The first thing I feel when the darkness starts to fade is pain. Pain erupts in my head and body and all I want is to be pulled back in to the darkness that inhabited me, shielding me from the exploding and agonising torture.
Someone had kicked my skull with steel toe boots, it was aching and pounding and throbbing. I want to stay asleep, I want to cuddle back in to this uncomfortable bed, itchy blanket and flat pillow and allow sleeps pull to tug me back in to its grasp.
I try and force myself back in to darkness, where the pain can't touch me and I'm unaware of everything, where anxiety can't touch me and pain doesn't hurt me but my mind doesn't allow it. My mind is awake, in pain and screaming, but awake.
I open my eyes, squinting and blinking when the bright light blinds me momentarily. Everything is groggy and strange, like I've been asleep for a hundred years and woken up to a whole new world.
What happened? Where am I?
I try to remember what happened, how I ended up in this white room where the smell of disinfectant blinds my senses but nothing comes to mind, it's a blank slate. I try and push myself, my face screwing up in concentration and annoyance to remember what happened but I come up blank, I can't remember anything.
"Oaklee! Thank god you're awake. You scared me to death." Morgan's exclamation shocks me and I jump in the bed, snapping me head to face her. She stands up from the uncomfortable looking chair with wooden arm rests and wraps her arms around me carefully. The movement hurts but I hug her back, relief flooding through me to see a familiar face in this confusing time.
Maybe she knows what happened and can explain it to me. I'm sure once she tells me the memory will come rushing back.
"What happened?" I stare around the room. The ceiling, door, floor is all perfect white, hurting my eyes with its harshness. A grey cushioned chair sits beside the bed which Morgan sits back down on, sky blue curtains frame the window, showing me the white sky. It looks miserable out there like the sky is readying itself for a huge storm.
"You hit your head. It was a good thing I was coming round or else you might not have been found until Alex came round the next day to bring Zeus." Her relief is clear but my confusion overrules my gratitude.
"Who's Alex? Who's Zeus?"
She states at me with a blank face while I tilt my head in confusion. Who was she talking about?
"Oaklee, Alex is your boyfriend." I shrug and shake my head. I haven't got a boyfriend and I definitely don't know anyone called Alex. "Alex King. Alexander King. He's your boyfriend."
I laugh. "Why do you keep saying that? I don't know anyone called Alex. I don't have a boyfriend. You know I can't talk to people. How on earth would I be able to have a boyfriend?"
"Oh Oaklee." She whispers, her eyes swirling with sympathy and pain. "I'm going to go talk to the doctor, okay?"
I nod and watch her leave, my mind scrambled with her words. I've never heard of the name Alex. My anxiety prohibits me from talking to anyone, I can't even smile at someone when they walk past. I find it hard to thank the cashier who rings up my groceries at the supermarket, hell I can't even look at him.
It doesn't take long until Morgan is back, a middle aged man following her. He looks kind, his smile making me smile. He had blonde hair and kind brown eyes hidden behind round glasses and a graying stubble on his jaw. A clipboard and pen balance in his hands and I can see part of his hand writing. It's messy and scrawled all over the place.
"Hi Oaklee, I'm Dr. Pierce. How are you feeling?" He asks me kindly, his voice warm and welcoming.
I don't even think about my anxiety when I reply. I feel comfortable around him. He has a calming aura. "I'm feeling good. My head hurts a little but other than that I'm fine."
He nods. "Your friend said you're having trouble remembering." His pen connects with the paper on the clipboard.
"Nope. I think she has the problem not me." I laugh. "She keeps saying I have a boyfriend called Alex but I don't."
He smiles cheekily at me and I laugh again. "What's the date Oaklee?"
"October fifth?" I guess.
"It's the seventh but that makes sense since you've been asleep for a few days. And the year?" He keeps his eyes on the paper as he writes.
"2019."
His pen movements freeze and slowly, his eyes meet mine, severance mixed in with the kindness. I hear a gasp to my left and I glance, seeing Morgan with tears in her eyes and her hands to her mouth.
Why was she reacting like that? Why is she crying?
"Oaklee it's-"
"Thank you Oaklee. We're going to run some tests for now. They won't take long and you'll be perfectly safe." Dr. Pierce smiles warmly at me and makes his way over to Morgan. His hand touches her back and he guides her way, the two of them talking in hushed whispers.
I can't hear them properly, only a few select words reach me. 'Don't push' and 'it will come back'.
Don't push what? What was happening?
Morgan sits back down in the chair beside me but stays silent while nurses come and take me to another room and help me on to a board, sliding me under a huge machine where I have to keep still and listen to the banging and whooshing over the machine above me.
Despite my claustrophobia and the anxiety that starts to build up, I think about what Morgan said.
She said Alexander King, whoever that is, is my boyfriend. I was a hermit, I was only comfortable around her and Loki so how could I have a boyfriend?
Wait, if Morgan and I were both in the hospital then who was looking after Loki?
"Where's Loki?" I ask Morgan in a state of panick when I return back to the room.
"I called my mum. She drove down and she's at your apartment looking after him. He's fine." I nod and breathe out a sigh of relief, the anxiety disappearing like footsteps when the tide comes in.
It's not long until Dr. Pierce comes in, his smile dimmed a little. "Oaklee, what's your last memory?"
I pursue my lips, wracking my brain for the last thing I remember. "I went to that coffee shop with you, Morgan. The one with the ginger bread men and we drank hot chocolate and talked about your mum and dad. And I just finished my second book. It's being edited. Don't tell anyone but I'm an author." I whisper to him and he smiles wider, chuckling underneath his breath while he nods.
Morgan swallowed, I could hear the gulp, and the panic and pain on her face was clear as day. What was wrong with her? "Oaklee that was a year ago." She whispers. "Your second book was published. You're on your third book now."
"A year ago?" I glance from her to the doctor, confusion settling in.
He nods, his smile melting in to a straight line. "It seems you have amnesia, caused by the fall. You hit your head pretty hard and it's had side effects. Your memory loss looks like it has eradicated the last year of your life. That's why you can't remember your boyfriend or why you remember yours and Morgans meeting at the coffee shop. A year ago. Usually this type of amnesia, induced from a head injury, can last any length from a few days to a year. All we can do is wait for some signs of your memory returning. I am going to keep you overnight because you do seem to have a concussion."
"That can't be right." I deny, shaking my head. My mouth parts and closes for something to say but there isn't anything coming out. All I can seem to do is stare between Morgan and the doctor. "I remember us going to that coffee shop last month."
"Oaklee..." Morgan whispers. "It's October 2020. Not 2019."
I've lost a year... a year where I seemed to have managed to get a boyfriend and moved on to my third book.
How did this happen? Why did this happen?
"I know this is shocking and confusing but don't push yourself. If you push or strain yourself to remember then it could make the memory loss worse. You just have to give it time. It should come back on its own." He smiled and then left.
My mind was spinning and I swear that was a bell ringing loudly somewhere in the room.
"I'll be back soon Oak." Morgan whispered to me, grabbing my hand in hers. "I just need to run an errand and I'll be back real soon. I promise. I'll get a nurse to bring you a lolly."
"A blue one." I clarified, staring at her expectantly.
She nodded, a laugh bubbling out of her lips. "A blue one."