by Cat Mann
Chapter 2
Memories
My eyes flew open to bright, blinding lights; the sounds of beeping machines rang out all around me. Shooting up in a panic, I let out a hoarse, painful scream. Tubes jutted out from all over my body and I pulled them out as fast as my bandaged hands would allow. A pair of very strong hands gripped me around my wrists, quickly stopping me.
“Ava,” a man’s voice said cautiously. “Ava, stop. Stop what you are doing and calm down.” Pulling my body away, I tried to yank my arms free from his grip but it was no use; this person was much stronger than I was.
“Look at me, Ava, please. Look at my face.” I looked up at the face of the man who held my wrists in his hands.
“Who are you, where is my mom, where am I?”
“Ava, it’s me. Look at me. Don’t you know who I am?”
“No,” I pulled back hard again in another attempt to escape his grip.
“Could you please call my mother and let her know I am here?”
The man in front of me dropped my arms and rubbed the scruff on his face.
“Ava Baby,” he whispered.
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped and watched as the hurt flowed onto his face. He was too close to me. I stared at him with cold, harsh, unkind eyes until goose bumps ran up the back of his neck and his arms. His jaw dropped and he took a cautious step back.
Closing my eyes, I searched my brain for my mom’s phone number but I could not think clearly. I tried to remember my address and came up with nothing. Taking in my surroundings, I could tell I was in a hospital, but I didn’t understand why I was there.
“Where am I? Is this the University of Chicago Medical Center? Because my mom is Dr. Baio, she works here. Go get her,” I demanded.
The guy in my hospital room took a deep, slow breath and gently and calmly said, “Ava, you are at White Memorial Medical Center, in Los Angeles, California.” He swallowed hard and added, “Your mother died a year ago. I am your husband, Ari. Please remember.”
“No! She isn’t. And no, you aren’t! What the hell is going on here?” I hollered with a hoarse and scratchy voice. “What the hell have you done to me?”
“Ava, please believe me. I would never lie to you.”
“I don’t know who you are, but you need to leave now,” I was unwilling to listen to him any further.
With an open jaw, he ran his fingers through his messy hair. “I’ll get your doctor.” He mumbled as he turned and left the room.
Taking in a deep breath, I looked about the room. I was in a hospital bed. My arms and hands were wrapped up in bandages and gauze, my side, my head and my neck all ached with pain. Bleeps from annoying monitors sounded in my ears and liquid from an IV dripped in a steady beat. A green, fake-leather looking chair had been pulled out and made into a bed. It was adorned with a pillow and blanket, as though someone had been there for a while. A large, square window on the opposite side of the bed, across the room from me, looked out into a big hospital waiting room. In the waiting room stood many people who were crying and hugging the man I had just kicked out.
A moment later, a doctor in a white coat with a stethoscope draped across his neck entered my room. He cleared his throat, “Hello Mrs. Alexander, my name is Dr. Phillips. It is so good to see you awake. How are you feeling?”
“No,” I said with a panic, “you have the wrong person. I am Ava Baio. B-A-I-O!”
“Ok, Ava,” he began again. Without warning, he shined a very bright light straight into my eyes.
Asshole!
“You have been involved in a very tragic course of events. Your head was hit extremely hard and your body has suffered some breaks, burns and some cuts. I feel confident that you’ll recover fully, but right now, your mind is trying to protect itself. Over the course of time, you will begin to recall the very unpleasant ordeal that you have endured. More than likely, these memories will be quite frightening.”
“Where is my mother?” I asked again.
“The Alexanders are your family.” He gestured at the group of people in the waiting room. “Your mother is no longer living.”
His words were spoken quietly and with authority, but they sent me into a panic. These people, whoever they were, clearly had me confused with someone else and I needed to get out of the room right away. My sore hands began to pull at the tubes again, as I screamed at the doctor that I had just seen her; we had been together just a moment ago. I demanded that he go and find my mother at once. The people in the waiting room all stared, open mouthed, through the window at me and I felt a strong urge to give each and every one of them the finger.
A nurse rushed in with a huge needle attached to a syringe full of cloudy liquid and I freaked out even more.
“Don’t touch me! Stay away from me!”
I backed up on my bed, pushing my body as far away from the nurse as possible. Stopped by the headboard and feeling like a scared and cornered animal, I froze as the nurse ignored my pleas and kept walking toward me.
The man who had been in my room when I first blinked into awareness rushed back into the room and stopped by my side.
“No,” he demanded, “Stop what you're doing right now. She’s awake now; don’t give her anything she doesn’t want.”
“Mr. Alexander,” Dr. Phillips said, “If she cannot calm down, we are left with no other choice. She will just cause more harm to herself.”
The first man looked at the doctor with a cold glare. He didn’t look like the type of person who was used to being told no.
“I said no and I meant it.”
He turned and looked at me, “May I please talk with you alone for a minute?”
My head bobbed up and down in short rapid nods. I would talk if he kept the nurse and her needle away from me.
Dr. Phillips was irritated but gave a swift nod and left the room along with the nurse. “Call if you need anything,” she said with a too eager smile before shutting the door behind her. I don’t know why, but the coy, inviting smile she sent him made me want to rip out her throat. I gazed at her with an icy death stare. The guy with the scruffy face saw my expression and the corners of his lips turned up in a little grin. Butterflies awakened and stretched their wings in the deep pit of my stomach.
Crossing the hospital room to the waiting room window, he pulled down the shade, giving me the privacy I so desperately wanted. I watched him cautiously as he returned and then sat on my hospital bed. He sat close to me, much closer than people usually dared, and he seemed fine – not the least bit uncomfortable. Most people, upon getting so close to me, caused my body to instantly pull back, but with this guy I felt the opposite and was drawn to him. Kind of as though I were a magnet and he the fridge.
He looked me in the eyes. “Ava, I am going to touch you. Is that alright?”
I stared at him for a long hard moment, unsure. Finally, I blinked and nodded yes ever so slightly. He took my left arm, turned it over in his hands, and started to un-do the bandages. His caress was gentle and made me feel warm.
“This is the only way I know how to do what I want to do, so stop me if you can’t take the pain anymore.”
“Ok.”
“Your name is Ava Zae Alexander, you are eighteen and we live together on the Southern California coast line. We are Greek … I will explain who you are later.”
Looking me in the eyes, questioning me with his gaze, he waited to see if it was okay to proceed. I bobbed another small yes. He continued, “We met at school and I fell completely in love with you. You were my whole world from the moment I first laid eyes on you.” He smiled at me, as if remembering something I could not and then continued.
“You had terrible nightmares nearly every night and those nightmares were an avenue for me and I let them draw me to your room. I wanted so much to get to know you better …
Your favorite color is gray and you play the piano better than anyone has ever played any piano … ever. You speak perfect French, and your cheeks turn pink whenever we kis
s. My family loves to make a game out of how many times we can get you to blush when we’re all together. Rory always wins. You like college basketball and for some godforsaken reason, you like the Cubs. Somehow, Ava, after months of trying, I finally got you to love me back.”
The gauze on my left hand began to thin as he wound the bandages up in his hands. “Ava, you left. Remember? You went to London. It was the longest six months of our lives. When you came home, you agreed to marry me.”
With bandages from my left hand now gone, he took my hand and placed my sore palm in his, showing me a huge diamond ring.
“We had the most remarkable wedding.”
Looking down at the ring, then back at the man claiming it was a symbol of our love, I tried to remove it. None of what he was saying made any sense to me.
“No,” he said firmly, “keep that ring on that finger. I don’t tell you to do anything, Ava, but I am begging you, do not ever take off that ring.”
Tears swelled up in his large kind eyes and I put my hand back down in my lap. He flipped my hand around and held it in his palm showing me my blood-and-blister-covered flesh.
“I know this news may scare you,” he said as he continued to remove the bandages from the rest of my arm, “but you have been hunted and you have killed people, five to be exact. But the important part is that you are not a monster. You are a resourceful, competent and incredible young woman who has been forced into unbelievably challenging situations.”
He showed me my now bare wrist. On it were five tattooed tally marks, and a sixth less precisely formed slash mark that had become a jagged and angry red scar.
Quickly, the words of my mother filled my ears, “You aren’t safe. You aren’t done. Be careful who you trust.” I swallowed my panic down and closed my eyes. The mattress shifted and squeaked and I felt him move even closer to me and my eyes shot back open. Giving me an intensely sweet look, as though promising me he meant no harm, he slowly put his arms around my neck and began to untie my hospital gown. He moved my hair across my left shoulder allowing it to cascade down my side.
“Are you still okay, Ava?”
“Yes.”
He blinked down at me and gave me a very small smile. He softly pulled the hospital gown sleeve on my right arm down from my shoulder and off my arm, revealing my bare skin and a certain intimacy that gave me pause, but he didn’t move away.
“Ava, there were people in your life who are no longer with you. But they will always remain in your heart.”
He showed me my bare arm. On it was a flock of beautiful birds taking flight, up towards the sky. Gaping at my own strange skin, my heart pounded. He pointed to the first and said, “This is your father.” Next he caressed the second bird in flight and said, “This is your mother and here is Perry.” With a soft and delicate touch, he finally motioned to the last, “and this is Mia.”
“Mia?” I whimpered.
“I am so sorry,” he said as he wiped tears from my cheeks.
“Ava, you may not remember me, but our love is unlike any other. I made a promise to you that I would never leave your side, never make you cry and never stop loving you. I intend to keep those promises. Forever.”
He stood up, crossed over to the window and pulled up the shade to reveal the group of people, all of whom were crying. Then he came back to my side.
“That is your family, Ava. We all love you.”
I looked out at them, blinked at them, gazed at their sad faces, I knew no one.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know you. I think you should leave. All of you.”
He closed his eyes, put his fists in his hair and pulled while he let out an angry noise of frustration. A tear slipped from his eye and ran down his cheek. I noticed a little wrinkle on his forehead that seemed so out of place for such a beautiful person. His jaw was square and firm and his nose was perfectly straight. The color of cream, his skin was so clear, so pretty. I could not deal with the pain I was causing this person by not being the person he thought I was. Slowly, my eyes traced their way down his face, towards his very soft-looking pink lips. I stopped abruptly at a rosy colored scar just below the bottom one.
A sudden flash of heat overcame me and my mind filled with images of the two of us in a moment of passion, our limbs tangled together, my fingernails ripping the flesh on his back. My teeth on that lip; I could taste his mouth on my tongue. My cheeks burned red hot, and my stomach did flip after flip. I slowly moved my hand up to him and placed my finger on his small scar, willing myself to remember more. His eyes shot open at my touch. A small smile crept across his lips and hope twinkled in his eyes. I climbed onto my knees so I could get even closer and my mind showed me picture after picture of the two of us together …
Our first kiss, private moments spent tucked away in bed, texts with x’s and o’s, lying on a beach, swinging gently on a hammock, laughing, kissing, crying, our wedding day, and our wedding night …
My mind allowed me to see all of him and I knew that I loved this man more than I loved anything in the world. I threw my arms around Ari and pressed my lips to his. Knotting my hands up in the back of his shirt, I breathed him in. His scent was a drug and I was an addict. Parting my lips, I kissed him as fully as I could, wanting to never stop. Cheers rang out from the hallway and distracted me, but Ari pulled me in tighter, refusing to break our embrace.
“Oh, God, Ava,” he trembled, “don’t ever do this to me again.” Ari let go of what remaining strength he had and cried into my hair.