***
I didn’t know my name, but I knew I hated hospitals. They were cold and sterile, smelling like disinfectant and desperation. Deputy Rhode left me once the doctors started a battery of tests. My pupils were checked, X-rays were done, and my blood was taken. The nurses bandaged the side of my head and cleaned the numerous wounds. They’d given me a private room, hooking me up to an IV that pumped “fluids that will help you feel better” in me, and left.
A nurse eventually wheeled in a cart laden with a set of ominous-looking instruments and a camera. Why was there a camera?
She silently bagged my clothes after giving me a scratchy hospital gown to change into. She smiled when she looked at me, just as the deputy had. False and well practiced.
I learned I didn’t like those kinds of smiles. They gave me the creeps.
“We need to do some more tests on you while the X-rays are being run, sweetie.” She gently pushed my shoulders down on the hard mattress. “We also need to take some pictures of your injuries.”
Staring at the white ceiling, I found it hard to pull enough air into my lungs. It was even worse when she made me scoot down. A surge of embarrassment shocked me. This is so awkward. My breath caught. That thought wasn’t from now, but before . . . before what?
“Relax, sweetie.” The nurse moved to stand beside the cart. “The police are contacting neighboring counties for missing person’s reports. They’ll find your family soon.” She picked up something long and thin that gleamed under the bright, impersonal light.
After a couple of minutes, tears streaked my cheeks. The nurse seemed used to it because she did her thing and left without saying another word. I curled up under the thin blanket, pulling my knees to my chest. I stayed like that, with my empty thoughts, until I fell asleep.
I dreamed of falling—falling endlessly into the darkness, over and over again. There were screams—shrill sounds that raised the tiny hairs on my body—and then nothing but a soft, lulling sound I found comforting.
Upon waking the following morning, I decided to start small. What was my name? I had to have one, but there was nothing I could grasp onto. Rolling onto my back, I yelped as the IV pulled on my hand. Beside me, there was a plastic cup of water. I sat up slowly and grabbed the cup. It shook in my hand, sloshing water over the blanket.
Water—there was something about water. Dark, oily water.
The door opened, and the nurse entered with the doctor who’d examined me the night before. I liked him. His smile was genuine, fatherly. “Do you remember my name?” When I didn’t answer immediately, his smile didn’t falter. “I’m Dr. Weston. I just want to ask you a few questions.”
He asked the same questions everyone else had. What was my name? Did I know how I’d gotten on the road or what I’d been doing before the deputy picked me up? The answer to all his questions was the same: no.
But when he moved on to other questions, I had answers. “Have you ever read To Kill a Mockingbird?”
My dry lips cracked when I smiled. I knew that answer! “Yeah, it’s about racial injustice and different kinds of courage.”
Dr. Weston nodded approvingly. “Good. Do you know what year it is?”
I arched an eyebrow. “It’s 2014.”
“Do you know what month it is?” When I didn’t answer immediately, his smile slipped.
“It’s March.” I moistened my lips, starting to get nervous. “But I don’t know what day.”
“Today is March twelfth. It’s Wednesday. What is the last day you remember?”
I picked at the edge of the blanket and took a guess. “Tuesday?”
Dr. Weston’s lips once more curved into a smile. “It had to be longer than that. You were dehydrated when they brought you in. Can you try again?”
I could, but what would be the point? “I don’t know.”
He asked some more questions, and when an orderly brought in lunch, I discovered I hated mashed potatoes. Dragging the IV behind me like baggage, I stared at a stranger in the mirror.
I’d never seen her face before.
But it was mine. I leaned forward, inspecting the reflection. Coppery hair hung in clumps around a slightly sharp chin. My cheekbones were high and my eyes were a cross between brown and green. I had a small nose. That was good news. And I guessed I’d be pretty if it weren’t for the purplish bruise spreading from my hairline and covering my entire right eye. The skin was scuffed on my chin. Like a giant raspberry stain.
I pushed away from the sink, pulling my IV back into the tiny room. Raised voices outside the closed door halted my attempts to get back into the bed.
“What do you mean, she has no memory of anything?” a woman’s thin voice demanded.
“She has a complex concussion, which has affected her memory,” Dr. Weston explained patiently. “The memory loss should be temporary, but—”
“But what, Doctor?” asked a man.
At the sound of the stranger’s voice, a conversation floated out of the cloudy recesses of my thoughts, like a distant television show you could hear but not see.
“I really wish you wouldn’t spend so much time with that girl. She’s nothing but trouble, and I don’t like the way you act around her.”
It was his voice—the man outside—but I didn’t recognize the tenor and there was nothing else associated with it.
“The memory loss could be permanent. These things are hard to predict. Right now, we just don’t know.” Dr. Weston cleared his throat. “The good news is that the rest of her injuries are superficial. And from what we can gather from additional exams, she wasn’t assaulted.”
“Oh my god,” cried the woman. “Assaulted? Like in—”
“Joanna, the doctor said she wasn’t assaulted. You need to calm down.”
“I have a right to be upset,” she snapped. “Steven, she’s been missing for four days.”