by Daisy Allen
Just as he reaches the door he turns back, and almost runs to me.
"You hate lentils! You never want to eat another falafel for the rest of your life!” He almost yells. And I’d have covered my ears, if I wasn’t so surprised. How can he know that? He’s right. So, how does he know? How could he possibly?
"H-How do you know that?"
There’s a flicker of something in his eyes. Hope. “Because you told me. You told me." He says, pointing at us each in turn.
No. I can't have forgotten him, forgotten having told him that. I hate these reminders of my accident, that there are parts of my own life that I don’t know. The helplessness comes crashing down around me, and I reach forward and push him away.
"Please… please go," I beg him.
“No, please, listen to me,” he begs right back.
"Let's go, Jez." I hear Toni say.
"She knows me, Toni... I don’t understand." His voice breaks. And in turn it breaks something inside me. It’s not fair. It’s not fair to him. If there’s the smallest chance that… that he did exist in my past, he deserves an explanation. I need to explain to him.
I spin around, watching him back out of the room, his face confused and twisted in pain.
"Wait.” I say and he stops and eyes locking on mine. “I- I have amnesia," I say. The phrase that’s defined my life lately.
"What? No.”
"I... I don't remember you. I have amnesia."
His face falls and there’s a tiny tipping of his head as he processes what I’ve said.
"So, everything you're remembering? It didn't happen for me. I don't remember it. And I don't know you. So please, do the same for me. Forget me. Like I’ve forgotten you."
I walk over and slowly pull the door closed between us and walk back to bed.
Go away, mystery man. Just go.
I don't want to be reminded of the things I've forgotten and lost.
The things I might've had but don't have any more.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jez
As soon as we get back to my room, I rip my arm away from Toni. A white-hot pain, searing like a knife boring into my elbow, shoots both ways up and down my arm. I hear a noise like an injured wolf howl and don't realize it's me until I feel my body pushed back onto the bed, and Toni is patting my leg, saying my name. It feels like how I’ve heard panic attacks described, but never experienced for myself.
"Jez, Jez, it's okay, it's okay, take a breath." I can just hear her words through the pain and stars dancing in front of me, and I drag some air into my lungs. "Good, that's it, just calm down and keep breathing, Jez."
I take a few breaths until I feel the pulse rushing in my ears slow a little.
"I'm okay," I say, even though I'm not.
"You will be. You're not okay quite yet, but you will be."
"Do you mean short term or long term?" I rasp, trying to make light of the situation, a little embarrassed by my reaction.
"Both."
I stop talking for a moment, until my breath is slow and steady again. And the pain has receded. In my arm at least.
"I know her, Toni. I do. I'm not crazy. We had... we met once." I need someone to believe me.
"All this over someone you met once?"
"It was... special."
She raises her eyebrows but doesn’t say anything, just walks over and makes a note on my chart.
"We didn't even exchange names. But it was special. She was… is special."
"Boy, I'm too old for this," she says. But then sits down on the chair next to the bed, opposite me. "Which is exactly why you should tell me more.” There’s a gleeful look on her face, as if she’s awaiting some salacious details.
"Get your mind out of the gutter, it's not like that."
She rolls her eyes as if she doesn’t believe me. "Then why don't you tell me what it's like."
"That girl… is insane. Crazy and wild and sweet and hilarious and we just talked for a little bit. And I really, really liked her. Like her. I haven’t stopped thinking about her since we met. Well, once I stopped playing sleeping beauty, that is.”
"So, what happened?"
"This." I say, gesturing to my body. "This happened. I met her the night this happened. I've been wondering about her ever since. I didn’t know she played the ukulele then "
“I’m sorry, Jez, but it doesn’t seem like she knows you. Or remembers you,” she says, her eyes looking sad.
"I know. How can that be? I remember all of it. Every word. What happened to her?"
Toni sighs and stands up, smoothing her hand over the bedsheet. "I can't talk to you about another patient. I'm sorry."
"Please.” I hear my own voice tremor, as if trying to convey how much it means to me to know.
She just sighs and reaches over and pats me on the cheek. "You can look at me with those big, green, puppy eyes all you like. I can't tell you anything, Jez. I’m sorry."
"So, it's ‘Jez’ now, is it?"
She grins and her broad shoulders lift up in a big shrug. "Why not? Unless you want me to call you Dimple Butt."
I make a look of mock shock. "Why, nurse Toni! Have you been admiring my butt?"
"Hard not to, when it needs sponge bathing. Anyway, I’m out, gotta go take care of my other patients. You want this door open or closed?”
“Open, please.” I want to be able to hear if she plays her ukulele again.
Toni gives me a wink as she leaves and makes a head tilt towards the squishy ball left on my table.
Subtle, Toni.
I spend the next hour playing back the two conversations I've had with that mystery woman in my head. The things we talked about that night, and the conversation we just had.
I play back her words, ‘everything you're remembering? It didn't happen for me. I don't remember. And I don't know you. So please, do the same for me. Forget me. Like I’ve forgotten you.’
I wince every time I remember the look in her eyes, of complete and utter lack of recognition of me. No. I don't buy this amnesia shit. You can't forget... you can't forget something like that night. The connection we had was once in a lifetime.
Even now, I can smell her hair, the way her eyes, tired and slightly bloodshot, reflected the moon whenever she stared up at the sky. The way she felt against my body when I carried her out from the club. The way her neck tilted away from me, when I sat next to her, talking. The way my body grew hard at just the thought of kissing her. Of taking her, of making love to her.
Fuck.
I’m hard again right now, just thinking about it.
After all this time, she still consumes my thoughts. My mind, my body.
How could that be one way?
How could she forget it?
There must be something left in there that will remind her of me.
I absentmindedly reach for the ball, my hand instinctively trying to curl around it. But my fingers freeze; stiff and sore.
"Fuck!" I yell, throwing the ball across the room. My elbow cracks from the sudden movement but I barely feel it as I watch the ball collide with a vase on the window sill and it all comes tumbling down, crashing onto the ground.
"Jez." A voice by the door startles me.
"Oh. Doc."
"What's going on?"
"What's going on is my hands and my arm are fucking useless.” I hold them up as evidence. “You said I'd be okay. You said you would set it so it would heal and go back to normal. Two fucking surgeries, Doc. Were they for nothing?"
He comes over to the side of the bed. "Jez, I told you, that you would have a high chance of a complete recovery. Your left arm broke in two places and your wrist was fractured and two of your fingers were shattered. Your right arm splintered at the elbow. These are serious physical injuries, not to mention your lung and ribs. You have to be patient. It is going to take time."
"How much bloody time? It's been almost three months! And I can't even squeeze a bloody toy without feeling like I'm being pulled on th
e rack."
He doesn’t reply and takes my left arm in his hands. They're cool as he feels along my joints.
"Look, we took x-rays after we took the casts off this morning, and all I can say is, you have to be patient. And work hard at your recovery. Don’t let the frustration get the better of you. Find something to get your mind off it."
"I'm going stir crazy, Doc.”
He chuckles a little. "I get it, I hear you aren’t that good at sitting still for very long. But you're going to need to find an outlet other than vase demolition. Okay?" He taps on the bed with his hand and then I’m alone again.
I look down at my hands, my arms, pale and weak, thin from the lack of movement and sunlight. Useless fucking limbs.
If I can't play the cello, what the hell am I?
If I can't play the cello, what the hell else matters?
Two hours later when I finally fall asleep, I still don't have an answer.
***
The next morning, I don't feel much better. My arms ache more now, like they're not sure how to feel after being freed from their restraints. Don't know whether to stay up or flop by my sides. My right wrist screams with pain every time I rotate it to the right and my elbow feels so stiff, my arms move like I'm a zombie, either straight out in front of me or pointed directly at the ground.
My first hour with the physio therapist ends in tears. Hers, not mine. And I'm sent back to my room like a kid in detention for being mean to the substitute teacher and with a stern warning from my doctor to step up my attitude.
By lunchtime, I don't want to see anyone. I tell the nurse to close my door and that I don't want any visitors. I hear the commotion outside my door when the guys come but it stays closed, and I don't move until I know they're gone.
"Honey," Toni says, coming in to bring me the food they left behind. "Have some lunch."
"Just leave it on the table," I tell her, my eyes not leaving the TV screen.
"You need to eat something."
"I will. Just leave it."
"Can I get you-..."
"No. Close the door on the way out."
"Okay. I'll check on you in a bit."
"I'm fine, go take care of your other patients."
The next day is the same. I spend an hour at a useless physiotherapy session with a new physio-therapist where I do nothing but lift my arms up and down, flapping like damn wounded baby bird. I yell to the nurses I don't want to be disturbed before hiding out in my room.
My friends knock on the door this time, yelling my name, calling me out.
But I ignore them.
At this rate, I'm not going anywhere, it's better they don't waste their time coming to visit.
I make sure the door is open by the mid-afternoon, though and I sit, waiting. Waiting for the music. But it doesn't come.
What a waste. She can play like that, and she doesn't.
What a waste, I think to myself, cradling my wrist.
What a fucking waste.
***
The next morning is the same old shit.
"Rotate it to the left now," Brian, the PT tells me.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because it fucking hurts," I tell him. And he looks like he couldn't care less.
"It's not going to get any better if you don't exercise it,” he says for the third time that day.
"Is it going to get better if I do?"
"There's a better chance of it healing fully, yes."
"You promise?" I snicker, knowing full well he can’t.
"No. You know better than to believe a promise like that, Jez. Now, please rotate your wrist anti-clockwise."
I do. Just to because I thinks he think I won’t. I do it out of spite. And then hiss from the pain.
"Is that what you want? See me in pain?"
"If that's what helps you through it, then you can think what you want." He shrugs.
"Go to hell." I say, and grab one of the elastic bands and fling it toward the window and storm back to my room.
"See you tomorrow, Jez," he calls after me.
“See you in hell,” I mutter under my breath.
"No visitors, Toni!" I yell across the hall to the nurses' station when I get back to my floor and pull the door shut behind me, wincing from the pain in my elbow. I settle in my bed, cradling my wrist against my stomach. Laying back, feeling the dull thump thump of my pulse in my arm, sore after an hour of exercises.
The door slides open and Toni comes in.
"They're not going to like it, honey."
"Mister Petrescu," I correct her, knowing just how much of a douche I sound.
Her eyebrows shoot up, but she looks amused instead of offended.
"Fine, His Royal Petrescu. But let me tell you this, this attitude of yours isn't going to get you anywhere but your own personal hell. And you are going to see those friends of yours, because they have come every single bloody day that you've been in here, even when you didn't know they were. And while I get paid to deal with your ass, they do it out of love. And you don't know how lucky you are to have that."
I know she's right.
But it doesn’t change anything.
"You don’t know what I’ve bee-..."
"Oh yes, I do,” she practically yells at me, her hands on her hips, and I know the rest of the lecture is coming. “Whatever you think is so unique about your situation, I've seen it, hell, I've lived it. So, suck it up, maybe spending a little less time feeling sorry for yourself and more time working on your exercise, cos that’s what’s gonna save you."
She huffs and shoves me forward while she fluffs my pillows, mumbling under her breath and then pushes me back against them. I bite back a smile. The first I’ve had all day.
She’s right. Of course she is.
"Please. Just... give me one more day. Okay? I'll see them tomorrow, but I just need one more day."
"Fine. I'll tell 'em, Mister Petrescu. I’ll tell them to come back tomorrow."
She grabs a dirty cup from my table and steps towards the door, pulling it closed behind her, shutting me in with my thoughts.
The afternoon visitor rush comes and goes and I watch night-time descend as the sky turn dark outside my window.
And I wait.
But again, there’s no music.
Fuck this. I get up and poke my head out the door.
"Robbie," I whisper, gesturing to the night nurse and he comes jogging over. "Can I grab a pen and a piece of paper?"
He nods and brings it to me in my room.
I try to grip the pen in my right hand, and it feels awkward and stiff, but not painful. My index finger pushes too hard against the pen and it slips out of my hand and onto the floor.
"Flying sack of steaming hot fucking woolly mammoth shit!!!"
Robbie's head pokes in through the open door.
"What's up, J? Need help with something?"
"N-..." I bite back the trigger response of rejecting any help. "Er, yeah, would you mind writing a note for me? Still having a little trouble."
"Yeah, no problem," he says, picking the pen up off the floor and stands over the table, ready to write.
"Can you, um, can you just write the words, 'Les Feuilles Mortes'?"
He blinks for a few seconds, trying to make sense of the request.
"Yeah, honestly, no. No, I cannot write… um Le Frilly Moth.”
“Les Feuilles Mortes.”
“That’s what I said. Is there a note in English I can write for you?"
"Sorry, um, yeah. How about “Autumn Leaves"?”
"Autumn... Leaves," he says as he scribbles on the paper. "That I can do. That's it?" He holds up the note, checking his work.
"Yeah. Well, could you deliver it for me? To... er, the woman... er, to Noémie?"
"The newbie patient down the hall?"
"Yeah."
He just shrugs and folds the piece of paper and tucks it into his shirt, like it's nothing. Like that note doesn't contain the secre
t to my sanity.
CHAPTER NINE
Noémie
"Are you done?" Paige asks me, holding her hand out for my plate.
"Yeah, thanks for dinner, it was delicious." I say, handing it to her and giving her a grateful smile. As hard as it is to deal with the energy of her visits, she's really the only regular outside contact that I have. I'd go crazy if it weren't for her.
"No problem. So, this place gets a tick from us?" She waves a napkin at me, pointing to the logo of the café the food came from.
"Definitely, but would it matter? Don't you go there for the hot barista anyway? Isn't that how we pick most take-out places?"
"Seems your memory is working just fine," she says, poking her tongue out at me, and bundles up the used plates into the trash can.
"Speaking of which, can you help me with some of my memory exercises?"
She smiles and fusses with the bed, straightening out the sheets and fluffing the pillow.
"Sure, but not tonight, yeah? You look a little tired. You shouldn't be pushing yourself."
"I haven't been sleeping really well."
"Oh, do you need something to help with that?" She looks instantly concerned.
"I do, sometimes. Mostly when my head hurts though."
She comes over and sits down next to me on the couch, gently stroking my hair. "Is it getting better?"
"The pain? Yeah, almost all gone now. And the doctor says I'm pretty healed up otherwise. It's just that my brain is still a little foggy. Who knows when that will clear up?"
"Well, no rush, you just let your body recover at its own time."
"I can't stay here forever. I can't afford that."
"How many times am I going to have to tell you? Would you just let me worry about that? My Dad is cool with it, okay? Like he'd ever miss the money." And as true as that is, it’s not my money to spend. I don’t tell her that the concept of paying her back is partly what keeps me up at night.
"It’s so much though."
"Shush.” She makes a zipping movement across her lips.
"I'm shushing."
She rolls her eyes at me, gets up and resumes fussing with the blankets.
"You going to put a mint on the pillow?" I tease her. She makes a face but doesn’t stop, pouring water into my glass and tidying up around the bedside table.
