Two years.
God… two years of my life… gone.
The news crushes me like a collapsing building.
Even though the cogs in my head inched toward the same conclusion based on Dad’s reaction, it still feels like the doctor pulled a rug from under my feet. Like he stopped me on the edge of a cliff and kicked my back.
My palms turn icy cold, clammy, slick with sweat.
Two years.
Two years of experiences, memories, relationships lost in a maze of synapses and brain tissue. A chasm swallows my mind and I’m staring into a black hole.
It feels… impossible. Surreal. Fucking cruel.
“But… I remember driving. I remember the rain…” I chant as the room starts swaying.
My vision blurs at the edges.
The buzzing in my ears drowns out Dr. Phillips and no amount of blinking helps my eyes focus. His face remains a contorted haze, his silhouette a moving, ghost-like cloud of white and gray, floating toward the IV stand.
I glance at my father, searching for a lie, begging him to say it’s a cruel joke, but his face crumbles, eyes tear up, hand covers mine, and that’s it.
A silent confirmation.
A slow, agonizing howl tears through my chest.
Each beep, each mechanical sigh of the ventilator, reminds me of this new, twisted reality. I’ve never felt so lost. Like I’m drowning in the empty silence of my memories. Silence that screams louder than any noise I ever heard.
I pinch myself, hoping I’ll wake up, but even as I break skin, I’m still in the hospital bed, two years of my life gone.
“It’s temporary, isn’t it?” I blurt out, wiping the tears off my face. “I mean… I’ll remember, right? I remember a little. College, my blue car, the rain… It’ll take time but it’ll all come back to me, won’t it? It’s not permanent. It can’t be.”
“It wasn’t raining the day of your accident,” Dad says quietly. “It’s a different day you remember. You don’t have your little blue car anymore. We sold it, sunshine.”
“What you’re experiencing is post-traumatic amnesia,” Dr. Phillips explains, pressing a few buttons on a nearby machine. It spits out a graph in red and blue lines on paper. “It happens sometimes after severe brain injury. In your case it’s retrograde, meaning you don’t remember a period of time before the traumatic event: the accident. It might be temporary—”
“Temporary?” I latch onto the word. “How long before I remember? A day? A week?”
“It can be temporary,” he repeats more forcefully. “But it can also be permanent. Given your injuries, the location of the brain swelling, and previous similar cases I’ve handled, there’s a good chance your memories will gradually return as your brain heals.”
New hope fills my veins but the hesitation in his eyes speaks volumes: he can’t make any promises…
“Do you have any questions?” he asks.
“Yes.” I turn to Dad. “Where’s Mom?”
Dad’s face falls. The atmosphere turns heavy, the temperature dropping as if a ghost passed by.
He inhales a shaky breath, peering at Dr. Phillips like he’s silently pleading for… I don’t know. Help? Strength?
A nod is all he gets.
A silent go-ahead.
Permission to speak.
My stomach tightens in response. The anticipation is almost painful, even more so when Dad looks at me. There’s something in his tearful gaze I can’t quite place. Fear? No. More like… guilt?
“Hailey…” His voice wobbles. “Your mom… she—”
“She what?”
Panic resurfaces like a tidal wave threatening to pull me under. Somewhere deep inside, I know the answer. It’s in the wrinkles around Dad’s eyes, carved there by rivers of sorrowful tears, but I shove the truth away, pleading that it’s not what I think, pleading that I misunderstood.
“What happened to Mom?”
“She… she passed away.” Dad pushes the words out in a strained whisper. “Last year in March. She had cancer, sunshine. It happened so fast… three months and she was gone.”
The truth drops like a stone in still water, the ripples shattering my world. The sound of my heart breaking in half is so loud it’s all I hear over the high-pitched ringing in my ears.
“No…” I gasp, shaking my head. “No, that can’t be…”
She was in the kitchen last night, baking and humming some eighties song. Her hair was thrown up in a careless bun and her baby-blue eyes sparkled with joy. With life.
She was there. I can see it.
She was healthy, happy, radiant. I remember it so clearly.
My vision tunnels. My heart collides with my ribs like a trapped bird fighting against the bars of its cage. My breath comes out ragged and my mind spins so fast I feel sick. The white walls of the hospital room shrink, boxing me in a space as small as a matchbox.
I can’t breathe.
I’m falling, spiraling, drowning. The erratic beeping of the heart monitor matches my pulse, hammering against my temples.
An audiovisual symphony of panic.
The sounds switch from deafening to mute to full volume again. It’s the same with everything I see.
The hospital room at full scale.
Matchbox.
My father jumps to his feet, his face white, wet, scared.
Matchbox.
Dr. Phillips drops his clipboard, rushing to my side.
My fingers claw the invisible rope squeezing my throat as my lungs scream out for air.
“Get a sedative!” Dr. Phillips booms at the nurse who was photographing my records earlier, as she appears out of nowhere, eyes staring at me in shock.
More people burst through the door. A blur of movement, hands, and white uniforms. I barely make out their forms, the world twisting in grotesque shapes.
I grab at my throat, my chest, the hospital gown sticking to my skin with cold sweat. I tear the cannulas out, thrashing on the bed like I’m being shocked with a live wire.
I can’t breathe. My lungs don’t work, every cell is begging for oxygen, and it feels like I’m folding inwards.
“Hailey, breathe!” Dad sounds like he’s calling from far away.
“Get him out!” a female voice yells. “We need help in here!”
Someone grabs my hand, then the other, my legs too and I’m pinned to the bed, held in place by four people.
“Hold her still!” Dr. Phillips calls, a syringe between his white teeth. He turns my head to the side, his calm features making me pause. “You’ll feel better when you wake up,” he says, plunging the needle into my skin.
The last thing I’m vaguely aware of is my limbs going slack and then… nothing.
