students choose to go to such a small, run-down school when they could attend an academy with everyone else? It is different in every way, but since I can't remember too much about the old ways, it shouldn't matter to me. Why did I want to go to school again?