by Dani Irons
I kept wondering what it could be—the palm trees, the playground equipment, one of the other students—while I spun over and over on my bar. Chloe was on the bar next to me doing the same thing, singing a song we’d just made up the other day about friends. We planned to sing it at the talent-show auditions.
When I got too dizzy and needed to take a break, I sat on top of my bar and pretended not to watch Wyatt. I couldn’t explain my fascination with him. Maybe it was because he was so weird but seemed nice.
Wyatt smiled while he drew. It started out slow, like he didn’t realize he was doing it, and then it widened into the one he’d given me in class. I couldn’t help it; I felt myself smiling too. My hand flew up to cover my mouth so Chloe wouldn’t see.
Then, with that huge smile on his face, Wyatt closed his notebook and stood. He was still looking at his closed notebook when he started walking around the building and he ran square into Jackson Parrish.
My insides shriveled. I hopped off the bar, but wasn’t sure what I should do, if anything. “Gross!” Jackson’s voice floated over the blacktop. “You got your fish smell all over me.” He pushed Wyatt. Wyatt didn’t react, but he was definitely no longer smiling. And I didn’t like the frown. “You know...” Jackson continued. “When my mom makes fish, she at least offers me some tartar sauce.”
My ears felt hot and I heard Chloe say something behind me. Ignoring her, I charged up the hill from the playground, walked across the blacktop and right up to that bully Jackson Parrish. My vision swam and I felt my arm lifting, my fingers forming a fist. And then something hit something else and my hand felt broken.
There was a lot of noise then and someone grabbed me. Pulled me away. A bundle of feelings squeezed at my stomach as my vision returned. I saw blood on Jackson’s face and shock on Wyatt’s.
“Why would you do that?” Wyatt asked as Jackson began to cry. Ms. Fring headed over, a look of confusion in her eyes and mouth, which was pinched into an “o.”
I shrugged, but I think I knew why I did it. I didn’t like not seeing Wyatt smile.
Chapter Three
Now
Pain.
Confusion.
Darkness.
My face feels like someone’s beaten me up with a baseball bat and I don’t know if I can feel my body. I try to move my legs and nothing happens. Panic overtakes me. Am I dead? Am I even breathing?
I try to assess a rise and fall of my chest or air coming into my body, but my nose feels clogged. Maybe it’s broken.
Something touches me on the arm and since I don’t know if it is animal, human or other, I want to slink away from it. But I can’t move.
Panic again, and I’m gone.
* * *
When I open my eyes, it’s to an overwhelming brightness. It takes several blinks for them to adjust. My stomach rolls like I’m on a ship and about to be sick. I’m floating or something. Floating in light. But that doesn’t sound right, doesn’t feel quite right. Every moment is a separate experience and I can’t bring them all together to make sense.
Machines hum and beep. Something is in my nose. Someone is breathing nearby.
A dullness aches in my chest.
I’m uncomfortable and sticky, but when I move, pain shoots through me like fireworks. The pain pulls me from wherever I’m floating and grounds me.
When I’m able to focus, I see a little girl straightening the white blanket that covers me and a guy in a neckerchief sitting next to me on a chair. A strong emotion hits me when my eyes roll over his weird uniform, but my mind is too erratic to name it. When the little girl notices my eyes are open, she screams, “Ohmygod...Mom!” The sound sets off another firecracker in my head.
Two older people—a man and a woman—rush into the room. They stand next to my bed expectantly, expressions of awe and worry etched on their faces. I blink at them.
“Olivia,” the guy in the weird uniform whispers, leaning forward in his chair. His voice is pleading, as if his life depends on my next words. But I’m too confused and foggy to say anything. I move as far over on the bed as I can, but my body screams in protest. Needles and hoses pull at my arms. My heart tries to gallop out of my chest.
I realize I’m in a hospital room a moment later when a doctor comes in. He steps closer. Blinks. “Hello, Olivia.”
I’m quiet. I’m not sure how to react.
“Olivia. I’m Dr. Fleishman,” he continues, his voice both questioning and soft. “You’ve been in an accident. You’re at a hospital in Los Angeles and are being taken care of.” His voice has a comforting rhythm to it, but he’s clearly all business. When I still show no reaction—understanding or otherwise—he pushes forward. “You’ve been in a coma for a few days, but your vitals have been good. You’re on a little oxygen. The accident gave you a concussion, broke your arm, and cracked a couple of ribs. You are medicated for the pain, so you might be a little confused or groggy.” He seems to be reading things from a mental list. “How are you feeling?” he adds.
I pull whatever it is out of my nose and find it’s a tube for oxygen. I let it fall to my lap and no one tells me to put it back on. Good thing, because I wouldn’t have done it and might’ve fought someone if they tried to do it themselves.
I move my mouth, not necessarily to speak, but to see how the inside of it feels. Dry and gritty like the desert. I search the bedside for something to drink. Nothing there. I keep moving my mouth and glance around the room, as if something to drink will appear. “I’m...thirsty,” I say finally, but it hurts. Like when you stand up and your sweaty leg skin sticks to the chair.
The doctor smiles and nods, then slips out of the room. The woman steps forward and takes hold of my arm delicately but also kind of possessively. Does the arm actually belong to her instead of me? I slip from her grasp, watching her in my periphery.
Her eyes widen. “We don’t want to fight right now,” she says. “We just want to be here for you.” Her voice is pleading.
“Who...?” I ask, trailing off, trying to swallow the grit in my throat.
“Who hit you?” The woman asks, trying to finish the sentence for me. “A drunk driver. He’s in jail now.”
I shake my head. The lady doesn’t make sense. Someone hit me? He’s in jail? The doctor returns with a pink plastic cup with a little straw sticking out of it. “Take a few sips and after we make sure you’re feeling okay, we’ll see if we can get you something else. Do you like orange juice?”
After taking a sip of water, I think about that. I don’t know. I remember orange juice but I can’t remember if I like it. I shrug and the movement hurts.
“She was trying to say something when you left, but she couldn’t get much out,” the man says. He’s dark and big and wears glasses. “Is that normal?”
The doctor nods. “Yes. After a head injury, every imaginable situation can be normal even when it doesn’t seem that way. The brain works by its own rules. Now, Olivia. After you have a bit more of that water, I want you to ask that question again.” He’s rushing me. I feel rushed.
But I do as I’m told and have a few more sips. When I woke up, the first thing I’d felt was pain, but it was dull and hazy, like the pain itself was underwater and I could touch it, but not feel the heaviness of it. Unless I moved. Now, my brain hurts, but not in a painful way. More like my gas tank has been overfilled.
After some more water, my eyes land on the woman. “Who...are...?” My throat stings. I grimace and take another sip. Then a deep breath. Every time I speak, my side aches like someone is giving me a bear hug. “...you?”
The woman’s face pales and the little girl gasps. The man steps forward, a serious expression solidifying on his face. “Your mother is concerned,” he says. “The last thing she needs is you playing games with her.”
I blink at him, unable to gather
any emotion—confusion, fear, sadness. I’m currently emotionally bankrupt. The doctor responds. “No, don’t push her. She may be disoriented. Olivia. Can you tell me, do you recognize any of the people in this room?”
I stare at the doctor. Besides the fact that I recognize him as a doctor in his white coat and stethoscope and vaguely remember him give his name, I don’t know anything. I analyze the man, woman and little girl. Definitely no recognition there. I take another drink while looking at the guy with the weird uniform. It’s a Cub Scout uniform, I’m pretty sure. And I’ve seen it somewhere before. But where?
The overgrown Cub Scout—a troop leader, maybe?—sits so close to the bed that he could smell my hair if he felt like it. He does look vaguely familiar, I guess, but I can’t say why. The strong emotion returns and my mind labels it as something near hate. Resentment, maybe. “I recognize...” I begin, and feel an instant tension in the room. After another drink, I open my mouth again. The guy’s eyes widen and he’s frozen. Doesn’t even look like he’s breathing. “I recognize...his uniform.”
The boy lets out a rush of air and fingers his blue neckerchief absentmindedly, all without taking his eyes off my face. He licks his lips. A ping of some sort fires off in my brain at his movement, but then it disappears like running water through a hand. I think about offering him some of my drink, but I don’t.
The woman sways. “I need to sit down,” she says, trembling hands grasping onto the armrest as she lowers herself. She’s wearing a tracksuit and her short hair is pulled back. The little girl runs to her, whispers something. Her pale eyes fix on mine. After making an annoyed sigh, the man crosses his arms in front of him. I avoid his gaze, avoid everyone’s gaze. Instead, I let my eyes roam the room—no one’s brought me flowers or cards—and out the window. The only thing I see through it is a pale patch of sky with some light clouds sprinkled across it.
I should be freaking out. Why am I not freaking out? Maybe the doctor gave me some kind of medicine to make me believe that everything is all right. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, however, I know nothing is all right. The Cub Scout’s breath is on my cheek now because he’s leaning so close and it’s coming out raggedly. I scoot over more. The boy is cute, but also kind of weird, and I wish I could remember him. I want to ask his name, to whisper the question to him so no one else can hear. He’s the closest thing to someone I recognize. I keep staring at his clothes, trying to kick-start my brain. “Do you recognize anything else?” the boy asks.
“Should I?”
The man scoffs. “Don’t tell me she has amnesia.”
The doctor steps closer. “Olivia, do you know your middle name?”
Panic blooms inside me. I shake my head. “Is that my name...Olivia?” My brain doesn’t offer a replacement, so maybe it is.
The woman begins to sob, quietly. The little girl pets her hair. The cute/weird guy next to me nods. He places a hand on my forearm. When I yank it away, it feels like someone has punched me in the side. I gasp and grab my ribs. Something thick is wrapped around me; I can feel it with my fingertips.
“Slow movements,” the doctor says, coming over to me. “You’re doing great. Now, tell me again. What do you know about the people in this room?” He gestures to them. I shake my head.
“Okay...let’s start with me,” the doctor says gently. “Did you recognize that I was a doctor when I came into your room?”
I nod. Plus, he looks so stereotypically doctor-y: gray curly hair, glasses, slightly bored and tired expression. White coat.
“What kind of building are you in?” he asks.
“A hospital?”
He nods. “Can you tell me your favorite food?”
I roll the question around in my mind. I know what spaghetti and cereal and eggs and ice cream are, but I don’t know if I’ve had any of them. My eyes are wet. I swipe at them angrily. “No.”
“There’s no need to get upset,” he says now, stepping over to the side of my bed. Thankfully, he doesn’t touch me. “You’re doing great and we’re going to work through this. Can you tell me how many continents there are?”
“Seven.” I look over to the woman, expecting her to be surprised or happy that I know this, but she looks stricken and scared.
“Do you know what size shoe you wear?”
Something about the word shoe sends a thrill through me, but I don’t know what size is my size. Another shake of my head.
“What does this mean?” the woman asks, now clinging to a tissue.
The doctor clears his throat. “Well, I would have to run some other tests, get a neurologist involved...but I would say Olivia is suffering from retrograde amnesia. It’s a type of amnesia that happens directly after a traumatic event.”
“When Olivia was run over?” The little girl jumps in, looking less worried than anyone else in the room. I decide she looks that way not because she doesn’t care, but because she’s stronger than these other people are. She wouldn’t be tucking blankets and asking questions if she didn’t care. She’s small and dressed in pink and black.
“What does this mean?” The man’s voice is unsteady.
“It’s difficult to say anything for certain. She’s had a concussion, so it may be that’s interfering with her memory. But I’ve never seen a case this severe.”
“Severe?” the woman hisses, horrified.
“Usually there are just bits and pieces missing. Like gaps.”
The woman pulls at her lip. “What can we do? Will she get better? Will she have to stay in the hospital? Is she...is she still our little Olivia?”
I wait for the pet name to trigger a click of familiarity, but nothing comes.
“Anything is possible at this point,” the doctor responds, holding his clipboard to his chest. “It seems Olivia has her semantic memory—general knowledge about the world—but lacks her episodic memory. That is, her life experience memory.”
The woman wipes her face. “So you’re saying that—”
“She’s forgotten who she is.”
The quiet in the room hurts my chest, or maybe it’s panic seeping in. I’m not ready to hear this. I want to tell them to go talk somewhere else. I start to breathe rough and I grow dizzy. “Could you...slow down?”
I close my eyes and I’m spinning around inside. I’m on a dark carousel from Hell. I’m hot and sweaty and I can’t think. When I try, I fall into a hole. There’s no light. There’s nothing. Just darkness, and I can’t climb up.
I throw up my hands to cover my face. “Uhhh...” The sound rolls from my throat.
“Let’s lie you down,” the doctor says.
The bed makes a sound and vibrates. It straightens and lowers me. My stomach rolls again. Acid burns my throat.
“Drink some more,” the boy next to me insists, slipping the water glass back into my hand. “You’re on a lot of medication and you’ve had a hell of a morning. Try to stay calm.”
I don’t want to listen to him. If I had any energy, I would throw the water across the room. How dare he tell me what I’ve been through and what to drink! I will not take a drink just because some Cub Scout leader asked me to. But the more I try not to think about it, the more my throat aches.
Everyone keeps asking questions and talking about scars on my brain when the doctor leaves the room. I’m offended that he left; he needs to be here until he fixes everything. The man and woman are talking in hushed whispers and I can only pick out a word or two. “Heal” and “regain” and “memory.” I can’t stand it.
“Could everyone just shut up for a minute?” I say, wrapping my arms around my face to shield my eyes from everything. I want to crawl away. Maybe I can fall back asleep. I ignore all the outside sounds and concentrate on nothing. I don’t know who I am. How could that be? How could a person not know who they are? No, I don’t buy it. I have to know so
mething, something personal. Not everything can be wiped clean. I won’t let it; I’ll find it.
I concentrate. What’s my middle name?
Darkness.
What’s my favorite color? Food?
More darkness.
What fucking shoe size do I wear?
A bucket full of darkness. I’m pathetically swimming around in it.
My arms are shaking on my face. Tears wet my skin. I don’t like the tears. They make my head feel lighter, but they make my skin grow sticky and hot. A finger traces down one of my arms. The boy’s. I pull away. “Can everyone just leave?”
The woman speaks. “I think you should push yourself. Try to remember something. Maybe if you can latch on to one memory, just one, you’ll remember everything else.”
I shake my head violently, ignoring the blast of pain shooting through me. “I don’t want to!”
“I understand that Olivia,” she presses, “But—”
“Look at me.” The weird guy cuts her off. “You said you recognize my clothes. Look at my face again. We’ve known each other a long time. You can trust me. Look at me.”
I grip the water glass, wanting to throw it in his face. But I also open my eyes. A feeling wriggles in my belly when I stare at his soft face, but the feeling is too hard to categorize. Familiarity? Recognition? Should I know him? Or is he tricking me? They can’t all be tricking me.
I shake my head again and cover up my face. My anger and confusion turns to tears. Lots of them. And everyone lets me cry. No one says a thing; no one moves or seems to breathe. The only sound in the room is my sobs and they are so pathetic and they wrack my pained body. I try not to feel sorry for myself, to calm down, to think about things. I’m reeling in emotion and confusion and there’s nothing I can do.
