She stared blankly at the book of photos trying to remember what and who they contained. Her eyes strained and began to blur as she slowly lifted her head to greet the dozen or so faces standing around her. The whiteness of the hospital room made for a dreary sight as people looked on, hoping for some reaction. They all looked familiar, but only from the pictures. Again she saw the look of hope in their faces, unable to give them any satisfaction she looked back down at the book and flipped a page. There was a picture of her and a boy. She smiled a little bit at the two in the photo as the room reacted to her smile. Her eyebrows crunched in curiosity though as she looked to her left. The boy from the picture was there, at her side. To her right was the girl she remembered as seeing first, Liz. She looked back down again straining to help the worry the room held. In frustration she looked back at Liz, “I’m sorry none of these look familiar.” Liz reached for her hand and held it, “not a single one?” Trying to help the best she could she looked again at the book, flipping page after page, hoping that maybe something would catch. It was useless; she looked back at the crowd. It was hard to repeat it to the faces, but she just didn’t remember them. Her mouth quivered and she eventually forced it out, “not a single one.”
A sigh passed through the room and she felt sorry even though there really wasn’t much to be sorry for. They decided to go outside and try something else, though. Everyone left except the guy to her left. It was awkward at first, like she had nothing to say until she realized he had nothing to say either. It was a sort of purposeful silence. After a while she began observing things. She looked at his face, there were some bruises, very faint and almost healed and a few stitches hidden up by his scalp. She looked at his arm, in a cast, and at his leg, covered in bruises. It was obvious she was analyzing him, every part of him trying to piece it together. Her eyes moved at a rapid speed figuring what she had been told and what was wrong with him. She appeared almost to speak when he interjected, “anything ring a bell?” She looked over him again, “you had something to do with this accident, didn’t you?” He never lost eye contact, “yeah, we were in the same car, I was driving.” He kept looking deep into her eyes as if hoping to make some connection through the soul. She looked away, uncomfortable and guilty that she couldn’t help anything. There was an uncomfortable silence that followed, but seemingly only for her. She flipped back to the page with their picture on it, “this is us right?” He stopped staring at her and looked over at the picture, “yeah,” he smiled remembering something, “it was our month anniversary. You suggested we go race go-karts. Do you remember that? You had the red number 2 and I got blue 6. We even got lap records, it was so fun.” There was a silence as he seemed to revel in the memory. She was still stuck on one thing though, interrupting his thoughts she asked, “we were an us?” He looked down at his feet again, almost as if so upset that she didn’t remember a thing that he could scream. He looked back up, though, calmer than before. “Yeah, we were us for almost a year, a year next week even.” She bit her bottom lip, “sorry I don’t remember something like that, it must hurt.” He waved his hand as if to wave away the comment, “I understand, I really do.”
The doctor butted in there and asked if he would leave the room. The doctor began to probe her mind, “alright Miss…Reynolds, Abbey Reynolds, how much can you remember?” Abbey thought, scrunching her eyebrows again, “I can remember things like my childhood, but all the people are missing, they have no faces. It’s almost like I’m missing connectors.” He marked some things on his chart, writing here and there, checking boxes other places, “and where do these memories end?” Abbey was quick to answer, “there’s no definite stop but they fade away at about the age of 13 I think, that’s what it feels like at least.” The doctor again wrote on his clipboard, “ahh, yes, alright then, we’ll be back in when the results on the cat scan come in.” The doctor walked toward the doorway still reading something on his board. Abbey was curious though, and worried, “doctor? When will I be able to remember these things? If at all? And if so will all of the connections come back or only some?” She bit her lip again, she had spoken very quickly, but it looked as if he had caught it all. Then something changed, this cold and composed doctor sat on her bedside, “I can’t promise you anything, but from the way you act and some of the symptoms presented I’d say that you will get all of your memory back, although it may be missing parts. The most important thing though is it may degenerate faster with age, or even get better, it’s hard to tell with head injuries.” She smiled and nodded as he patted the end of the bed and walked out the door.
Liz ran back in after he was done, “what’s wrong hunny? What did he say?” Abbey looked around, almost absentmindedly, “oh, he says he doesn’t know if all of the memory will be back but he guesses that most of it will,” there was a pause, “hey Liz, what’s that boy’s name, I feel so horrible not knowing it, I mean it sounds like we were really something.” Liz laughed, “something? You and Brian were everyone’s envy, you got along so well, a very mature relationship with moments of pure immaturity. It was actually quite cute.” There was silence again until Abbey had to respond, “I really hope I get this memory back, he seems like a really nice guy, and I mean I don’t know what to do with him because in my mind we don’t have history, and am I the same person I was before this whole thing? And how come I can remember that in 1666 London was in a blaze but I can’t remember that last month Brian and I were an item?” Abbey was worried, and it was just, there were things she could lose. Precious things. Things like Brian.
The moment came suddenly, in fact there was no warning whatsoever. Abbey had been to the doctor a week earlier and he had told her that with the quick progress he had seen and the lack of memory progression that she would most likely never remember what she had lost. The blow struck hard, but with all that she had learned about her past few weeks she was sure she could eventually learn much more, at least know it, just not experience it.
The memories came though after Brian had taken her out to a flat spot on a rock, one they had visited almost every day the last week.
[To be continued…]