I snuck out in the early hours of the next morning to try to get to the hospital. I saw the warm open doors of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, previously Seattle Grace, and ran in, clutching my arm, with a horrible sense of déjà vu.
'Hi, can I help you?' A woman with black curls and bright eyes turned to me and smiled, wide-eyed.
I stared at her for a second.
'Callie?'
She stared for a second. 'Yeah- yeah, how did you know my name? Have I treated you before?'
'Yeah, when I broke my arm, I-'
I stopped, stared at my arm, then at her confused expression. Seeing our confusion, a beautiful blonde woman marched over.
'Is everything okay?'
'Arizona!'
She also flinched, and Callie stared. 'Have we treated you before?' She asked, narrowing her eyes at me.
I stared for a second, blood running cold, arm throbbing. I knew exactly what had happened, and I knew that these people didn't know me. I knew, finally, that it had all been in my head.
My dad left when I was five. My mum died when I was twelve. Then my dad looked after me until he died a couple of months ago. And then I was adopted and brought here to Karin and Derek, and they broke me. Physically, emotionally, psychologically, whatever. I'm not who I was any more. I was happy, soaring, doing well in school. I am a blonde-haired, blue eyed, skin and bone empty shell, losing all of my friends except my closest and true best friend Grace, scraping C's in school and struggling on. I was covered in bruises, always covered up as much as possible or disguised as from a fall or slip, when in reality it was from them.
I wasn't Lola Grey. Meredith, whoever she was, if she even existed, didn't know me. I didn't have three little adopted siblings called Zola and Bailey and Ellis, and this was my first ever time in Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital.
I saw a woman pass me in the corridor. She had shoulder-length dark blonde hair, sad eyes and a turned down mouth, and she held the hands of a little African American girl in a pink dress and a little boy with brown curls. She turned her head as she passed, and stopped for a second as she stared at me. She looked for a moment, cocked her head as if trying to suss me out, and almost started to say something from across the room. As I shifted eye contact from her, I felt her stare at me for another searing few seconds before quickly walking away, as if trying to shake something off.
From this moment on, I shall assume nothing. The only thing that I know with myself right now is that I am not Lola Grey.
The End