Forgetting You

It is warm.

Like unseasonably warm, almost as if I am in the middle of a heat wave. I push off the covers that envelope me and swing my feet off the edge of the uncomfortable bed I have been laying in for god knows how long. I know I am supposed not supposed to walk around on my bed leg, that I should technically be resting but I can’t sit still. Plus, the heat is making me swelter, I think I am going insane staring at the wall waiting for this heat wave to pass.

I am just going to find someone to talk to about the heat, I wipe a sweaty hand across my forehead in an attempt to dry the moisture that rests there. I am simply going to ask for someone to turn off the sun that is surely living within these walls, nothing else can explain the heat.

My skin is itchy, really itchy and my hands and feet are tingling, I think I might be craving something, but I am not quite sure what that thing is. All I know is I need it… bad. I stand from my bed resting my weight on my good leg and gingerly taking a step forward, the drugs they have been pumping me with makes walking bearable but not pleasurable. I know I shouldn’t be walking on my broken ankle but I cannot sit in the bed for one more moment watching paid for free TV anymore, I am slowly but certainly going mad.

My left ankle is wrapped in a heavy cast covered in a day glow orange bandage, the doctors and nurses, who work at the hospital I am currently trapped in, had let me pick the colour and for some reason I had been drawn to the orange. I think it might be my favourite colour, but I am not entirely sure.

Stuck in the whirlwind of never ending thoughts that is my mind I make my way slowly, painfully so, from my private room, past the sleeping security guard, to the hallway. Staring at the officer I am thrown back into my first and only memory, back to lying on the road sure I was going to die.

My knees are crying red tears and my throat is scratchy but that does not stop the scream from escaping my lungs, my last bit of fight dies within me and I lay my head down, ready for what comes next, whatever that may be. My scream does little to deter my attacker I am too tired to open my eyes and stare at them. So I lay and wait for what comes next, for the pain and the punishment because I ran away.

But it never comes.

And I am struck with the oddest sensation that something about this situation is not right, something is different… the air maybe. It is less suffocating, I can breathe and I do. I take hungry greedy gulps of air to try and fill my lungs but they never quite get their fill and I am left feeling so strange. Like I am wrong, like something is terribly wrong with me, I don’t understand what it could be all I know is what I feel.

“Miss are you alright?” A deep voice asks breaking me from my thoughts, with the last bit of strength I possess I open my eyes and look up. A tall dark man stares back at me and though I probably should be scared I am not. Something is awfully wrong about him, he is different from my attacker, I don’t know how I just know he is.

I am saved.

The man is wearing a policeman’s uniform and I take a deep breath of hesitation as he holds out his hand for me to take. I wait a beat, waiting for the world to collapse around me before I accept it, when I do reach for him he grasps me tighter than I have ever been held and I like that. I like being connected to something real, someone real.

I wait for something I am not sure will ever arrive, I wait to be struck down and hit, beaten until I am black and blue but that does not happen. And I think I might have just found my way out of the darkness and to hope. Yes, the night is black and so is my racing heart but the moonlight is illuminating them creating a wonderful kaleidoscope of colours.

And the policeman is my saviour, my hero and I am forever indebted, forever grateful.

I want to ask the guard a million questions but he is not awake he is dozing off lightly and even though I am terrified I take another step forward and further into the hospital. The linoleum floor sticks to my bare feet and makes the ugliest noise but I barely notice, I am too intent on searching, looking for help. My side aches and I remember the stitches, I lift up the hospital gown I am wearing with a fresh pair of panties to find a neat little row of stitches, nothing as gruesome as before. I had passed out in the back of the policeman’s car and they must have fixed me whilst I was unconscious.

I feel sort of taken advantage of, like something big and bad has happened to my body that I am not aware of, I lower my gown and try to fight the tears that are flowing down my cheeks. I want to go back, back before the cabin and my escape to when I was free and presumably happy, I want to go to the time I have forgotten and live a perfectly ordinary life where nothing like this could ever happen.

It is night time and I am suddenly terrified of the night, like a child might be. I have been sleeping a lot, probably for more than a few hours. I don’t know how long but it was not enough, I am still exhausted. But I fear, I fear that sleep won’t fix this exhaustion, nothing will and I will be permanently tired after what happened to me.

I keep walking forward, outwards until I see a reception desk, I glance behind it to the clock on the wall. It reads 6.15 in the morning, and I feel like I need to be somewhere important soon but I don’t know what, where or why and it is beyond frustrating. I want to beat on the side of my head with my closed fists until I remember but I know that is useless. That it will do nothing, so I don’t, I just barely refrain.

As soon as the nurse on shift see me she starts tittering about, telling me to get back to bed this instant, grabbing my arm harshly and dragging me after her. My stitches pull and I am so terrified they are going to rip at the seams I hobble alone after her. “Riley,” She reprimands, and there is that name again, the one that feels familiar and foreign all at the same time,

“Is that my name? Is my name Riley?” I ask desperately,

“Yes child, your name is Riley,” She looks concerned, I peak at her name tag, Peggy, it reads. I repeat it a hundred times in my head in an attempt to remember it. I hate forgetting it is so scary not to remember so I repeat the name again and again until it is as much a part of me as the name on my wrist, tattooed to my brain.

Peggy leads me back to my room and helps me into bed, waking the guard as she goes and giving him a stern lecture. She reminds me of a stern but loving mother and I wonder briefly about my mother… do I even have a mother? The thought makes me gasp in pain, but when Peggy asks what is wrong I can’t tell her, the thought is just too hurtful to speak out loud. Peggy gives me a tablet to swallow promising it will make me feel better.

I believe her.

I take the pill laying back into the lumpy mattress waiting to feel better, waiting for be overcome with a tranquil feeling. It doesn’t happen. My eyes droop with tiredness and I eventually give in, closing my sleepy lids and soaring through dreamland. Peggy holds my hand for as long as I sleep.

When I awake a few hours later I open my eyes, my hand is warm from being held, only when I glance up a woman I do not recognise stares back at me holding my hand. I sit up in freight and yank my hand away, bumping my elbow on the stainless steel railing of the bed in the process.

“Shit,” I stutter staring at the two pairs of eyes watching me intently, their eyes bore into my head. A middle aged couple is watching me with intrigue as if we are at the zoo and I am on display. There are tears in their eyes and smiles upon their lips, I notice a beat later as I take them in. I scoot further into myself and away from the couple, why are they staring at me like that?

“Riley?” The woman asks, I glance down at my wrist to make sure it is still there, that name, and it is. It offers me a tiny amount of comfort as I stare at this woman. She is the type of woman you can tell was once stunningly beautiful in a way few others are. She has dazzling blue eyes, shoulder length brown hair and a smile that makes me want to return it, to feel as happy as she does.

Only I don’t, and I am so disappointed.

I turn my attention from her to the man sitting by the woman’s side clutching her other hand, he is equally good looking and like me he has a name tattooed on his wrist, it does not read Riley but rather Brynn. I want to ask who is Brynn and why he has her name tattooed but my voice will not work. My throat is scratchy and sore like I haven’t had water in hours and now that I think about it I don’t think I have. I reach carefully for the pitcher of water on my stable table.

“Here let me,” The man says standing and towering over me. Instinctively I close my eyes ready for it, what I am ready for I am not entirely sure but I expect pain, blinding pain but none comes. I squeeze open an eye and see his is simply pouring me a glass of water, I relax but only marginally.

I don’t understand who these people are and what they are doing in my room. I want Peggy and her no nonsense attitude back to explain to me succinctly everything that is going on, but she isn’t here, and I am frightened.

“Peggy,” I rasp reaching for the water and hungrily gulping it down. The couple watches me before looking at each other in confusion,

“Who… Who is Peggy?” The woman, Brynn I assume her name is, asks,

“Nurse” It is like I can only speak in one syllable words, and nothing more.

The couple turns from me to each other speaking in hushed tones I can’t quite hear before the man makes his way out of the room, I assume, to get Peggy. I watch him leave feeling my fear deflate like a big balloon might as he walks away. I know the guard out front of my room wouldn’t let anyone dangerous in to see me… right? At least that is what I try to assume to assure myself as I stare at Brynn.

“Do… Do you recognise me?” She asks, reaching for my hand, it is one of the few body parts left on my body that does not hurt, so I let her hold it. It seems to be making her feel better, I wish it made me feel better but it doesn’t. I shake my head in response to her question and she looks disappointed.

“The doctor warned us about that,” She mutters quietly, almost to herself.

I want to ask what else he warned her about but the words don’t come. The man returns to the room with Peggy and I let out a sigh of relief, she smiles when she sees me and sits where the man once sat placing a calming hand on my leg, it aches but I don’t mind, Peggy makes me feel a little bit better. I watch the three of them behind guarded eyes wondering what is going on, who this couple is.

“The doctor will see you soon Riley,” Peggy tells me and I nod my head watching the clock on the other side of the room as each second ticks by in awkward silence with the rest of my makeshift group.

“We got you a present Riley,” Brynn tells me reaching into her oversized handbag, she pulls out a book. I stare at it for a moment before finally accepting it, feeling safe now Peggy is here. I open it, bending the spine, and take in page after page of butterflies. I don’t understand.

“Why?” I ask slowly turning to stare at her, if this should mean something to me it certainly doesn’t.

“You… Well you love butterflies,” I stare down at the book wondering how she can know this but I can’t, I want to be privy to all this information as well, it seems infinitely unfair. Peggy gives me a look and I understand it, even if it does annoy me a little,

“Thank you,” I reply to Peggy’s look, I guess there is never a reason for bad manners.

“Riley,” Peggy says holding my hand softly between her own, once Brynn begrudgingly drops it, I stare at her and wonder once more about my mother, my heart hurts heavily at the realisation I don’t remember a thing about her. “Riley, this couple, Brynn and John, they are your parents,”

Before I have time to comprehend what is being said, a man in a white lab coat enters the room with an air of authority about him. His booming voice greets us, the couple Mr and Mrs Clark and then nods at Peggy in recognition and a little bit of respect.

“Riley?” He asks as if he has gotten my name wrong, I nod in response, letting him know he is correct. “Right Riley, how are you feeling today?” I want to tell him I am so terribly confused but the words won’t come, my throat hurts and so does my heart. I am not sure which refrains me from talking more, my throat or my heart.

“Fine,” I lie, and everyone in the small hospital room knows I am lying but nobody says anything. I guess after all I have been through I am allowed to lie. I think that is fair, even if I still don’t quite understand what happened to me yet. Lying seems almost natural to me, like I have done it a million times in the past. It unnerves me because I am not sure of the type of person I was before I lost my memory.

“I just wanted to come in and discuss some things with you if you are alright with that?” It is not really a question; I don’t get to say no so I nod my head in agreement. Everyone settles in silently waiting for whatever news is going to come my way.

“So you already know about the broken ankle, but you have also been cut quite deeply on your side, which we repaired the stitches of, it appears to be a wound created by a sharp object such as a knife.” My mouth is completely dry as I listen, not thoughts come to mind because I cannot understand how I am still alive and kicking, after everything I have been put through, the doctor however is not finished and continues describing the terror I was put through.

“As you know we ran a rape kit, but it came back negative so that is great news” I let out a breath I didn’t realise I’d been holding, “The next part is difficult, but we have diagnosed you with retrograde amnesia, which basically means you are unable to access pre-existing memories,”

“Amnesia” I repeat, I know what it means but it seems such an odd thing to suffer from,

“Yes, we are hoping through cognitive rehabilitation you will regain your memory,” I nod slowly as everything hits me, really hits me for the first time, and I realise as equally slowly that I am broken. I am not so sure any amount of therapy could ever fix what is broken inside of my head.

It all feels wrong, like I am being lied to about something, but I am not sure what. I had thought for sure I would recognise my parents when I saw them again but I didn’t, I hadn’t and that is scary. It terrifies me because what if I never regain my ability to remember from before, before the cabin.

I pull my knees to my chest and listen to the doctor, nodding when he pauses and pretending to understand the therapy outline he is detailing, that I will have to go through before I begin to remember. I feel alone and scared and no amount of company will fix this kind of loneliness, it is ingrained, something that is a part of me, like the name tattooed on my wrist, it will forever haunt me.