Can I Be Your Memory?

Chapter 1

The girl’s family rushed into her room. She looked over at them, fear still in her eyes. The machines started to beep wildly. Even if she wasn’t attached to them, you can still tell her heart was racing a mile a minute. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another person come in holding something.

“Who are all of you? Where am I?” The girl managed to get out.

The father of the girl rushed to the doctor’s side and whispered something. The room went silent as they all started at the her.

“What do you mean? We’re…”

The oldest sister was then cut off by the doctor.

“I’m Dr. Widener. You got into a huge accident. That’s why you’re lying in this hospital bed,” he said as he walked over to her side of the bed.

“Oh,” Was all she could say.

“But who are you four?” She had said afterwards.

“We will get to your questions in a minute. As your doctor, I need to ask you some. Now, can you tell me your name?” He said as he pulled out a small flashlight to examine her eyes and her ability to focus.

“Yes, it’s…”

She then stopped. “What is my name?” She thought in her head.

“Do you?” The doctor asked.

“No…. I can’t remember,” she said.

“How about your birthday and age?”

She looked down at her hands. The boy looked at her as she wringed her fingers. He recognized that as her nervous habit.

“Maybe she’s not forgetting everything,” he thought in his head.

“No… I can’t” she said with a little shock and frustration in her voice.

The boy’s hopes fell. He started to worry. Her family started to worry too.

“Do you remember how you got here?”

“No…” she whispered.

“Do you recognize any of the people in the room?”

The girl looked first at her father, then her sisters. Lastly, she looked over to the boy. You can tell he was pleading with his eyes, hoping that she would remember. She blinked then shook her head.

“I’m sorry. I don’t,” she said.

“Ok. I think I’m done here, but I actually need to talk to you four. So can you please follow me. I’ll send in a nurse in here for you to check on you as well,” the doctor said.

The doctor left the room, the family and the boy following him. They had a feeling on what the doctor was going to say. They were dreading this conversation. They were a good distance from the door, just incase the girl was listening. If you tried to read the doctor’s face, you couldn’t tell what his expression was. He had to get use to give emotional news to people. So his expression was nothing. It had to be nothing seeing that he gives bad news every day to some people.

“From the looks what you daughter is saying, it looks like she hit her head really badly. From the looks of it, your daughter has Traumatic Amnesia, where the impact from the accident has caused her to forget who she basically is and who she knows. We are going to need to have her stay for a couple of days,” the doctor said.

They weren’t really paying attention to him. They were upset but not as bad as the boy. He felt his heart being ripped out. Everything he believed in, cared for, loved with all his heart, was sort of gone. Not only did he technically lose someone, but he lost a part of himself as well.

“I need your help to sort of remember who she is. Help her understand. It’s going to take some time so you’re going to have to do this process slowly. You don’t want to put too much on her. If you tell her memories or information at a slow rate, you might be able to trigger her memory,” he said.

It was like instant that his beeper started to go off. He said something about leaving to them and with that he did. They all looked at each other feeling mixed emotions. Confused on what to do. Angry because that drunk driver took away basically the one they loved. Hurt because they didn’t know where to start.

“I promised from the beginning that I would take care of her forever, and I will. I am going to help her every step of the way if she likes it or not,” the boy said.

“And what are you going to say when she asks how she knows you?” The oldest sister said.

“I’ll tell her I’m a friend who knows what she’s going through. I don’t want to shock her too much. If I tell her right away, I might lose her. I don’t want that to happen,” the boy said.

They all nodded in agreement.

“Come on. Let’s go talk to her,” the father said.

As they were all conversing outside of her room, the girl stared blankly at the wall. Many thoughts were going through her head. The nurse came in to check on her, asking her if she was comfortable or not. She just nodded and didn’t speak a word. The girl looked down at her hands, confused, doing that same nervous habit that the boy always noticed her do before. She felt like a huge part of her was missing. She then noticed the hospital bracelet on her wrist. She turned it over to read what it said.

“Deang, Erelin. July 7, 1989.”

“Erelin…” She read.

She sort of smiled to herself, knowing what her name was. But she wondered, why couldn’t she remember before?