Before and Now (Chaennie)

Chapter 3

"Due to the surgeries, physically she will be in some pain for a while and she also will have a slight limp, her leg was in pretty bad shape following the accident. She'll need re-education in the beginning. She might as well experience frequent headache in the beginning too."

He stopped again, Mrs Kim tears rolled silently down her cheeks as Mr Kim gaze was lost in the distance again. Their hands tightly holding one another, a rosary in between.

"I advise you to go slow with her, her brain injury combined with her amnesia left her emotionally vulnerable. But as you know she is lucky she is even alive after what happened."

Mrs Kim buried her face in her husband's neck bursting into tears. He held her tight. They knew she was lucky. They knew they were lucky. They prayed day and night since the accident and now finally their baby will be fine.

"She's gonna be ok." He reassured his wife, patting her back. "She's gonna be ok."

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Jennie's POV

Two weeks passed since I was out of the hospital.

I scanned the room I was in again.

I was in my room, though this place still felt foreign to me. Like it was someone else's room and I had invaded their privacy. Yet it was mine or rather the 'me' before the accident.

Actually, everything still felt foreign. Since I woke up, it didn't felt like my life. Yes, that girl had my face but her story... everything that people told me about her. I tried so hard to remember but it felt like these memories weren't there in the first place. It happened to someone else, to 'her'. My parents showed me pictures, told me childhood stories, trying to make me remember bud I didn't. I saw the sadness in their eyes every time but I couldn't change it. I politely smiled, telling them that soon maybe I will. That until then we had to create new ones. My siblings, however, were more distant like they were now living alongside a stranger. I didn't see my sister for long, she was in the middle of her first semester in college and she had to leave as soon as I met her. My brother as well didn't seem like the talking type. I didn't learn much about me through them. Neither did I learn more about our relationship.

The ones who talked the most were my friends. Joy, Irene, Nayeon and Lisa. They came to the hospital almost every day and after I went home they did the same. They hung around, talking to me about a person that they clearly seemed to know well. They talked about 'me' with affection but all seemed superficial, without depth. Each person had their version of 'me', though they had the same general idea of 'me'. I was supposed to be a bright, popular, cheerful and a lot more qualities that felt like they idealized me somehow. I couldn't be that good? Could I? That's what the girl in the picture looked like anyway.

I stared at the pictures on the wall. It's true that she looked happy. I sighed, detaching my eyes from it. I looked around the room again hoping it could reveal more details of who I used to be. It was here that I've been spending most of my times since I was released.

The room was quite simple. The colors of the walls consisted of a light pink and cream white, quite sober. It was... elegant. The queen size bed took most of the space and on the other side of it was a desk full of different items, mostly school related. I went through it multiple times already but the most important thing I discovered there was a list of passwords. Which permitted me to access not only my computer but also my social media accounts. That taught me more but less than I thought it would. It was mostly conversations with my friends and school related things. The 'old me' felt really incomplete like they saw only the top of the iceberg. Maybe I only imagined it? Maybe it was all it was? Maybe 'she' was exactly like what people had described?