I know it right now.
We drive in silence and from the passenger seat, I stare at the carnage from my window. Houses are in rubble everywhere. Beautiful ancient buildings and shiny modern ones too.
This can’t be happening.
But it is.
Sirens wail and the entire scene seems to pass by in slow motion. I know it is because I’m in shock. And anyone would be in shock. Gavin seems to be, too. Quinn is quiet in the backseat and we watch people walking aimlessly. Everyone seems astounded. People are dirty, their clothing torn.
Our home country is a wreck.
“It’s probably a good thing we were on the water,” Gavin says quietly. “We weren’t in a building somewhere.”
And then it hits me.
My parents don’t know where I am.
I’m supposed to be in my room, but I left.
I left without telling them.
My heart lodges in my throat and the guilt is unbearable.
We are able to drive through the carnage and reach my house. But when we get to the electric gates, they won’t open when I punch in the code. And I realize that there must not be any power.
“Can you give me a boost?” I ask Quinn. He looks surprised.
“You want to climb over that?” He eyes the tall brick wall. “How will you get back over?”
I shrug. “I’ll figure out how to push the gate open.”
“I’m coming with you,” he says firmly, as he cups his hands for me to step into. I’m surprised, because he doesn’t know me or owe me anything. But I don’t say anything. I step into his hands and he vaults me over the wall. He quickly follows me, and Gavin after him. The three of us make our way up my long driveway and I can’t believe my eyes.
My house is in rubble.
Trees are down everywhere on the property and it truly looks like a warzone.
This.
Can’t.
Be.
Happening.
Everything is still and silent. And then there is another rumbling aftershock and I can’t help but gasp. The sound is noisy in the silence.
This is freaking insane. My crumbled house is like an eerie ghost town.
“It’s going to be fine,” Quinn tells me quietly. His presence is calming. I hadn’t noticed that before, but it is true. “I promise.”
“How can you promise that?” I ask him. “You don’t know.”
“I do know.” He nods confidently.
But I don’t feel so confident.
Everything is spookily calm and quiet. I don’t see my mom or even the servants, which is odd. It’s only been half an hour since the quake. This causes a heavy feeling to lodge in my throat. Where are they?
I push through the rubble of my front door and find that everything is knocked down in my house. The walls, the ceiling, the doors. Wires are hanging haphazardly, chandeliers look hauntingly gaunt and skeletal as they hang limply in the air.
“Mom?” I call out. My voice seems small in this silent chaos.
“Adrianna?” Gavin yells.
No answer.
I plow forward, pushing broken and jagged things out of my way.
Quinn grabs my arm.
“Be careful,” he warns me. “There could be exposed wires.”
I gulp.
Then continue on.
My mom would have looked for me in this mess. She wouldn’t have left, because she would think that I was under the rubble in my room. Because my room is where I’m supposed to be.
My heart is heavy as I head down what is left of the hallway leading to my room.
There is no noise here but for the crackle and pop of debris.
“Mom?” I call again, but my voice doesn’t contain any hope. Because if my mother is here, she is unable to answer and I don’t want to speculate on why that might be.
“Mia,” Gavin says uncertainly as the building rumbles and moans around us. “We shouldn’t be here. This isn’t safe.”
Even as he speaks, a piece of the hallway wall tumbles in front of us and Quinn yanks me out of the way.
“Let’s go,” Gavin urges me. His eyes are anxious.
“Just a minute,” I insist. “I just have to look inside of my room. That’s where she would have gone.”
“You have one minute,” Gavin says firmly. I nod and he stays right on my heels. Quinn still has my elbow. And everything is a blur.
I’m numb as I creep into the wreckage that used to house all of my most precious and personal things. Everything is in a mess now, all broken and torn and dirty. My bed is nonexistent. My clothing is scattered on the floor. I can’t even fathom how strong this earthquake must have been to have done this much damage.
“Mom?” I call again.
I climb over bricks that used to be walls and stumble on what is left of my bed.
I pull myself up onto my hands and knees and peer over what seems to be a mountain of wreckage.
And then the earth quakes again.
It rumbles, low and loud, and I hear several pops and cracks from beneath me.
I don’t know if it is a strong aftershock or another earthquake, but I hear Gavin yell and feel someone yank my arm right before there is a sharp pain in my temple and my vision explodes into a bright white light.
And then there is nothing at all.
Chapter Six
Something is annoying me.
This is my first thought because it takes me a moment to place what it is.
Something is moving. It’s disturbing me, waking me.
And then I realize that it’s my own finger.
It’s moving on its own accord, twitching against the side of my leg.
I try to open my eyes, but my eyelids feel heavy and tired, like they have been glued closed. I try again and then again, and finally, finally, they open.
Slowly.
And the light hurts my eyes.
I can’t focus.
Everything looks like blurry shapes and fuzzy outlines and I blink, trying to clear things up. It doesn’t help. I blink again and it is so incredibly, frustratingly hard. My eyes don’t want to cooperate. After a few minutes, I finally bring things into a slightly clearer focus, but it’s not perfect.
But it’s enough to see a figure sitting in a chair by the window.
It’s a woman.
Her head is bowed and I think she is asleep.
I have no idea where I am.
“Mia!”
She wasn’t asleep. The figure jumps to her feet and lunges to my side. Her face is anxious, frantic, hopeful. I stare at her in confusion.
Because I don’t know her.
And then I realize something else.
I don’t know me.
Alarm slams into me, causing me to panic.
“Who are you?” I ask her wildly. “Where am I?”
This can’t be happening because I don’t know who I am. My heart is speeding, pulsing, threatening to burst.
HolyHell.
HolyHell.
HolyHell.
I grab her hand and look into her eyes. They are green and startled and instantly concerned.
“Who are you?” I beg her.
A tear drops from the corner of her eye.
“I’m your mother,” she answers uncertainly and she reaches for the call button. She presses it, but then runs for the door, calling for a nurse. And then she stops at a sofa on the way back to my bed, and she shakes someone’s shoulder.
And I realize that someone is lying there. A man. And I didn’t even see him before. I wipe at my eyes and realize that they are covered in goop. I wipe at them again and my vision clears a little.
The man approaches me with my mother, the mother that I don’t remember and don’t know, and he looks concerned. He’s tall and dark and has silver at his temples.
And I don’t know him, either.
“Mia,” he begins. “Do you know who you are? Do you remember what happened?”
I’m panicky again. It feels
like butterflies are banging their wings against my ribcage, trying to get out. I don’t blame them. I want to get out too.
“No,” I answer uncertainly. “Who are you?”
“I’m your father,” the strange man answers calmly. But he is interrupted by a nurse who comes through the door. When she sees that I am awake, she approaches me quickly, checking my pulse and looking into my eyes. She wipes the rest of the goop away and now I can see.
My mother is crying and telling the nurse that I don’t know her.
And the nurse looks at me.
“Do you know who you are?” she asks gently.
I shake my head and my mother cries harder.
“Do you remember anything that happened?” the nurse asks.
I shake my head again.
“It’s alright,” she tells me and she pats my hand. “Everything will be alright.”
Will it?
Because my parents are standing next to me and I don’t seem to remember them. And I don’t remember me, either.
And I don’t see how in the world that can be alright.
I’m getting very, very panicky.
A doctor comes in a few minutes later. He pokes and prods at me, too, in all the same places as the nurse.
He looks into my eyes and listens to my heart and nods.
“I hear that you don’t remember very much,” he tells me. I nod.
“Don’t worry,” he tells me. “You’ve suffered a head injury. Your brain was swollen and you were placed in a medically induced coma to protect you. We reduced your medication yesterday and you woke up on your own accord today. Physically, you are fine, so do not worry about that.”
“Why can’t I remember anything?” I whisper.
The doctor’s eyes are kind.
“Because you’ve had a trauma,” he tells me. “As the swelling continues to decrease, your memory may come back. As time passes, it may come back that way too. Memory loss as a result of brain trauma is a tricky thing. But you are surrounded by people who love you and I have confidence that you will be fine.”
I swallow hard and my throat is sore. The doctor notices me wincing.
“You had a breathing tube,” he tells me. “You might notice some tracheal tenderness for a day or two.”
Tracheal tenderness. That sounds so medical.
I am still for a moment. My memory is a strange thing. As I think, I can remember bits and pieces of things. I see a car. A red convertible. I think it’s mine, but it might not be. I see a boat. I see underwater murkiness. But there is nothing else.
I look at my mother.
“I’m sorry that I don’t remember you,” I tell her politely.
She cries.
“Adrianna,” my father says sternly. “Mia doesn’t need this right now.” He pats her back awkwardly and I note that. My father isn’t great with affection, apparently. “You need to be strong.”
She nods, but she’s still crying.
“What is my full name?” I ask my father. He looks slightly pained.
“Mia Alexandria Giannis,” he tells me. The name doesn’t mean anything to me. Nothing at all. It doesn’t feel like me. But then again, I don’t know me.
“Your middle name is after my mother,” he adds. “Your grandmother. You are very much like her. Very strong-willed and independent.”
Strong willed?
I wonder about this. I don’t feel strong willed right this moment. I feel confused and tired. And weak. I don’t like the feeling.
“You should rest,” my father tells me. And I realize that I don’t even know his name. So I ask and he looks pained again.
“It’s Stanyos,” he tells me. “Stanyos Alexander Giannis.”
“After your mother?” I guess. He smiles and nods.
“Yes.”
He’s satisfied with me for some reason. I’ve done something right, but I don’t know what. Maybe he’s just proud of me that I woke up.
“What happened?” I ask. Because I realize that I have no idea what happened to put me into this condition.
“There was an earthquake,” my mother pipes up. Her eyes are red from crying. “You were grounded. And you sneaked away to go scuba diving. But that’s a good thing. If you’d been in your room like you were supposed to be when the quake happened, you might have been killed. For once, your rebelliousness was a good thing.”
She sounds a little bitter and my father gives her a hard look.
“Adrianna.”
She lowers her eyes and I know that I’m missing something. But I’m too tired to worry about it.
“So I like to scuba dive?”
My father smiles again.
“It’s your favorite thing in the world.”
That makes sense. I only have a handful of memories that I can recall and they involve the water. I tell them that. My father smiles, my mother does not. She seems very upset about something that I don’t understand. But again, I’m too tired to make sense of it now.
I tell them this, that I am so very tired. And they tell me to get some sleep, that they aren’t going anywhere.
So I close my eyes. But when you are a in a place that you don’t know, with strangers watching your every move and when, in fact, you don’t even know who you are… it is very hard to sleep.
But I’m going to give it the old college try.
And then I realize that I have no idea where that saying came from. Somewhere from the back recesses of my mind, probably.
I can tell already that this getting my memory back thing is going to be a long process.
Sigh.
Chapter Seven
Days pass in a blur of strange faces and visitors.
Apparently, all of my friends from school come to see me, all of the ones who weren’t also injured in the earthquake. And I don’t recognize any of them.
The strange thing is that I know what everything around me is. I know the television, the bed, the bathroom, my slippers. I recognize how those things work. It’s like my memory has holes in it. I remember some things but everything else just dropped out of existence, like I never knew it at all. It’s frustrating.
Also, apparently, I like red jello. It’s pretty much all I want to eat right now. The meat on my tray makes me want to gag.
My mother sighs.
“Mia, you’re not a vegetarian. You’ve never been a vegetarian. Just eat your food, alright? You need the strength and you’re not going to get it from jello alone.”
I stare at her.
“Maybe I should have been a vegetarian,” I announce, laying my spoon down and putting the cover back over my tray. I don’t even want to look at the greenish tinted hospital chicken. (Who in their right mind would eat that??) “And maybe I’ll become one now.”
“Mia,” my mother sighs again. “What has gotten into you today? You’re not normally like this…. so obstinate.”
I stare at her again. I’m not? So, I don’t usually have opinions? I must have been a very boring person. I’m prevented from responding by another visitor.
“Mia’s being obstinate? How out of character,” a dark-haired guy says wryly. He steps into the room and I wrack my brain. I was introduced to him a few days ago. Gavin. His name is Gavin. And we were-are- good friends.
Apparently.
“Hi Gavin,” I tell him. I smile politely. It’s hard to pretend to be good friends with someone that I don’t remember. They all tell me that they understand, but there’s no way that they can. I just hope that I don’t accidentally hurt someone’s feelings by forgetting them.
“Hey,” Gavin tells me. He pulls up a chair next to me and I examine him. Dark hair, dark brown eyes, mischievous smile. Crisp white button-down shirt, open at the top, fancy blue jeans, flip-flops. He’s gorgeous. My tummy gets a little fluttery when he picks up my hand as if he knows me.
Then I remember, he does know me.
I just don’t know him.
“How do you feel today?” he asks. “Are you driving the
nurses crazy?”
“No, she is not,” My mother says firmly, even though clearly the question was meant for me. “She’s being polite and courteous, as she should be.”
Gavin looks at me. There is confusion and a bit of amusement in his dark eyes, but he quickly masks it. He’s good at this, at smoothing things over. I make a note of that.
“How are you feeling?” he asks again. He’s still holding my hand and his fingers are warm. I like it. I may not know him, but I like his hand. “Have they let you outdoors yet for a walk?”
“Not yet,” I tell him. “I feel good enough though.”
“Then you shall go,” he tells me valiantly. He picks up the call button and a moment later a nurse appears.
“Yes?” she asks pleasantly. Gavin smiles at her, with a knee-weakening grin.
“Miss Giannis would love to go for a walk in the sunshine,” he says. “Would that be possible? I’ll walk with her.”
My gaze meets his and his eyes are sparkling. It’s no wonder he and I were good friends. He’s very likeable.
The nurse smiles at him. No one is impervious to his charms, apparently.
“She has already been cleared for a walk outside,” the nurse tells him. “She just hasn’t wanted to go.”
Gavin turns to me. “No? Put your clothes on, Mia . We’re going outside.”
I stare at him. “I sort of don’t want to.”
“And why not?” he looks at me. “Because you’d rather lay in here and feel sorry for yourself?”
“No.”
Yes.
Gavin raises an eyebrow. “No? That’s not what I’ve been told.”
I look to my mother and she appears guilty.
“You’ve been talking about me?” I ask softly. This actually hurts. I’ve been trying really hard this week—to do what everyone has asked of me. And she’s been talking about me?
“No. Yes. I mean, I have, but only because I’m concerned about you,” she stammers. “Gavin has always been able to cheer you up, so I called him.”
I stare at her, but Gavin interrupts.
“I’m going to go outside for a minute, so get your clothes on. We’re getting some fresh air.”
“Have you always been this bossy?” I ask him. He grins.
“Why, yes. Yes, I have. And you like it.” He saunters out, not worried in the slightest that I might actually be agitated with him.
Mia's Heart (The Paradise Diaries) Page 4