Pain.
Throbbing, ear splitting, horrible, horrible pain. My eyes feel heavy. My head is throbbing. What is wrong with me?
‘Mummy,’ I mumble, my voice croaky and rough, as if razors are cutting against my throat. ‘Mummy?’ I squawk out, but I can’t lift my head off of the pillow and my eyes are being blinded by bright, harsh lights from above. I blink my eyes a few times, trying to wake up, but it hurts. They’re crusty and heavy.
Instinctively, I drag my hand up to rub my head, but am met with soft material. Is that, bandages? Touching them a little more, I realise that thick bandages are covering my head and hair. Begging my eyes to open for the final time, I blink a few times, taking in my surroundings. My eyes drop down to my hand where a drip is inserted into the back of my right hand and I begin to panic. Why are there bandages on my head? Why have I got a drip in my hand? What’s wrong with me? And why am I in so much pain?
‘She’s awake! Courtney, she’s awake!’ I hear a low voice cry out, making my head throd more. Panicking, I look to my side and see this man desperately leaning into my face, clasping at my left hand and trying to pull me towards him.
‘GET AWAY FROM ME!’ I scream, tears flooding from my eyes. Immediately, I push the man away, making no impact at all because I feel so weak. ‘I want my Mummy!’ I cry helplessly, watching as he steps back away from me.
The man, with wavy brown hair, porcelain but tanned skin and deep bluey green eyes, looks perplexed as I call out for my Mum. I want my Mum. I really want my Mum. So why is he just standing here doing nothing?
‘Where am I?’ I mope aloud, but no one is in the room but the man is still standing on the side of the room, looking at me in utter confusion.
He walks towards me, running his hand through his head as he says, ‘Immy, it’s me, it’s Ozzy.’
I stare blankly back at him. That means nothing to me.
Within moments, a man in a white coat rushes into the room with an older woman trailing behind him, who cries upon seeing me. Again, she leans forward, desperately wanting to hug and kiss me. God, what is it with these people?
‘Who are you people?’ I exclaim in panic. ‘I just want my Mummy. Get away from me! Now!’
‘She doesn’t remember,’ the man says to the woman, his voice breaking half way. I glance across at him, his face etched in pain as he looks at the woman.
Slumping back on the bed, the man in a white coat try to gain my attention, but I’m distracted. Where am I? I place my hands on my chest and gawp. Oh my God, since when did I have such large breasts? Squeezing them, my mouth parts. What the hell is going on here?
‘Oh my God!’ I cry, but am spoken over by the man in front of me. ‘Hello, I’m Doctor Rutherford. You’ve been admitted to All Saints Hospital. Can I ask you a few questions?’
Unsurely, I nod my head, but that sends a shooting pain to my forehead. Squinting, I rest my hand against my head. ‘My head really hurts.’
He nods and asks softly, ‘It will do. Tell me, can you remember your name?’
‘Imogen. My name is Imogen, but where’s my Mum? What has happened to me? Why am I here?’ I ask, verging on desperate. ‘My head really hurts, Doctor,' I repeat, my head continuing to pound in pain.
He fiddles about with something beside my bed and says, ‘I’ve just given you a little more pain relief. It’ll take the edge off of the pain for now. So Imogen, can you tell me what is the last thing you remember?’
With my head pounding, I shrug, but try to think. What do I remember? But my mind is hazy. What do I remember? Taking a few moments, I try to rack my brains, but biting my lip, I admit, ‘I remember my Mum. We were having my eleventh birthday and I got a dog. I, I don’t know what it’s called though.’ I purse my lips as I admit. ‘That’s all, really.’
He writes this down, before asking, ‘And what year is it, Imogen?’
‘2005? Maybe 2006? I don’t know. Why are you asking me that?’ I ask in confusion. ‘Can you just tell me why my head is wrapped up and hurts so much?’
He sends a look to the two people in the room and I hear them beginning to cry. Have I said something wrong? What am I, some sort of project to them? I watch as the young man rubs the woman’s back as she begins to cry against his shoulder.
‘Imogen, you’ve been in a medically induced coma for the past five days and I’d tentatively like to say that you have retrograde amnesia. You experienced a horrible fall and bang to your head five days ago.’
My eyes widen as I hear all of those long words. I have no idea what he means though, but the bang to my head explains the pounding headache. ‘What are you saying?’
‘Imogen, how old do you think you are?’
I pull the cover up to my chin and say quietly, ‘Eleven. But, but I don’t remember getting these,’ I tell him in a whisper, pointing to my large boobs.
I don’t miss the smile that flits across his face, but he regains composure and says, ‘You’re in fact nineteen years old. We’re in the year 2013 which explains your memory loss to be back to when you were eleven. These people here? That is your mother and that is your boyfriend.’
My mouth parts as my eyes flit between the people standing in the room. No way. This cannot be true. How is this even possible? That man is my boyfriend? But-but-how?
‘Is this all a dream?’ I ask, praying desperately that it is. I close my eyes, pinching myself and hope within a moment I’ll be woken up. A few seconds pass, before I open my eyes and see I’m still in the same place.
The doctor’s eyes soften and he shakes his head. ‘You’re not dreaming, Imogen.’
‘I need to see myself,’ I insist to the doctor instead, the mounting pressure and overload of information overwhelming me. ‘None of this is making sense to me.’
He obliges and hands me a mirror but I completely burst into tears as I see a person I was not expecting to be looking back at me. I don’t recognise this girl at all, and yet this girl is me. I don’t recognise the suntan, the freckles, the thinned out eyebrows, nor the lack of puppy fat cheeks. I look so much older. I look like an adult. My hair is covered thick with bandages and I’ve got bruising towards the right side of my face. Carefully, I touch the free strands hanging from the bandage and see my hair is a different colour to what I was anticipating. A darker blonde than I remember having.
I stare helplessly into the mirror, before looking at the person, supposed to be my mother and shake my head. I’m utterly speechless.
Now that I’m looking at her, I can see the familiarity in her eyes, but that’s it. I can’t remember anything and I mean anything else apart from my eleventh birthday and getting a dog. I try to compare what I look like with her, but struggle to see any obvious resemblance. ‘You have a large gash on the right side of your head. The bandages will need changing at some point today,’ the doctor explains. 'You have some bruising to your body as well, but no internal damage.'
‘What did I do?’ I ask my Mum, gently touching my head again.
I look at her, hoping she can somehow comfort me. She’s not the mother I was expecting, but I guess she is the same person. It’s so, so confusing. She sits down on the hospital bed beside me and says, ‘You and Oscar were making brownies, but you were standing on that counter, like I always told you not to do and you slipped and fell.’
I squirm, hearing as she says this, and it dawns on me I can’t remember what my house looks like. Panic overtakes me and I look worriedly at her. ‘I really can’t remember anything, like where we live, or anything like that.’
She takes my hand in hers and soothes, ‘It’s okay, Imms, we’re going to take everything at one step at a time.’
I look at the boy, supposedly my boyfriend and wait for him to say something. He walks over, sitting beside my mum and says, ‘I’m gonna be here for you, Imogen. I promise.’
I stare into his hopeful eyes but his words fill me with fear, rather than relief.
‘But I can’t remember you,’ I say sadly, my eyes fixing on anything but Oscar. ‘I am so sorry, but I can’t remember anything about you.’
He shakes his head, causing his messy hair to bounce in unison as his rough voice assures me, ‘Hey, hey, it’s okay. We’ll get through it.’
I don’t respond, because I cannot fathom how anyone could deal with a person who can’t remembers anything, so merely lie back in the hospital bed and close my eyes, letting sleep consume me before dealing with reality.
+++
I’m woken up by a kerfuffle from inside my hospital room. Cautiously, I open one eye and spot Oscar juggling two things. One, a plate of food and two, a bag. He looks remorsefully at me and says, ‘Morning, Immy. Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.’
Awkwardly, I sit up in my bed, my head still throbbing and wait for him to continue. It's morning already? I really must be tired if I've slept all through yesterday and night. I point to the glass of water on the table which I can’t reach and he quickly hands it to me. He puts a straw in the water and holds my drink to my mouth as I sip the water. Immediately, this soothes my head.
‘I got you some food too,’ he says, nodding his head to the brownies as he puts my drink down. ‘They’re your favourite. Or, um, were?’
I feel bad for this guy. He’s got a girlfriend who knows nothing about him and doesn’t even have a clue about herself. Do I like brownies? What do I like? I have no idea. I take one of the brownies from the plate and break it in half to take a small bite, noticing Oscar’s eyes are watching me closely.
They taste pretty good. ‘They’re nice,’ I comment, taking another bite. ‘What’s in your bag?’
‘Some clothes for you. The doctors said you’d be well enough to go home soon so I grabbed some of your favourite things from home.’
I watch silently as he brings out a pair of faded jeans and a dark green sweatshirt with a detailed embellished collar. Do I like this stuff? The last item of clothing I remember wearing was a purple polo neck and flared trousers. Then again, I was only 11.
‘I bought that sweatshirt for you for Christmas,’ he mentions, laying it out gently on the bed. His hands gently touch the material and he does it so softly it breaks my heart. I don’t have any recollection of this guy before me and he’s doing everything for me, so carefully and so lovingly.
I don’t say anything as he wanders about the room, until he sits at the base of my bed and looks at me, with such conviction in his eyes I have to pay attention to him. ‘Immy, I’m going to be here for you. You know that, right? We’ll take things slow. Hopefully you’ll start remembering things, because what we had, I’m not prepared to give up on.’
I look at this boy before me, telling me things that are so alien to me and stare helplessly at him. I gulp back the enormity of what he’s just said and instead ask, ‘Can you tell me about us?’ Maybe if he keeps talking about me and us, it’ll come back in a steady flow?
His eyes light up as I ask this and he turns so he is sitting facing me. Nervously, he begins fiddling with some fabric twined bracelets on his wrists as he says, ‘We met whilst travelling.’
‘Travelling?’ I query. ‘I went travelling?’
There’s clear pain etched across his face as I say this, but he nods, still wanting to continue. ‘Yeah, you did. You were travelling around Australia and parts of Asia for three months last year. We met during our first week in Australia during the induction.’ He pauses for a moment, before saying, ‘You were so beautiful from the moment I saw you, dressed down in little denim shorts and a loose white top with a bright blue bikini peaking out. We hit it straight off.’
I smile, watching as this complete stranger tells me such kind things about things I have no clue of.
‘I have pictures of it all; I can get them for you when I go back home.’
‘Where is home?’
His eyes focus back on me as he says, ‘Well, you live just outside London.’
‘London?’
They widen as I question this, but he nods. ‘Yeah, capital of England. You love it there. But I live up in Leeds.’
‘Is that far away?’
‘A bit, but we’re used to it. Though I come down here more than you come up North.’
‘And why’s that?’
‘Because you got lost one time and refused to come up again alone,’ he tells me fondly, shooting me a smile.
At that moment, my mum comes back into the room and I see her face smile as she spots me and Oscar talking. She busies herself around the room, explaining that I’m going to be released soon, but on bed rest, despite the memory loss.
The next few hours fly passed in a blur, with Oscar and my mum getting everything ready for me to leave at the end of the day. Before leaving, I’m helped to have a shower and my bandages are removed and checked. Apparently, they glued my head and applied a few staples which will need to be taken out in a few weeks time, but need they to stay in for now. I had a shock when I saw my hair down whilst being washed and also the gash. The nurse assured me that it is hidden enough at the side of my head that it’s not visible, but it's huge and gorey in my opinion. They didn't have to shave much off apart from just the bit they needed to stitch up, though seeing as I have so much hair, the nurse is right, it's not visible.
After getting dressed in the clothes Oscar brought me, my doctor asks Oscar and my Mum to leave the room so he speak to me privately about everything that has happened before leaving. It’s a horrible feeling that I feel no attachment to these people who are doing everything for me.
I look up at the doctor, who is busy reading my notes, before looking at me and giving me a gentle smile.
‘Now Imogen, firstly do you have any questions?’
Before he asked, I had a million questions I wanted to know, but now I’m stumped. Shrugging, I just look to him to ask me some questions. I glance carefully at the sheet the doctor is holding and see it is a tick list of things to go through.
‘Imogen, now your memory may come back at any point in the following hours, days, weeks and months, it’s just a waiting game. You're functional skills are in order so that means you can recover at home on strict bed rest for a while.’
Pursing my lips, I ask, ‘Could I not get my memory back?’
He pauses for a few moments, before saying carefully, ‘I think we should work on the basis that you will, just with an unknown time frame.’
I fall silent as he says this, the enormity of what could happen settling in. I could be this way for months; completely blank with no memory for months. And as he continues, I process nothing but the uncertainty of a life I’ll be stepping into when I’m discharged from hospital.
‘Do I have any brothers or sisters?’ I ask him quietly, almost ashamed for asking.
‘Imogen, please don’t be afraid to ask questions, your family will be more than willing to help you remember people and memories.’
Nodding, I make a mental note to ask Oscar or my Mum about the rest of my family, if I have one.
After the doctor goes through a few things and leaves me alone, Oscar comes back in the room with a young girl who looks like the spitting image of me. Well I guess I have a sister then. I look to Oscar, hoping he can explain and he explains, ‘Immy, this is Eleanor, your sister.’
Eleanor, without missing a beat, throws her arms around me and hugs me tightly. She presses her head flush against mine and says, ‘You had me so worried, Imms. I thought you had died!’
She pulls back and looks at me, her doe eyes gazing at me as she pushes my hair back. I’m guessing she must be 16 or 17 from the look of her, but this is merely a guess. Oscar says nothing, opting to stay at the side of the room as Eleanor leaps into questions.
‘So Imms, do you remember anything?’ She asks me bluntly, her eyes full of interest.
‘Elle,’ Oscar warns from the side of the room, his eyes narrowing at her.
Eleanor glares at Oscar, before turning back to me and saying, ‘I just want to know what we’re dealing with.’ She rolls her eyes and takes my hand, stroking it gently and smiles at me. ‘We’re going to have a movie night and we’ll talk about everything.’
Her peppy, excited nature makes me feel a little better, and soon, I relax into Eleanor speaking at mile a minute to tell me everything and anything she can possibly think of, as my Mum comes back in the room holding hands with an older man, around the similar age to her.
'Dad?' I guess and the smile on his face lets me know I'm right, even if I just guessed correctly. He's rather tall, around Oscar's height, with faded mousey hair and stubble gracing his jaw line.
'Hey honey. I thought you didn't want to see me; every time I came in to see you, you were always fast asleep!' He chuckles, leaning down and resting a hand on my shoulder. He sighs deeply, before saying, 'I'm so pleased you're okay.'
'Me too,' Oscar adds in, and then everyone begins to tell me how happy they are that I'm okay and alive and while I currently feel no connection to these people, I know I must have meant a great deal to them before the accident, so I smile, hoping to give them some comfort, just as they are giving me in return.
A/N: Lovely readers! I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Please let me know what you think of it :)