Amnesia

Luke fumbled with his cell phone in his hands as he sat in the waiting room of the hospital, quickly losing his patience. He had been sitting at the hospital for three hours as he waited to hear something, anything about Ainsley and her condition. He slipped his phone into his pocket and put his head in his hands, dragging his fingers through his blonde hair and biting on his lip ring, hoping to hear something soon.

After Luke heard Ainsley scream on the other line, the line went dead and Luke immediately knew something was wrong. He tried calling his girlfriend of two years back numerous times and he couldn’t get a hold of her for 10 minutes until Ainsley’s mother, Martha, called Luke and told him what had happened. Ainsley got t-boned by a truck and instantaneously lost all consciousness. Her mother told Luke what hospital Ainsley was located at, and he immediately drove there with his mother, Liz. After an hour of just sitting in the waiting room, Luke’s mom ending up going home due to the fact that she had to work early the next morning, while Luke waited with his three friends, Calum, Michael and Ashton.

“This is all my fault,” Luke mumbled as he picked his head up for a brief moment. He looked around at the plain, barely decorated waiting room as knots twisted in his gut.

“You can’t blame yourself for this,” Calum commented as he glanced over at his friend. “That guy ran the light, Luke.”

“But I was on the phone with her; I distracted her,” he sighed, rubbing his eyes trying to keep his tears from escaping.

“You not being on the phone with her wouldn’t have stopped that ass from running the light, Luke,” Calum said, patting his friend gently on the back. “You just have to be positive; she’ll be out soon and she’ll be fine.”

Deciding not to argue with Calum, Luke just let out another sigh and slumped back in his chair. He had a feeling that Calum was totally wrong and that Ainsley wasn’t going to be just fine. She got hit hard, and her mother or father hadn’t even come out to tell them how she was doing yet. Luke had asked numerous nurses and doctors as he saw them in passing if they knew anything about Ainsley’s condition. No one would answer any of his questions and he just got even more anxious as he waited to find out if she was okay.

Ten minutes later, the doors of the waiting room opened and a doctor stepped out with Ainsley’s mother behind her. Her eyes were red and puffy from the hours she spent crying over her daughter and the accident she had been in. Luke made eye contact with her immediately, and she just shook her head as she looked at him as if to tell him that what he was about to be told was not good news.
Luke twisted his hands together and hesitantly stood up, wondering if the news he was going to receive would be better if he was sitting down. He wiped his sweaty palms on his black skinny jeans and walked over to Ainsley’s mother. She gave him a tight hug and rubbed his back comfortingly.

“I’m sorry,” Luke whispered as he hugged Martha back.

He felt Martha shake her head as she gave him a squeeze. “It’s not your fault.”

“What’s going on with her?” he asked as he pulled away from Martha and looked at her and then at the doctor. He felt a lump forming in his throat and his nachos from earlier making their way up his esophagus. “How’s Ainsley?”

“Well, I have some bad news,” the doctor sighed as he looked at Luke, and the concerned look on his face gave Luke goosebumps as he waited to hear the worst. He stared at the doctor, waiting for him to continue.

“Ainsley suffered severe head trauma to her temporal lobe in the accident, resulting in the loss of many short and long-term memories,” he explained. “She knows some basic things, like where she’s at and who her mother, father, and siblings are. She doesn’t remember anything from the accident except she remembers a harsh jolt. She doesn’t remember where the jolt happened or what caused it.”

Luke frantically looked from the doctor to Martha. “Does she not remember me?”

Martha let out a choked sob as she turned away from Luke and looked towards the exit of the hospital, and Luke’s stomach dropped. He looked at the doctor with hopeful eyes and waited for him to answer his question.

“She doesn’t remember anyone named Luke,” the doctor said quietly as he looked into Luke’s eyes. “I’m hoping that when she sees your face some things will come back to her. She has amnesia, but I do not think she’ll have very big problems holding onto the information and memories that she receives in the near future. She just has to get grounded right now and relearn some things. School may be an issue for her when she’s ready to go back, though. So will learning about who you are and what was going on between you two before the accident. She also has a few broken and fractured bones.”

“Amnesia?” Luke clarified. He sounded and felt as if someone socked him in the stomach and he lost all of his breath. He couldn’t even try to listen to what the doctor was explaining after he used the word amnesia to diagnose Ainsley. He felt his eyes well up with tears and he looked back over at Martha who was holding a tissue up in front of her nose and eyes as she tried not to cry in front of Luke to make him feel worse about the situation.

“Yes, unfortunately. Amnesia,” the doctor nodded. “When you go in to see her, try not to bring up a lot of past memories; it may overwhelm her. Just try to ease into conversation with her. And if she gets upset, you need to just be patient with her. We can’t make her stress levels go up because that will make things worse for her, and you.”

Luke just nodded his head, his whole body going numb. He ran his hands down his face and quickly rubbed his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt to dry his eyes. He didn’t even hear the doctor talk to him as he led him through the door and down the hallway where Ainsley’s room was. The door to where Ainsley was located blurred in front of Luke’s eyes as he turned the handle and stepped inside.