Second Heartbeat

Amber’s POV :

I was still in my unconscious state. I could hear some voices. A female voice and a male one.
They called my name, and asked me to wake up. I suddenly opened my eyes and blinked several times.
And then, I met a pair of gorgeous brown eyes. I thought I could get lost in those eyes, and I just stay there, staring at him.
The guy was hot. He had dark brown hair, and high cheek bones. But I didn’t know who he was. Next to him stood the female I saw in the kitchen.

“Wow, don’t do something like that again, babe!”, the man said.

What? That guy called me babe?
I looked at him with confusion on my face. He smiled at me, and helped me to get on my feet. I looked around me. I tried my best to search into my memories a clue, something that could help me to understand what the hell was happening to me.

“You look lost!”, the guy stated, chuckling a little.

If you only knew, I thought. I couldn’t stay like this, in this state of doubt. I looked at the male, then at the female, and spoke.

“Excuse-me, but…who are you, and where are we?”, I asked hesitantly.

The female’s face went pale, and the male was looking at me with worry in his eyes.

“What do you mean, sweetie?”, she asked.

“Uh… I have absolutely no idea of who you are…”, I confessed, looking at my feet.

“We…we are your family, Amber… What’s going on with you, honey?... It’s me, Cathie… your mother.”, she turned to the guy. “And he’s Brian. Your boyfriend. You don’t remember?”.
Her voice broke in the last part of her question.
Tears started to roll on my cheeks as I shook my head. I looked at them. There was so much on their face. I could see disbelief, worry, pain, fear…
What was my problem?

“That’s probably the impact. She fell violently on the ground and maybe she’s a bit…confused just right now. But I’m sure everything will be okay…”, I heard Cathie say.
Brian nodded slowly.

Brian’s POV

I looked at her. She looked like she didn’t understand a single thing of what was happening around her. I wanted to cry.
We’ve been friends since forever, and I always loved her. I never had the courage to tell her though, until a month ago. We were on the beach, and talked about random things. I thought it was a great time to tell her how I felt about her. I was the happiest man on the face of the Earth when she responded that she felt that way too. We started dating since that day.
And now, she couldn’t remember who I was? What the fuck was wrong with my life? It was so unfair!

Amber’s POV

“Okay…”, Cathie finally said. “Sweetie, you won’t go at school today. You obviously need some rest. I’ll show you some pictures of you, your friends, and your family. Maybe it will help you to recover your memory, okay?”

The only thing I could do was to nod. I didn’t understand. That woman was convinced to be my mother, but I knew she wasn’t!
My mother died several years ago, and she didn’t look like that Cathie at all. Brian was supposed to be my boyfriend, but I had no boyfriend. And this house! It wasn’t the one I knew. My house was way smaller than that!
I could perfectly remember yesterday. I could describe you every single minute of it. And I swear that I wasn’t in that house, with those people. I was at school, with my only friend Amanda, and then I came back home. My father was already at home and he started to yell at me since the moment I entered the house. My brother came back home an hour after and acted like he always did toward me: indifference.
You see? I’m not crazy! I know that those things happened yesterday. It wasn’t logical that I was here now. Something happened. Well, maybe I’ll get an explanation before the end of the day.

“I’ll stay with you two.”, Brian spoke.

Cathie put her fists on her hips. “No, Brian. That’s nice to propose but you have to go to school. You can come here at the end of the classes though. Okay?”

“Okay, Ma’am.” He looked at me one last time. He moved closer to me and hugged me tight. I didn’t hug him back; I didn’t know him after all. He kissed my cheek, and whispered in my ear. “Everything will be okay…”

I looked at him with a sorry expression on my face. It was obvious that he was a sweet guy. But I didn’t know a single thing about him, except that his name was Brian, and that he was supposed to be my boyfriend.
He finally exited the house.
Cathie sighed.

“Uh…Cathie…?”, I called hesitantly.

The said Cathie winced. She probably expected that I would call her mom of something.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“Uh…where are we?”, I wanted to know.

My question pained her, it was obvious. “Well, we are in Huntington Beach, in California..;”, she finally replied.

WHAT?! California? No, no, no, wait a minute! I used to live in Canada, not California!
It made absolutely no sense.

Brian’s POV

I finally reached school. My mind was a mess. I couldn’t believe what was happening to me. Well…what was happening to Amber.
She didn’t deserve that. She’s an amazing girl, and I truly love her.

“Hey, what’s up Bro?”, I heard a familiar voice say.

I turned to see a pretty 5’2 girl, with shoulder-length brown hair and a cute roundish face. His browns orbs met hers.

“Hey, Maddy!”, I greeted, trying to appear convincing.

The brown-haired girl frowned. “You know you’re my twin and you can’t hide anything to me, right?”, she questioned.

I sighed. My sister was right. I couldn’t hide anything to her, so she may have noticed my- bad mood. “Yeah.”, was my own answer. I know it sounded rude. I didn’t want to talk about what happened this morning, but I knew that Maddy was the best person I could talk to.

She moved closer to me, and rested a hand on my arm. “Talk to me.”, she said, loud enough for me to hear it.
I pulled her in a hug, and explained Amber’s case. Tears started to roll on my reddened cheeks. I didn’t care that people looked at us strangely. Once I was finished with my narration, I looked at her. Her face reflected anything but shock.

Maddy’s POV

What Brian told me was just unreal. How could someone forget all her life in such a short time ? That was crazy! I wanted to support Brian, with all my force. But I must admit that I felt pained too. Brian and I know Amber since Kindergarten. And Amber and I are pretty close. I wouldn’t say that she was my best friend, because I think that that “best friend’ concept is ridiculous, but let’s just say that if I could die for her, I would do it. The thing is that my brother means the world to me. More than a brother, he’s a friend a confident. If you really want to, you can say that he’s my “best friend”, even if that’s more than that. I know he loved Amber since…well I couldn’t say it precisely. I was so happy for them when they got together! It was just perfect: my brother and the closest friend I had. I guess it was too good to be true.
I had to help him through this, well to help THEM through this.

“I’ll come with you at Amber’s place, after classes.”, I said.

Brian muttered a ‘thank you’, and we started to make our way to our first class of the day.

Amber’s POV

I forced a smile as Cathie showed me the last picture of the third photo album. It was really confusing. I mean, I was on all the pictures she showed me. There were pictures of when I was a baby, and more recent ones. I couldn’t deny that it was me on those pictures. But I felt kinda distant about them. I couldn’t explain it. There were the proofs that Cathie and Brian told me the truth: they were my family and they knew who I was. But I couldn’t understand it. Why my memory was telling me otherwise? Why this family wasn’t the one I remembered?

I had an idea. I looked at Cathie, who seemed more and more desperate.

“Cathie…?”, I asked softly. I knew I was hurting her by calling her like that but I couldn’t call her “mom”. “Mom” was a world that I wasn’t used to say.

“Yes, sweetie?”. It was obvious that she was trying to be strong in front of me, but I was sure that she was living a hell inside.

“Can I go to my…well to the room I woke up in?”, I demanded.

“Of course.”, she responded, forcing a smile.

I almost rushed to the room, and sat on the bed with my laptop on my thighs. I opened internet and went on Facebook.

I almost yelled when I saw my pictures.
Instead of the pictures I expected to see, there were pictures with me and people I couldn’t recognize. Where were the pictures of my friends and me?
I didn’t recognize any name in my list of friends. Uh...I could only recognize “Brian Haner Jr.”, who I guessed was my supposed boyfriend.
There must be a problem.
I decided to make a research of the people I knew in my ‘normal’ life.

I searched ‘Amanda Granger’, my best friend. I cried when Facebook told me they were no result for that research.
I searched my neighbors, Elena and Bobby Morgan, and there was no result too.
Every single research I made of people of my normal life gave no result. I growled in desperation. It was impossible. Nobody can have deleted my all life. Maybe it was just a Facebook bug. All the memories I had weren’t fake, I was totally sure of that. I know that I could sound like a totally mad person, but I swear I’m not insane!
Maybe I was in a nightmare. I would wake up soon and everything would be over. I would be in my own family, my real family. The father I hated and the brother who didn’t care about me. Wait?!
I started to think about something.
The last thing I could remember of my normal life was ma going to bed. I could also remember that I was thinking of how shitty my family was. I could remember the exact last words I thought before falling asleep: “I would give anything to have a ‘normal’ family. Absolutely anything.”
And then, it hit me. Maybe my wish had been taken in consideration. Maybe someone gave me the possibility of a new start, in a new family, a new life.
I laughed at my own stupidity. That kind of thing happened only in movies. Bad movies, if you want my opinion.
Yeah, this idea was stupid, but that was the only explanation that could came to my mind right now. I sighed.
I decided to suppose that my theory was true, at least for the moment, and in the wait of a better one.
I came back to my list of friends on Facebook, and looked at who were my friends, in this new life.
I decided to look at the friends Brian and I had in common. Seven persons:

Amy Stanford
Aria Carter
Jimmy Sullivan
Madeleine Haner
Matthew Sanders
Missa Venetta
Zachary Baker

I didn’t know any of those names.
I clicked on the first one, Amy Stanford. Her profile picture showed her and a boy with dark brown hair and big dimples.
The girl had shoulder length black/brown curvy hair, and a side swept fringe. She had forest green eyes, which fitted her dark hair, and which contrasted with her pale skin.
She seemed quite athletic and curvy, and the male on the picture was way taller than her.
It was written that she was in a relationship with a certain Matt Sanders, who I guessed was that guy on the picture.
I clicked on Matt’s profile.
Wow, the guy was strongly built, that’s the least you could say. He had dimples, like I already said, hazel eyes and a lip piercing.
Both of them, I mean Amy and Matt, seemed friendly.
I came back and clicked on another profile: Aria Carter.
The girl had black hair with purple streaks layers, brown eyes and a tan skin. She had a big genuine smile on her profile picture. She looked very nice. According to Facebook, she was in a relationship with someone called Jimmy Sullivan. I think he was in the list of friends Brian and I had in common. I clicked on his profile and laughed hard when I saw his profile picture. I couldn’t describe it properly, but let’s just say that he looked really drunk, and that could explain his facial expression. He looked like a funny man, but his crystal blue eyes made me think that he was friendly too.
The next person on the list was Madeleine Haner. It was obvious that she was Brian’s sister, first because of her name, and also because of those gorgeous browns eyes. I knew I was right when I saw that she was “Brian Haner Jr. ‘s Twin”. No relationship for this girl?? How could that be possible? Well, it wasn’t my problem after all, I had no right to judge them.
I clicked on Missa Venetta’s profile. She had shoulder length black hair with turquoise highlights all over and blue eyes. I could see on her picture that her arm was tattooed but I could see it properly. She looked really outgoing, but that was maybe just my opinion. The guy she was in a relationship with was called Zachary Baker, and was also one of Brian’s friends.
He had raven black hair with purple highlights. He had a chubby face, and deep green eyes. He also had snake bites piercings.

I decided to look at my pictures and the pictures of all those people. I came to the conclusion that I was supposed to be quite close with all of them. It made me feel a bit sad, because I didn’t know anything about them.
I wanted to get to know them. I didn’t know why though. Maybe because they all looked more open-minded that all the people I knew in my normal life.

My theory was more in more convincing. It was crazy, but I loved the idea of having been sent to a new life. I hadn’t a rational explanation or this though, but who cares?
I realized that it could be a chance that had been given to me. The chance of having a loving family and friends who cared about me.
Cathie seemed like a good person and a good mother. I won’t deny that my first thought was that Cathie had kidnaped me or something like that, but I immediately had rejected that idea because it didn’t fit Cathie’s personality.
She seemed honest and I wanted to trust her.
But yet, everything seemed so unreal. I wanted my theory to be true, but I knew it was a childish theory. It couldn’t be that simple. But once again, that was the only possibility that I had.

The morning passed really quickly. Cathie and I had a really silent lunch. After lunch I decided to explore the house, with Cathie’s explanations. I didn’t want to talk about my theory with her, because she would send me to an asylum, that’s for sure.
After that, I went to my room again and looked at more pictures and Facebook page to learn more things about this life I discovered.

“Amber! Brian and his sister are here, honey!”, I heard Cathie call.

I looked at the clock. It already was 5:15 p.m. I made my way downstairs, ready to face that new life.