Almost Lost

When the doctors diagnosed me as...well, it wasn't a diagnostic so much as it was a confirmation that I was not, in fact, sane. At seventeen I was showing signs of anterograde amnesia. In most circumstances, this would have been normal. However, naturally occurring amnesia usually hit people in their late eighties, not their adolescent years. Besides, mine was a different kind altogether. Not only could I not keep new memories, but the old ones had begun to slip away as well.
I could not remember my sister's name, my own age, or if I was really my parents' child. A man said that sometimes I would stare in a daze, completely unaware of my surroundings. I don't remember that, either.
I stopped going to school. After a week, I couldn't say for sure if I had gone at all. It was like a dream, fuzzy around the edges with details missing. After two weeks, I forgot it completely.

“Stella?” Stella. What a funny name. It made me think of the sky. What color was the sky, again? “Stella, can you hear me?” Who was Stella? Was she mute? “Stella, wake up, honey.”
“I don't think she's going to answer,” I informed the woman. “Maybe she doesn't know how.” I heard sobbing from the woman now, and it made me upset as well. “Oh, don't cry,” I whispered. “She'll figure it out.”
I heard her footsteps recede down the hall and drew my attention from my own thoughts. I looked around the strange room slowly, and spotted a door. Not realizing fully what I was doing, I opened the door and stepped outside into the warm, Summer air. How I could recall what Summer felt like, I don't know.
The sky was blue.
“Hey, you!” a boy across the street called. He was wearing a gray t-shirt and jeans. His hair was brown, but his eyes were blue. Not my newly discovered sky blue, but more like the blue of an ocean. I think. He looked strong.
“Hello,” I said simply. I wasn't sure what else there was to say.
“Who are you?” he asked. So he was friendly.
But I frowned at the question, attempting to come up with an answer. “I don't really know,” I said honestly.
“You don't know who you are? Well my name is Peter. Do you at least know what I should call you?”
I thought about it momentarily. “Stella.” If she couldn't talk, I would talk for her. I would be Stella for her. For what good is being when you cannot speak? It didn't seem logical. I was playing out her death scene in my head when I realized how close Peter suddenly was. He was holding me up, keeping me from falling. “What happened?” I asked.
“You, um, almost fell over,” he responded, setting me down into a sitting position on the driveway. “You said something about dying.”
“Oh...I probably am.” I smiled up at him, then scowled. “But I can't remember.” At that, he seemed to comprehend who I really was. Recognition flashed in his eyes, but was replaced quickly with the same curious expression as before.
“I see,” he said. “Are you afraid?”
I was struggling to hold on to our conversation, but my struggle was futile. So I branched off of what the last word. “I'm not afraid of you. What are you afraid of?” He was sitting next to me now.
“I'm afraid of losing people.”
“Losing people to what?”
“Anything. Death, pain, fear...nothingness.”
“Nothingness?”
“Yes, nothingness. Professionals call it crazy.”
“Oh. Like me?”
Peter paused, and it looked as though he were debating whether or not to continue. “Yes, like you. But you're not lost yet. Not totally.”
I just nodded, not offended in the slightest. He wasn't being mean like some of my sister's friends had been yesterday. He was being factual.