Things Fall Apart

"Alas it was reality"

~The Captive's Dream by Anne Bronte~

There he was again. Always out of reach, always calling out to me: "Dean." Never saying anything else. Reaching a hand out, his blue eyes pleading, his black hair sweaty and sticky.

"Dean."

***

I wake up in a hospital bed.

I am surrounded by my mother and father, my little brother, Sammy, assorted family friends, and other people I don't know or perhaps just don't recognize.

Sam is tall. Really tall. Yesterday he was only four eleven. He could pass for a high school student now. My parents look several years older, as if they could possibly age five years in a day. How is any of this possible? But then again, I woke up in a hospital bed. I guess anything is possible at this point.

My mother's eyes spill tears when they meet mine. "Dean," she says, and I'm briefly brought back to my dream of the blue-eyed boy, "honey, it's okay." I don't know what's okay, and I still don't know why I'm here, so I ask her. "You were in a car crash," she says. "Do you remember anything?"

A vague memory from yesterday surfaces in my mind, "Yeah, I failed my pre-algebra test." My dad looks at the doctor with something resembling rage in his eyes, "Dean hasn't taken pre-algebra since eighth grade. He's a senior."

I'm not a senior. I'm in eighth grade. But I feel different in my skin. Bigger. Also my voice sounds different and foreign in my ears. Nothing feels right. I hear static as the doctor explains what's wrong with me. I don't hear sentences, only a few words here and there, such as "memory loss," "no foreseeable cure," "retake high school," and "I'm very sorry." Then all I see is black.

***

When I'm stable again, and awake, everyone in my family leaves except my mom while the doctor explains to me what's happening. "Dean, you were in a severe car crash yesterday at around 9 pm and have been in a coma until this morning. Unfortunately, there was damage to the part of the brain that retains and stores long term memory. I won't go into boring details, but this is called retrograde amnesia. You said your last memory was some time in eighth grade, therefore your brain has erased the past four to five years of your life." This time I don't feel like passing out, I feel like throwing up, but my headache is too bad to move, so the stomach acid settles. "With this type of amnesia, your memories can come back in puzzle pieces. For example, you may wake up tomorrow and remember something that happened two years ago, but you still won't remember the whole of eighth grade." I don't know what to say, so I don't say anything. My mom clutches my hand, holding back tears for my sake, though she doesn't have to. I know she's brave. "Any questions?" My mom asks a few but I don't listen.

***

After a long week of X-rays and medicine and the start of physical therapy, I'm finally released. Before I go home though, I decide to look in the mirror at the hospital, a thing I hadn't done yet because of the fear of what I would see. When I look, I see myself: older, harder looking, with sharper features. I gotta admit, I'm handsome. I don't look for too long because I don't feel like myself. It's so strange how I could have come out of the crash with broken bones and a cut up face, burn scars, maybe even died. But I look the same, at least I probably do, yet feel completely different. My injuries aren't physical.

They're a whole lot worse.