Call me Lucy
Rania Battany
Contents
Call me Lucy
About the author
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
Author Note
About my connection to this story.
Acknowledgements
First published in 2019
Copyright © 2019 Rania Battany
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. The author asserts her moral rights.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Rania Battany
Email: [email protected]
ISBN: 978-0-6484311-6-9
Cover Design: Adobe Stock Images
About the author
Rania Battany writes emotionally charged contemporary romance and she loves nothing more than creating flawed characters that have to fight their way to Happily Ever After. She lives with her husband and three children in Melbourne, Australia, where she alternates her days between writing and pottering around the garden with her chickens, dog and kids.
1
Her
A shrill whistle woke me with a jolt.
I shot up straight and immediately clasped my hand to my chest. Sudden shocks like that always made my heart drum so hard it felt like it could explode. Where was I? Taking a steadying breath, I studied the masses. Swarms of people rushed to the train doors, fighting their way ahead of the pack, eager to get out and onto the platform. That’s right; I was on a train. I must’ve fallen asleep.
I’d arrived at a central station—I could tell from the size and congestion. I lagged behind the pack. I couldn’t care less if I was last off the carriage; I had no home to rush off to like these people did.
After wiping the sleep from my eyes, I raked my hands through my hair. My fingers came to a stop at the base of my neck. Shit. I’d forgotten I’d cut off my hair that morning. My ass-length hair was now a bob. A jet-black, blunt bob, no bangs. Turning, I caught my reflection in the train window. Against the black, my pale face now appeared ghostly white. Maybe the black wasn’t a good idea.
The hairdresser had warned me. “It’d be impossible to go back to blond. You’ll need to wait until the black grows out. I seriously don’t recommend it.”
I wasn’t the kind of person to listen to advice.
I caught the eyes of an elderly woman standing beside me, and she smiled. ‘I don’t know how you managed to fall asleep on the train. It’s so busy,’ she said.
Her handbag brushed my shoulder, and I remembered something. Spinning, I hurried back to where I’d been sitting. This time my heart didn’t drum—it stopped. Manic, I searched everywhere, under the seat, around it, behind it. Running up and down, I studied every damn corner of the carriage. But it was gone.
Fuck!
My bag was gone.
Pain squeezed in my chest as I frantically searched the carriage for a second and third time. But it was pointless. Someone had stolen my bag.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!
My pockets were empty—nothing ever fit in my skin-tight black jeans. Dread seeped over me. Everything was gone. My ID, money, bank cards. Everything. My breathing grew labored as my heart danced to the irregular beat of a drum. I felt the blood drain from my face, and I imagined I now looked translucent.
A man in uniform opened the doors linking the carriages and marched down the aisle.
‘Where’s the nearest police station,’ I asked.
He didn’t stop. ‘On Day Street. Now get off. This train isn’t taking passengers,’ he replied as he walked into another carriage.
What was that saying again? The bigger the city, the bigger the asshole?
I made my way into the central hub of the station. Men and women in business suits packed the main concourse, and I figured it must be evening peak hour. Without stepping outside, I could tell just how much bigger this city was than the little town I was from up north. Hordes of people rushed in every direction, running without giving a crap about those they knocked over. In this place, I was faceless. No one looked me in the eye. Everyone was too absorbed in their daily grind—this meaningless rush—to notice anyone else.
I could have disappeared here if I wanted to.
It was tempting. I’d felt alone in the company of other people for years. Feeling alone in a crowd seemed easier. And I was exhausted. How easy it would be to slip away into a crowd this size … I could simply vanish, and all the worry and loneliness would end.
Sydney was showing off a beautiful spring afternoon, and blinding light struck my eyes as I stepped out of the station. I followed the pack, walking a few minutes to a plaza or square of some kind. The roads were manic. Buses honked furiously at people who crossed their paths despite the blatant red man at the pedestrian crossing. On the opposite side of the road, lines of cars waited at red lights. Inside those cars, I saw the drivers’ faces—frustrated, angry, impatient, looking like they might kill someone if they had to wait one more minute for the light to change.
The little man at the pedestrian crossing flashed green, and I followed the herd as I crossed the road. I couldn’t see the police station anywhere, and dread thickened my throat with a lump I couldn’t swallow. I had no idea where I’d sleep tonight if I didn’t find my bag.
I needed to call Bear to tell her I’d arrived. I doubted if she would’ve remembered that I’d left, even though I’d told her a million times. But if I caught her in a good moment, she would be glad I called.
There was a screech, a deafening, glass-shattering screech, followed by a piercing scream. Something crashed into me—a blow to my core—and my feet were ripped from the ground. All I heard was screaming, so much screaming. But it grew distant.
Liquid warmth oozed over my eyes and cheeks. Then, nothing.
Voices floated around me. Searing pain shot through me like bullets, like knives hacking into my core. Then, nothing.
A shape hovered over me. All of a sudden, I was floating in water.
I think.
There were two shapes now. My arms and legs moved on their own. My head floated separately to my body. Was this real?
A voice. Two voices. Everything was black, and I couldn’t see their faces. They talked. There was a woman with a hushed tone; she spoke about her husband. He had left her. He had broken her heart.
‘He’s a fucker,’ another woman said. ‘I promise you’ll find someone better.’
The first woman hushed the second, told her not to speak like that. ‘Often they can still hear you,’ she said.
Coarse fleece brushed my legs. The woman with the hushed voice raked her fingers through my hair. I knew it was her because she spoke to the other woman the entire time. Her soft and gentle touch felt like heaven. When was I last touched like this, with so much care and tenderness? Possibly never. Her fingernails glided over my scalp, like a massage, and I wanted to move toward her touch but couldn�
�t.
She spoke again, and this time it felt like she was talking to me. ‘Come on, darling. Wake up, sweetheart.’ Her voice was deep and smooth, like warm porridge with honey, and it enveloped me like a blanket. ‘It breaks my heart. Look at her. She’s just a kid.’
No. She couldn’t be talking to me; I wasn’t a child.
I must be dreaming.
A man spoke, but his words were distant. A woman responded, and I recognized her voice. It was sweet and warm, not like that man. I stirred, and my eyes crept open. My mouth was so dry that I would kill for a glass of water. The woman looked at me and rushed over, saying something, but my eyelids felt like bricks, and they shut. I drifted, and that woman’s voice sang like a melody as I surrendered to the darkness. Somehow I knew it; I would never forget her voice.
‘Good morning.’
A different voice this time. I turned toward it, not realizing my eyes were already open until her face came into view. She was blurry. I fluttered my eyelids, and her face slipped into focus. My head—God—it felt like a jack-hammer had drilled straight through my skull and into my brain.
‘It’s nice to see you so alert. How are you feeling?’ She spoke with a strange familiarity, as if we were friends. As if we’d chatted a million times before.
I opened my mouth, and it felt like it had been years since I’d spoken. ‘My head hurts.’
She laughed softly. ‘I can imagine.’
I tried to shuffle up, and she rushed to my side.
‘Let me help you,’ she said.
I noticed her navy-blue uniform. The white sheets, stale-cream walls, and the tag secured to my wrist. A disgusting smell, like disinfectant, assaulted my nostrils. My heart skipped again, and I lost my breath. I flung my head up and stared at the tag pinned to her chest: Registered Nurse.
‘I’m in a hospital!’
‘Yes, you are.’ She studied me carefully, and her smile faded. ‘The doctor would like to talk to you. Hang tight, okay? I’ll run and get her.’
I’d woken from a fog, as if I’d just resurfaced after drowning in the deepest, darkest depth of the ocean. I looked at my hands. My skin was pale, youthful. I ran my fingers through my hair, which came to a dead stop at my neck. I had short hair? A bob! That stunned me. For a reason I couldn’t explain, tears pooled in my eyes. I’d thought I had long hair.
Why had I thought that?
My gaze dropped to my left forearm, and dread drained the moisture in my mouth. Vertical scars ran up my wrist, my skin hacked, butchered.
Oh, God. Had I tried to …
‘Good morning. I’m Doctor Azamile.’ The doctor barged into the room, her voice nowhere near as pleasant as the nurse’s. She flashed a blinding light into my eyes, then wrapped something around my upper arm. ‘Can you tell me your name?’
What a stupid question. Of course I could tell her my name.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I tried again, still nothing. My name was there, right on the tip of my tongue. I knew it. But a force I couldn’t make sense of silenced me, and I couldn’t respond.
The doctor didn’t blink, her expression rigid and flat. But behind her, the nurse’s forehead creased with concern.
‘Can you tell me how old you are?’ Doctor Azamile asked bluntly.
My age, like my name, sat in a filing cabinet in my mind. I saw the information there. I felt it. I clutched onto the handle of the drawer labeled memory and pulled it desperately. But the drawer was jammed. Locked. Broken. Whatever it was, I couldn’t seem to penetrate this storage cove containing my most basic information.
Something tightened inside me, and I clutched my chest, above my left boob, my breathing growing shallow and sharp. The doctor stood and pressed her stethoscope over my heart, continuing to talk as the ice-cold device pushed into me.
‘Do you know what happened to you? Do you know why you were brought into hospital? Can you tell me anything about yourself?’
I searched every corner of my brain. Nothing. My chest rose in rapid bursts, and tears blurred my vision. I knew my name. It was there—right there. And yet it wasn’t. It was like one of those nightmares when you try to run, but your legs won’t work, and you remain stuck no matter how determined you are to move.
No matter how wide I opened my mouth, nothing came out.
Doctor Azamile secured the stethoscope around her neck and stared at me for a minute. She exhaled a contemplative breath then turned to the nurse, whispering.
Possible focal retrograde amnesia …
Cardiovascular …
Symptoms increasing in frequency …
Fatigue penetrated deep into my bones, and I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the hushed whispers of the doctor as I slipped away from everything I didn’t understand.
Light flooded the hospital room, and I knew it was morning. My bladder twinged with agony. Geez. I really needed to pee. I pulled the sheet off, and it occurred to me that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt an urge to use the bathroom. I couldn’t remember the last time I did use the bathroom. Heat flushed my cheeks, and my stomach sank with humiliation. Had the nurses been cleaning up my business? I dropped my face into my palms and squeezed my eyes shut.
The door crept open, and someone walked in. Sweat beaded on my forehead, and I couldn’t bear to look up.
‘Is everything okay?’ a female voice asked.
I forced my head up. ‘I really need to go to the bathroom.’
Her brows creased with soft lines. ‘Are you having a problem going?’
My mouth was so dry; the words were heavy to utter. ‘Who’s been … cleaning me up all this time?’
She offered a small but reassuring smile. ‘You have. You’ve been washing and using the bathroom on your own.’
My face contorted with confusion, and the nurse walked to sit beside me. ‘It’s common for patients who’ve experienced a brain injury to suffer short-term memory loss. Over the last three weeks, you’ve been talking with us, walking around the ward, showering and using the bathroom on your own. You just don’t remember, and that’s completely normal.’
Had she said three weeks?
Brain injury?
‘Over the last few days, you’ve been much more alert, and the doctors are confident the short-term memory loss is passing, but …’ Hesitation creased her brow. ‘The doctor will need to talk to you about everything else.’
Three weeks?
Three weeks!
My bladder screamed at me, and I got up. Even if I hadn’t needed to use the bathroom, I had no words for her. My brain was a muddle, and trying to make sense of anything was like looking into a bowl of Skittles and attempting to find a color pattern.
‘I really need to use the bathroom,’ I said again.
I had a private bathroom attached to my private room. The artificial lights struck my eyes, and I blinked several times to adjust. In my peripheral vision, I saw a mirror, but I refused to look at it. Somewhere deep inside, I knew what I looked like—except for thinking I had long hair, and I wasn’t prepared to see me with a bob.
Nothing about the bathroom was familiar, not the sterile white tiles or the bleach smell, not the toiletries covering the vanity. This cubicle had been my private bathroom for three weeks. These were my things, and yet everything seemed foreign.
My stomach clenched. What else had I been doing over the last three weeks that I didn’t remember?
What a stupid thought. I remembered nothing.
I walked out of the bathroom. Sitting in the chair by my bed was a different woman again. She wasn’t a member of the medical staff. Somehow I knew that. She looked up and smiled at me, and something familiar stirred in my veins. When she spoke, her voice was deep and reassuring, and it wrapped me up like a soothing, warm drink.
No. I couldn’t have forgotten that voice.
2
Her
‘You look great this morning.’
Her brown eyes twinkled with her compliment. She was beau
tiful. Dark olive skin, long, wavy chocolate hair, the kind of curvaceous body that would make both men and women drool.
I realized I was gawking when she stood and walked toward me.
‘I’m Lillian.’
She fixed a warm smile on me and led me to the bed before sitting in a spare armchair, a duffle bag resting against it on the ground.
I lifted my leg onto the mattress, and my gaze dropped to my purple sweatpants. What the fuck was I wearing? I might not have remembered my name, but I knew purple sweatpants and a pink t-shirt had never been part of my wardrobe.
‘Whose clothes are these?’ There were a million questions I should have asked first, but that one seemed easiest.
‘They were donated. The ones you came in with got ruined.’
Her voice. It swirled like a delicate dance in my mind. I knew her voice.
‘Your husband,’ I asked, ‘did he hurt you?’
Her eyes grew wide, and her lips turned thin. ‘How did you …?’
She took a breath and brushed her long waves away from her shoulder. ‘My husband and I have recently separated. Back to you. How are you feeling today?’
Scared. Confused. Worried. Freaked-out.
‘I’m okay. Can you tell me what happened to me?’
Uncertainty flickered across her face, but she hid it with a warm smile. I could tell she’d explained this to me before. Perhaps many times. And when she explained it to me now, it sounded rehearsed, like a script she couldn’t stray from.
‘You were hit by a car driven by a drugged driver. You sustained a brain injury. Confusion and short-term memory loss, called post-traumatic amnesia, are common following an injury like you’ve sustained, though they are usually resolved without incident. The doctor has told me your short-term memory has improved significantly over the last few days. So you’re right on track with that.’
The hope in her voice contradicted the anxiety residing in my gut. I tried to respond to her reassuring smile with the same, but I couldn’t.
Call me Lucy: An Enemies to Lovers romance Page 1