17 Days Later
Lia
Everything hurt.
How long was I asleep?
I tried to move. Nothing. I tried again...and again. Still nothing.
I couldn't control my body. It was like being frozen in a block of ice.
I was conscious yet I was stuck in an unconscious body. Feeling trap in ice while my insides were on fire.
What was happening me?
My breath fastened.
Maybe if I only try to open my eyes?
And yet again, my eyelids felt so heavy.
Suddenly, I heard muffled voices around me. Hope arose in me. Maybe they could help me? Maybe they could do something?
I couldn't move my mouth neither.
"Help me," I screamed inside my head with all the strength I got. Nothing came out.
I couldn't hear them properly, however it got more and more distinctive as seconds went by.
But who were these people? Where was I? My heart was pulsing inside my head, faster and faster.
I needed to see them. I focus as much as I could. It took everything I had left to finally managed to open my eyes.
As soon as I did, the brightness assaulted me. I couldn't stop blinking, trying to adjust to the light.
" She is awake," said a feminine voice. The first I could hear clearly.
" Help me," I screamed again. " Please,"
People came closer, hovering over me. Every touch of them hurting me. My heartbeat fastened. My head started spinning. I need help. But not like that.
" Please stop,"
Through my blurred vision, I was capable to distinguish my surrenders. Fear caught my breath.
I was in an hospital bed.
What happened to me?
I was in an hospital bed.
What happened to me?
Then, I had that one thought. The one who sent me into a panic frenzy. The most important one. The one I should have been able to answer.
Who am I?
My heart rushed, my mind burned, my body hurt. The voices that spoke to me earlier were now distant murmurs again. The only thing I could do was scream until the pain of a needle shot through my shattered body sent me into the darkness again.
-
No one's POV:
Mr and Mrs Choi were waiting in the hallway sitting on chairs that were way too uncomfortable for the number of hours they spent sitting on them. Waiting and waiting. An update after the other.
But now, their daughter was finally out of the coma.
"I'll try to say this as simple as I can," gently said the now familiar doctor standing in front of them. "Lia has no memories of anything that happened in her life, neither does she recognizes people she knew. In other terms, she is amnesic. The good thing is that she is lucid. She has, however, some trouble talking but with time and a good speech coach, it will be fine. Her mental capacity wasn't affected by the accident thankfully. "
He paused, letting the information sink in, trying to be gentle with them. However, Mr Choi asked immediately "And physically? You talked only about her mental state but what about the rest of her body?"
"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 reeducation in the beginning. She might as well experience frequent headache in the beginning too."
He stopped again, Mrs Choi tears rolled silently down her cheeks as Mr Choi 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 Choi 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,"
-
Lia
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 but 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. The ones from school: Ryujin, Chaeryeong, Yuna, and Ningning. 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 time 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, like I 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?
But where were the flaws, the weaknesses, the vulnerability, the feelings? What did I felt and for who? What made my heart race and what made me look away? No one talked about that.
After some time in this room, I realized I couldn't find anything more here. So what could I do?
That's when I remembered what a nurse told me at the hospital. She had a patient a few years back who was also amnesic. Except that unlike me she had no one in her life, so she had to discover everything about herself on her own. Maybe that's what I needed to do? Test things?
So I did. I discovered really trivial things about myself; I liked tea but not coffee, I liked sports (playing it and watching it) even though with my leg I couldn't really, I liked spicy food and sodas, I actually had a sweet tooth, I liked watching TV but I didn't like romantic movies... I tested more things, even little, the one you don't really think that are important except everything is. I explored who I was, who I am.
I looked above the desk on the wall again, where were hanged my school schedule and the pictures. In one of them, I was in the middle smiling brightly surrounded by my parents and my siblings. In the few others, I was with my friends.
I still didn't know who everyone in them was yet but the girls had been helping me with that. They were...nice. They were kind of the gossip squad though, they talked a lot, not much about me as I had hoped. They talked mostly about school or rather school gossip. They helped me fill in some blanks though. Everything around me was foreign but I was foreign to myself even more. It always came back to that. Me...the stranger.
I sighed looking at the pictures, tomorrow I will probably discover who all these people were. I will go back to school like I didn't almost die two and a half months ago.
I took my literature notebook and plopped on my bed, putting my ' study ' playlist on. I've been happy to find out that 'old me' and 'current me' shared the same taste in music. 'Old me' sure had a lot of playlists, I still didn't know what some of them were for, to be honest.
I opened my textbook and started studying, I needed to catch up with what I forgot and what I missed. The girls brought me homework every day and I felt like it was never-ending. I was glad I had a nice handwriting before the accident, it was easy to read. My current handwriting, however, was sloppy. My hands were shaky but the doctor said it was normal. I still had some traces left of the accident, the most evident one was my limp. My left leg bared a nasty scar, it had not even recovered to half its function and probably never will. I had no choice but to do with it.
I turned the page, the first paragraph seemed way too long for my taste. While scanning the rest of the page my brows furrowed. I brought the textbook closer to better examine it. On the corner of the page, there was a heart with an arrow in it and 'I love you' inside it. What was that? Why would I draw that?
I looked at the other pages but there was nothing out of the ordinary.
A heart. People in love do that, right? Was I? The girls never told me I had a boyfriend or even just a crush. If I was dating a guy, where was he? Nayeon talked about her crush on some baseball players but no one told me anything about me. I should definitively aboard the subject when they'll drop by later.
I traced my finger on it. My heart fluttered. Me in love? It was both exciting and terrifying. Because maybe I had someone in my life that I loved and who loved me back but on the other hand I didn't remember anything or anyone at all. But no one else than the girls came to see me.
I lay down on my bed, sighing again. I wished my memory would come back. It was so difficult, I felt like there were things missing in my life, some part of me but I couldn't find out what. I was like a child learning about life.
-
Hours later, the girls and I were sitting on my bed sharing snacks. We sat there for a while, making little conversation. I was dreading to ask them about my potential love life, yet at the same time, I was curious. Since I discovered that heart, it wouldn't leave my mind. Chaeryeong looked at me with worried eyes, I tried to smile as genuinely as I could but she saw right through me.
Chaeryeong was a living contradiction. She was a bit on the defensive all the time, exteriorly she seemed cold and kind of was but once you get close to her she was actually super nice and caring. She was definitely the mom of the group. She brought me food and little gifts. She really wasn't like the first impression you have of her.
My eyes drifted to Ryujin who was next to her. Ryujin, on the other hand, was sassy inside and outside, she always searched a fight. She lived to her alleged reputation but deep inside she had a good side.
Next to her was Ningning who was a giant baby; she was confused most of the time, cried for nothing and had a cute little smile. She was a shy girl and I wondered how she became friends with everyone in the first place, especially how she and Yuna could be best friends. Yuna was her complete opposite. She was apparently nicknamed 'The Princess' by the entire school, she knew it and loved it.
It made me wonder what was mine. The girls and I looked like we were quite popular in school. Maybe it was because we were cheerleaders. I hoped we weren't like the ones in movies, the bitches of the school.
" What are you thinking about?" Chaeryeong asked softly, shaking me out of my thoughts.
I shifted a little uncomfortable.
"Uh...I...I wanted...to...to ask you," I let out, still struggling with my speech " Do I...have a...boyfriend?"
Yuna and Ningning looked at one another confused, so did Ryujin and Chaeryeong . Chaeryeong quickly got over it though.
"Uh, no you don't have one. Actually, you never had," The other girls nodded along in confirmation.
I was a bit disappointed but also a bit relieved. What would have I done if I had one? Oh hey, I'm your girlfriend but I'm amnesic. How are you doing? Let's learn about each other all over again. That would have been a disaster.
Yet, it left me confused with the heart. What was it for? Was I bored that day?
"Why the sudden interest?" Ryujin asked, an eyebrow raised in amusement.
" No..nothing in particular, j...just curious," I lied.