by Lexi Ryan
Chapter One
Stories aren’t supposed to start with the main character waking up. It’s a rule I learned in my creative writing class in college. Something about boring the reader or being a cliché or… Actually, I don’t remember the reason.
But dreams? A lot of my dreams start with me waking up, and this is too surreal to be anything but a dream. Opening my eyes, I find myself in the hospital, not knowing how or why, the nurse telling me that I’ve been here for over twenty-four hours.
“Mother’s maiden name?” a nurse is asking me. She’s been quizzing me for several minutes now. My name, my birthday, the freaking president of the United States.
I blink against the fluorescent overhead lights and supply, “Crossen.” My head hurts like a thousand drunken clowns have been dancing on it. In cleats.
“Do you know the date?”
I grimace as I shift on the hospital mattress, and the movement sends pain ricocheting through muscles I didn’t even know I had. I’m sure she has a good reason for these questions, but I’d like to ask some of my own, starting with, Why am I in the hospital? And, Who beat the shit out of me?
“September…twelfth, maybe? Thirteenth?” The words come out more like croaks than coherent syllables and they feel like a cheese grater against my throat.
“August,” someone squeaks behind her. “She means August. Don’t you, Hanna?”
Lizzy comes into my line of sight. Her blond curls bounce as she nods at me, as if it’s really important that I agree with her. Of course, she’s completely wrong. It’s not August. It’s September. We’re a month into the fall semester of our senior year at Sinclair.
I try to frown but it hurts. My hand flies to my face, where the pain radiates like a mini explosion. I touch my cheek gingerly and wince.
Machines beep around my head, and even though I know I just woke up, all I really want is to take some good drugs for this headache and have a nap. “Why am I in the hospital? What happened?”
“Do you know who this is, Hanna?” The nurse motions to her right.
I roll my head to the side so I can more easily focus on my sister. Her curly blond hair frames her face at awkward angles, as if she’s been sleeping on a park bench or something.
I’m trying not to panic, but again, I just woke up in a hospital, I don’t know how I got here, they say I’ve been here for over a day, and they’re asking if I know my name. My face feels like it’s been introduced to a set of brass knuckles, and my skull is threatening to explode. These are not generally signs of a quiet night in.
Lizzy’s eyes are red. She’s been crying. I keep thinking of that second pitcher of beer we ordered at Brady’s. Did we drink and drive? Lizzy looks well but really upset. Is someone hurt?
“Lizzy,” I ask, “what happened?”
“She knows me, see?” Lizzy says. “She’s fine.”
“Can you tell me how Lizzy is related to you?” the nurse asks.
“She’s my twin sister.”
“Good,” the nurse coos. “Good job. And can you tell me the last thing you remember?”
I don’t have long to consider her question before she’s invading my personal bubble, her face too close to mine as she stares into my eyes. What? Did she lose something in there she’s looking to get back?
“We were at Brady’s. Girls’ night. What happened?” God, I sound like a broken record.
“You’ve had an accident,” the woman says, looking to my sister, who’s shaking her head. A tear slips from the corner of Lizzy’s eye. “A rough fall down some stairs. Can you tell me the last thing you remember before Brady’s?”
“I was finishing up a paper for school. All the days blur together during the semester. I don’t…I don’t know.”
“The semester?” Lizzy cries. “What are you talking about, Hanna?” She turns to the nurse. “I thought you said she’d be better once she was lucid?”
“It’s okay,” the woman assures her. “You’re going to upset her.”
“What happened at Brady’s?” Lizzy asks me. “What do you remember?”
“We were hanging out with Cally, and the guys were there and they came over to join us.”
“What were we talking about?” Lizzy presses.
She seems distressed, so I try to smile. That’s my job, after all. I’m the one who makes things better. “We were trying to convince Cally that she should sleep with William.”
“That happened last September,” Lizzy whispers.
The nurse’s brow creases. “Dr. Reid is on her rounds now. I’ll update her, and she’ll be in shortly.”
Lizzy watches the woman leave then turns back to me. “Don’t worry. Nix’s going to fix you right up.”
“Who’s Nix?” I whisper.
Tears fill her eyes. “Our friend Nix. You know, Dr. Reid. She moved to town last winter?”
“I don’t know any doctors named Nix, Liz.”
Before she can explain herself, a pretty young woman enters in a dark dress and a white lab coat. She has long chestnut hair pulled off her neck in a twist and a warm smile. “I hear you’re doing much better than last time I saw you.”
I look to Liz, hoping she’ll help me out.
“Do you remember her now?” my sister asks me.
I frown at the woman I’m supposed to know and shake my head. “I’m sorry.”
“My name is Dr. Phoenix Reid. You call me Nix.”
The nurse reenters the room and hands a clipboard to Nix, who scans it and nods.
“Why doesn’t she remember you?” Liz asks the doctor.
Nix gives her a stern look. “Calm down. Hanna, do you remember anything else after your night at the bar?”
I shake my head, panic rising. “You guys are freaking me out. What happened? Did I drink too much?”
“You’ve had a head injury,” Nix says, “and sometimes with head injuries you can experience a degree of amnesia.”
“She doesn’t have amnesia,” Lizzy objects.
“There are different kinds of amnesia. There is no need to panic.”
The room grows cold all of the sudden, and I’m overwhelmed with that anxious, claustrophobic feeling I’ve always gotten when I feel helpless and out of control. “Is this some kind of a joke?”
“She’s awake? Talking?” The deep, familiar voice rips my attention away from Dr. Reid and to the other side of the room, where Max Hallowell is bursting through the door, worry creasing his gorgeous face as his eyes roam over me in my no-dignity hospital gown.
Not that my day was going great before this moment, what with the drunken, cleated clowns dancing inside my skull, and amnesia diagnosis and all, but Max Hallowell seeing me in this condition—and especially in this gown—sends my day from shitty to you’ve-got-to-be-effing-kidding-me.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the nurse says. “Immediate family only. You need to leave.”
Ignoring her, he rushes over to my bed and rests his big hand gently against my face. The feel of his rough palm against the skin of my cheek has my heart pounding fast and hard. Max is touching me.
This is definitely a dream.
“Sir!” the nurse scolds.
“I am her family,” he bites out.
“It’s okay,” Nix tells the nurse.
Max’s gaze drifts to my hand and he adds, “I’m her fiancé.”
I draw in my breath so hard and fast that my bruised ribs wail against my expanded lungs. Then I see what he was looking at. The fat diamond winks up at me from my ring finger as if it knows all my secrets. My world is spinning. This all has to be some kind of elaborate joke, and I don’t think it’s funny at all.
“Baby,” he whispers. “Do you remember yet? What happened?”
“She doesn’t remember,” Lizzy says, her voice cold.
I feel like everyone is twenty steps ahead of me. “Fiancé?”
“Hanna has a case of retrograde amnesia,” Nix tells Max. “This can happen with head injuries.”
“Her most recent memory seems to be of a night in September,” the doctor says patiently. “Retrograde amnesia isn’t the same as global amnesia. Likely, her memory of everything before that point is just fine. That’s why she remembers Lizzy and you, who she’s always known, but doesn’t remember me, since we just met in December.”
“She lost only part of her memory?” Liz asks. “Will it come back?”
I’m too busy looking at the ring. A ring from Max. How could I forget that?
“There’s a strong possibility most of her memory of the months in between will come back. Possibly in hours, but it could take up to a few weeks or months.”
The blood drains from Max’s face and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “Last September?”
“Most of her memory?” Lizzy asks. “She won’t remember everything?”
I can’t pretend to understand the emotions going over Max’s face. Honestly, I don’t know him that well. Or…do I? I shake my head, trying to focus as Nix explains my condition to Max and Liz. Retrograde amnesia. Don’t know when or if my memories will come back. Spontaneous recovery is likely. Little by little but not all at once. Timeline is different for every patient.
“You remember Max, don’t you, Hanna?” Lizzy is asking. She’s moved closer to my bed now too. It’s starting to feel crowded in here. Too many people and these things they’re saying that don’t make any sense.
“Of course I remember Max,” I mutter. “We all grew up together.”
“Do you remember this?” He picks up my hand and rubs his thumb over my finger. “Do you remember me giving it to you?”
“Yeah,” Lizzy says. “When did that happen anyway? Was anyone going to bother to tell me my twin sister is getting married?”
I can barely process Lizzy’s frustrated questions. I’m too focused on retrieving a memory of this ring. Max down on one knee, music, candlelight, anything. But the ring is as meaningful to me as the doctor who says I call her Nix. “I…I want to remember.”
He closes his eyes, shielding them from me as his broad chest rises and falls on a deep breath.
“We’ll need to run some tests,” Nix says. “But the best thing you can do for Hanna is give her time. She needs rest and support right now. Not stress.”
“We’ll help you remember, Han-Han,” Lizzy says.
“It doesn’t work like that.” Nix moves to the computer in the corner and types something in. “But tell her whatever she needs to return to living her life. Those memories might be back before you know it.”
“Cally and Maggie are in the waiting room,” Lizzy says. “I’m going to run out and give them an update. Can I get you anything?”
A healthy memory? Evidence that this isn’t all just some bizarre dream? “No. I’m fine. Thanks.”
Lizzy leaves, and exhaustion sweeps over me. My eyelids are heavy and my thoughts muddy with the implications of everything I’ve learned in the last fifteen minutes.
“When do I get to go home?” I ask in a whisper.
The doctor taps at the keyboard a few more times before turning to me. “Not today and probably not tomorrow. We need to run the tests and observe you for the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours. If everything goes as well as can be expected, you can go home after that.”
Max takes my hand between his two warm ones.
Nix checks the display panel on the tower connected to my IV and presses a few buttons. “Let the nurses know if you need anything. Unfortunately, because of the head injury, we can’t give you much for the pain other than Tylenol and ibuprofen, but try to sleep as much as you can. I’ll see you on my rounds tomorrow.” She flips off the lights at the door. “Rest. Take good care of her, Max. You know how to reach me.”