by Jenn Hype
“It’s not your fault, Brailey, I get it. Really, it’s fine. We can just start over.”
For once I kind of wish Mark would drop the good guy thing and just say what he’s really feeling. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t appreciate that he cares enough to put my feelings first, but he does it with everyone. One of these days all those pent up emotions are going to come barreling out at once, and I worry about the long term effects for Mark.
Day in and day out, Mark spends all day talking to patients, listening to their problems, dedicating his life to helping everyone but himself. I so badly wish I could be that person for him, but I can’t.
I found out today why it seemed like things were a little strained between us the past couple weeks when a nurse accidentally mentioned my relationship with Mark, which of course, I don’t remember. She tried to backtrack immediately, but I wouldn’t let her. Reluctantly she filled me in on what little details she knew, but it was enough. Finding out that Mark and I had been involved before my accident was a big blow. Why hadn’t he told me?
I couldn’t keep moving forward without knowing, which is why we’re talking about it now. Or at least, I’m trying to talk about it, but Mark wants to just sweep it under the rug. I’m going to let him – for now – but only because there’s not really much I can say other than I’m sorry, and I don’t think that’s going to do any good.
My guilt may be unwarranted, because of course my memory loss is not my own fault, but looking at his defeated and frustrated face doesn’t assuage that guilt in the slightest.
Try as I might, I can’t remember ever being with Mark. He’s certainly attractive enough to believe it possible, but looking at him never brings back any inkling of emotions - physical or otherwise. Sometimes I catch him looking at me with what I can only describe as a focused intensity: narrow, dark eyes that make me feel like he’s trying to figure out the inner workings of my brain even more than I am.
“You mean so much to me, Mark. I’m afraid of what will happen to us if I never remember. I don’t want to lose you in my life entirely.” Yeah, I’m a selfish jerk. Mark is the one who is suffering – left to deal with the memories of whatever we had together while knowing I don’t feel anything towards him anymore. But he’s all I have, and if it makes me selfish for not wanting to lose him, then I guess I’m just a selfish person.
Mark reaches over and clasps my hand with his. It’s not a romantic or sentimental gesture. Mark put on his mask the second I asked him about our past, and everything about him conveys the doctor side of him. “You’ll never lose me, Brailey. I can handle it, stop worrying. I told you, it doesn’t matter what was between us before, we were friends first. I’m not going to remind you of the details, because all that will do is confuse things more. Please, put this behind you and try to just focus on the present. Of all the things I’d love for you to remember, I’m the lowest on the list, because this isn’t about me. It’s about you.”
Mark filled me in with as many details as he could over the past couple weeks, which is oddly not a whole lot considering we used to be involved, but at this point I’ll take anything.
I’m twenty-six, and my brother Shaun was four years younger than me. Our parents died when we were young, and we grew up in foster care until I was eighteen when I took over guardianship.
I put myself through nursing school while being a mother to Shaun and working full time. I’d been trying to get a loan to pay for Shaun’s transplant for months but couldn’t get approved with all the credit card debt I’d racked up from his medical bills. That is until one day I received a call saying an anonymous donation had been made to the hospital for Shaun’s surgery. The donation was coincidentally made at the perfect time, because Shaun was called in for a transplant almost immediately thanks to a motorcycle driver riding without a helmet. After all that – the donation, the man who unknowingly sacrificed his life to give my brother a heart, then enduring the surgery – in the end, Shaun died from post-surgery infection in the hospital not long after the operation.
The day of his surgery my house caught fire and that’s how my memory was lost. A piece of ceiling fell on my head, knocking me out, and I still have some light scarring on my left leg and torso from the burns. Because I had no family and no memory, Mayford took me in long enough for me to get on my feet. Apparently I had woken up, freaking out and almost really hurting myself during my recovery, which is why I had been strapped to a bed.
I might not know myself very well yet, but I still find it strange that I would have tried to hurt myself. No matter how scared, alone or intimidated I’ve felt since waking up, I’ve never once considered hurting myself, which leaves me wondering…
Are Mark and the staff of Mayford really being honest with me?
~
My eyes pop open when I hear the taxi driver clear his throat in a very loud, over-exaggerated kind of way. The car is idling next to a curb, and when my eyes meet his in the rearview mirror I see him scowling back at me. It takes all of two seconds to yank out my headphones and pay him, but his patience must have run out when I was half passed out in the backseat, because he takes off before the door is all the way closed behind me.
The key to my new home rests securely in my pocket, but I can’t will my legs to move. Something about this next step feels much more monumental than any other I’ve taken in my life, both literal and metaphorical. Even with no memory of my previous life experiences, I can feel them influencing my every thought and decision through my subconscious. My attitude, my fears and insecurities; they come from a place that’s just out of my reach. Every time I instinctually do something, I’m left wondering where that instinct came from, and every time I come up blank.
A lawyer - my lawyer - met with me at Mayford two days ago to go over my finances. He had even taken care of getting me a new license, check card and had the keys to a safety deposit box. I don’t remember the guy, but if first impressions mean anything, I chose wisely when I hired him. All of my assets had been properly guarded, including the life insurance money I received from my brother’s death. A brother I don’t even remember having.
Every day since waking in that room, not knowing who I am or where I was, I have lived with the guilt of not remembering my own brother. I’m told he died during a medical operation, and since I was not able to take care of his funeral, he was buried in an unmarked grave, courtesy of the city, that I’ve yet to be able to visit.
Included in a folder full of documents given to me by my lawyer was a copy of my nursing degree. Mark of course had already informed me that prior to my accident I was employed as a nurse at Mayford, but with all the memory loss they had chosen to no longer employ me.
I could have tried to find work as a nurse, but the degree feels phony now. I don’t remember school. I don’t remember spending hours studying, pulling all-nighters to prepare for tests. It’s possible I retained the knowledge and skill, but do I really trust myself to put someone’s life in my hands when so much of my own life is still a blank?
The answer is no. It was the first decision I made without wavering or second guessing myself. No matter who I was before, I’m not someone who will take that kind of risk now. Not at someone else’s expense. So in my ‘new life’ I’ll be answering phones and running errands at a semi-successful marketing firm, and starting from the bottom feels great. I’m just happy to be doing something other than sitting around obsessing. The bare walls and limited distractions at Mayford provide the perfect environment for driving yourself batty with your own thoughts. Silence is deafening. True statement.
If Mark had gotten his way, I would be taking some time to myself before starting a job, getting acclimated and settled into my new life before adding more stress since I have enough money from the life insurance policy to live comfortably for a while. Something about living off money given to me because someone I loved died just doesn’t feel right, so I’m not all too anxious to start spending it. It took some cajoling, but eventually Mar
k agreed to help me find a job, and he set me up with the one I’ll be starting in a week, giving me just enough time to get settled in.
The sidewalk is bustling, a complete contrast to my still frozen state. I probably look like one of those living statues sans makeup and costume. The city’s energy is infectious, and my toes twitch, begging my legs to move. None of the millions of things that need done before Monday are going to happen if I don’t figure out how to put my body in motion.
I don’t have furniture, clothes or even toiletries, and I don’t think the baggy jeans and oversized hoodie I’m wearing fall under the ‘business casual’ dress code of my new job, so a new wardrobe is at the top of my priority list. My clothes were among the things I lost in the accident, and my current ill-fitted attire came out of the lost and found at Mayford.
By some miracle, my body catches up with my brain and starts moving. Only it’s moving in the wrong direction, and my face is quickly on it’s way to getting very well acquainted with the pavement.
That’s weird. Why is the sidewalk squishy?
“Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry!” The squishiness is a body, I realize, and it belongs to a woman. Even though she broke my fall and has to be in pain, she’s more concerned with my well-being than her own. Soft hands push me away and then grip my arms, yanking me up to standing. It’s dizzying and my eyes take a few seconds to adjust from the head rush that came with being toppled by a stranger. When my vision focuses again, I see the apologetic eyes of a pretty blonde staring back at me. She’s looking me all over, like she’s checking to see if I’m gushing blood anywhere, and she seems frantic.
“Are you okay? I’m so sorry! I wasn’t looking. I never look. I am so clumsy. Do you have a concussion? Did you hit your head? Is anything broken? I can’t believe I did that.” The hyperactive stranger who came barreling out of my new apartment building keeps rambling, but I can’t keep up. My thoughts wander and I watch in a daze as she apologizes over and over, making me curious as to how she can talk for so long without taking a breath. I’m not even sure she’s talking to me, because she keeps answering her own questions before I even have a chance to respond.
It’s not until she’s ushering me inside the building and we’re walking up a set of stairs that I realize I must have actually responded to her at some point, because she’s holding my apartment key and my backpack, still chattering away as I follow her like a lost puppy dog.
“I can’t believe we live right next door to each other! How crazy is that? I’ve been wondering who was going to move in. The apartment has been vacant for over a month, and between me and you, I’m so glad it’s someone normal moving in. The guy that lived there before you was so creepy and he listened to this terrible eighties rock music really loud at all hours of the night and it made me crazy.”
She talks so fast and so constant that I’m having trouble keeping up. How does she do that? She hasn’t even paused to take a breath.
I’m not exactly making the best first impression, considering in the five minutes I’ve known her I’ve missed half of what she’s said and I’ve already forgotten her name. Did she tell me her name? Dammit, I’ve got to work on my listening skills.
“Oh my gosh! Where are my manners? I’m Keegan, what’s your name?” I stop scanning my new apartment and turn my gaze back to my chatty neighbor, who’s holding out her hand for me to shake and smiling broadly. It takes a second for me to snap out of it and put my hand in hers, but I manage to stop acting like a weirdo and return her smile while telling her my name. My smile isn’t nearly as wide and pales in comparison to hers, but it’s genuine.
“Brailey,” she says my name slowly, her eyes drifting away from mine for a brief second and she looks deep in thought. Then she smiles widely again and claps her hands excitedly. “I like it! You and me, Brailey,” she says as she loops her arm through mine and pulls me further into the apartment, “we’re gonna be great friends.”
Chapter Two
“Alright, c’mon,” Keegan orders as she drags me out of my new apartment. An apartment I got to look at for all of two seconds before she starts ripping me right back out of it.
“Where are we going?” I may as well have not bothered asking. By the time the last word is out, she’s already opening the door to her own apartment.
“I’m starving and there’s no better way to bond with a new friend than over food that’s incredibly bad for you. How do you feel about pizza?”
“Uh, it’s okay, I guess.”
“Preference?”
Anything other than disgusting Mayford cafeteria food is my preference, I muse to myself.
“What’s Mayford?”
Or maybe I mused out loud.
I’m saved when someone starts talking on the other end of her phone call and I hear her order one pizza with the works and one plain.
“So what’s Mayford?” She asks again as soon as she ends her call. Guess I’m not off the hook after all.
“Um, where I used to work.” Please let that be enough of an answer for us to move on.
“Oh, you mean the asylum a couple hours north of here? What did you do there?”
“Uh, I was a nurse.”
“Holy crap! You’re kidding!” Keegan knocks over a little table housing some framed photos in her excitement. She doesn’t even spare it a second glance. “You’re a nurse?! I’m a nurse, too!”
Would it be rude to groan out loud right now?
“Yeah, I was, but I don’t, um…the thing is…”
“Is that why you moved? To switch jobs?”
There’s my out. It’s not a lie, really. I am switching jobs, but it’s not the reason for my move. To lie or not to lie…
“No, I was in an accident.” I didn’t consciously make the decision to tell her that. I might have to consider gluing my own mouth shut.
“Oh no! Are you okay?” True to her profession, she already starts examining me as if the accident happened a few minutes ago.
“Yes, I’m fine. Well, mostly. I lost my memory.”
Keegan shockingly sits quietly while I explain what happened. Or at least what I was told happened. She doesn’t even ask a question until I take a decently long pause.
“So you were a patient there? What was it like?” The question is tinged with a bit of hesitancy and curiosity. Can’t blame her for being curious. Unless you’ve been inside, I can see why most people would assume those places are just like the movies.
“In some ways it wasn’t as bad as you probably think, but in other ways I’m sure it was. I was only there as a patient for a few weeks and I don’t remember my time working there, but I saw enough in my short stay to know it’s not someplace you want to be.”
Keegan just sits there staring at me when I don’t continue. I really want to just put all this behind me, but maybe talking about it will help. Sounds like something Mark would say.
“I had a lot more freedom than most. We all had areas we were restricted to, ate at certain meal times and had a time to report to our rooms at the end of the day, but for the most part, we did what we wanted. They had different rooms with activities, like painting or reading. No computers, so I spent a good amount of time glued to the television, trying to get caught up with the world and hoping to remember something.
“The rest of the time I wandered a lot. They did a good job at preserving the original structure and it’s beautiful. The main corridor has an open balcony that faces the courtyard which is well kept by the landscaping crew. A lot of the patients also help with the flowers and weeding as one of their activities, so parts of it are so lush and green that it looks more like a painting than a garden. Parts of the building have been abandoned and aren’t taken care of, but those areas are restricted. I tried to sneak in once just to explore and got busted almost immediately. Damn security cameras.”
“So sounds like something I would do,” Keegan says with a twinkle of mischief in her eye that makes me laugh.
“Yeah, luckily I didn�
�t get in much trouble. I’m not sure what they do for punishment in those situations, but I saw people disappear for a few days after causing a scene or making a mess, so I’m assuming it’s some sort of solitary confinement or something. It’s already so eerily quiet there, I can’t even imagine how horrible it would be to be locked in a room by yourself.”
Keegan and I both shudder at the same time, giggling at our commonality. Maybe it’s Keegan, or maybe I’m stronger than I thought, but telling her all of this isn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it would be.
“Anyway, the patient wings are pretty sterile looking. Single rooms with a bed and bathroom, though some rooms don’t have the bathroom, depending on which wing you’re in. The common areas are the beautiful parts. Very serene. It’s unfortunate that they’ve created such a hostile environment in a place that has so much beauty.”
My mind catches, like it’s stuck between the past and present. Hands down, the most annoying feeling of all time. The only way I can describe it is to compare it to déjà vu or even just an intuition that has you teetering in limbo, unable to tell if you’re really calling forth a memory or just indulging an active imagination.
A knock at the door breaks the silence, and I ask to use her restroom while she pays for the pizza. I look up into the mirror while I’m washing my hands, wondering if there will ever be a time when I don’t see a stranger looking back at me.
“So, when are the movers coming?” Keegan asks me as I walk back out, her mouth already full of pizza. I plop down on the floor next to her and grab a piece straight out of the box, putting the paper towel she hands me underneath as I take a bite. I assumed we came over here because she has furnishings and I don’t, but here we are, sitting cross legged on top of a very soft and smushy rug, square in the middle of her living room floor.
After a few minutes of going back and forth about whether or not she’s going to let me help pay for the pizza, she finally asks her question about the movers again.
