A woman with dark hair and gentle eyes pulls me aside as the blonde and another man examine Sydney. I can't stop looking over at her small listless figure and feel utterly helpless. My body is shaking with shock now that control is out of my hands. I can finally feel something, and my emotions hit me hard. My knees grow weak and my vision wavers. I almost fall to the ground, but somehow, I manage to remain upright, though a greasy, queasy feeling roils around in the pit of my stomach.
I hear the EMT's asking Sydney questions, “What's your name? How old are you?”
“I don't know.”
“What happened to you?”
“I don't know.”
The fire one question after another at her rapidly, but, the response is the same.
She can't remember anything. Not about the incident. Not about herself. Not about me or Daisy or anything else for that matter.
“Do you have ID, miss?”
Again, she shakes her head. “I don't know.”
The EMTs look to me, searching for some answers. Something to shed light on this mysterious woman.
“Her name is Sydney Bellflower,” I say. “Not sure what happened. I came out of Daisy's and found her like this. She was just walking down the middle of the road in a daze.”
“Do you know this woman?” The female EMT asks me.
“I do.”
“Are you related to her?”
I start to say no, that we're just friends, but something inside of me tells me to lie. I know that in an emergency, only family members are able to get information, to fill out forms, to be there at the hospital with her. Daisy meets my gaze and gives me a small nod. This qualifies as an emergency and a good reason to lie. But, before I can speak, Daisy does the honors for me.
“This is her husband,” she lies.
The woman looks to me. “Is that correct, sir?”
“Yes.”
My voice cracks, though I'm hoping they take it as me being emotional rather than me telling a bald-faced lie. Sydney might not ever forgive me for lying about this, but I don’t really care. Sydney needs help and she's all that matters right now.
I look around, wondering where in the hell her asshole boyfriend is. My muscles grow tight, and my head throbs with the stress of it all. I have a very bad feeling about this – one that involves Peter. I try to tell myself it's jealousy talking, that there's a perfectly good and logical explanation for it all.
I tell myself a thousand different things, but even I'm not buying it.
His girlfriend is walking down the street with a gash on the back of her head, no shoes, not dressed for the cold and he's nowhere in sight? He better have a damn good explanation, or I'm going to make sure he's the one bleeding if I ever see him again.
“Sir, we're going to take her to the hospital,” the female EMT says.
She's so nice, I really need to get her name and make sure to put in a good word for her. She smiles sweetly at me.
“Would you want to ride with us, or – ”
“I'll follow,” I say. I look up at my truck and see Gunner sitting in the driver's seat again, staring out at the commotion on the street, and I'm not sure what to do. I can't leave him in the car while I deal with things at the hospital. As if she can read my mind, Daisy steps up and takes my hand.
“Go, Jack. I'll take care of the dog,” she says.
I give her a grateful smile and squeeze her hand. What a strange damn night it is, and I have a feeling, things are only going to get weirder.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SYDNEY
The first thing I notice upon waking is that I feel nothing. Nothing at all. Then slowly, I start to feel a pounding in my head. It's just background noise though. It's there and I can feel it, but it's as if something is blocking me from completely feeling the full force of the pain. From what I can tell, that's a good thing. Otherwise the pain would be unbearable.
I open my eyes and stare up at the ceiling. Perfectly white and clean. As I start to fully come around, I hear the sounds all around me – mechanical beeping, voices that are low, and muffled footsteps. It's all a fuzzy sound though, like I have cotton in my ears or everyone is trying very hard to be quiet. The beeping, however, makes my head hurt even worse and seems to be right in my ear.
“Stop it,” I mutter, my voice nearly scaring me from how loud it is, compared to the backdrop around me.
“What's that, dear?” a woman's voice asks from my right.
I grimace but turn my head toward the voice and see an older blonde woman standing in the doorway, wearing light blue scrubs. Her hair is short, pixie cut. She walks over to me, and I never take my eyes off of her. It's then that I realize what the beeping is – it's machines hooked up to me. Likely my heartbeat. The nurse takes a look at the screen and then smiles down at me.
“Well good morning, sunshine,” she says brightly. “Did you need someone?”
“That sound. It's giving me a headache,” I say.
“I'm here with your pain meds,” she says. “That should help ease the headache some.”
She inserts something into my IV and I watch, catching a glimpse of her name tag that says Tara.
“What happened?” I ask, my voice sounding thick and slow even to my own ears.
I work my mouth open and closed. It's parched and wonder how long I've been out.
“We're still trying to figure that out, dear,” she says. “The doctor will be here shortly. I'll let your husband know you're awake.”
“Husband?”
“Yes, dear. He's been so worried about you...” she says, letting her voice trail off as she looks at me.
Maybe she can see the confusion on my face, maybe not. She clears her throat and continues either way.
“Don't worry, the doctors say your memory loss is only temporary,” she says brightly. “You should have all of your memories back soon.”
Memory loss. That explains it. I close my eyes and try to remember something, anything at all. My name is Sydney Bellflower. At least I remember my name, that's good. Brownie points for me. Though, honestly, I only think I remember that because I heard somebody say it. But who?
Aside from my name though, everything else is sketchy. I can't recall anything – including where I am. When I try to think about everything, and what landed me in this bed specifically, it's all a dark spot in my brain. It's completely opaque. Like somebody reached into my brain and just plucked out all of my memories.
“Where am I?” I ask. “I mean, besides the hospital, that one's pretty obvious, even to me.”
“You're in Aspen, Colorado,” Tara says.
“Aspen? Why am I in Aspen?”
I can't recall anything before the accident, but I'm positive that I'm not from Colorado. I can't say why I'm sure, but I'm sure that I'm from California. Los Angeles, to be exact. I know that to be correct down in my bones. More brownie points for me. I can remember my name and where I'm from, but I can't even remember my husband's name or face. Or the fact that I'm even married in the first place.
The more and harder I try to remember, the more elusive the memories are. I let out a low growl and slam my hands onto the bed, frustrated that I can't remember anything. Tara gives me a sympathetic look, cocking her head to the side.
“I'm sure your husband and the doctors can fill you in better than I can,” she says. “I just assumed you lived here. Or at least in Redstone. That's where they brought you in from.”
Redstone. The town name sounds familiar, though I don't know why. I close my eyes and try to conjure it in my head, but I can't recall what it looks like. Tara hands me a cup of water. I take it gratefully and put it to my lips, relishing the cool liquid as it slides down my throat. I drink it all down and she gets me another.
“I'll call your husband now,” Tara says. “He'll be so happy to see you awake and talking.”
“How long have I been out?” I ask.
“Only a few days.”
“A few days?”
“The doctors had to put you into a medically-induced coma to help with healing,” she says. “You had a pretty bad head injury and a lot of swelling around the brain. But you should be able to go home soon. I think you'll recover quicker in more familiar surroundings.”
Home. The idea of going home should comfort me, but it doesn't. Mainly because I have no idea where home actually is. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm, not from Los Angeles, after all. Maybe I do live in Aspen. How in the hell would I know?
It's all so blurry, and I hope the nurse is right. I hope my husband, whoever he is, can shed some light on what the hell happened.
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