I opened my eyes slowly, wincing as the light assaulted my senses. I blinked rapidly, trying to get used to the brightness. As I looked around I saw that I was in a white room, with no windows and fluorescent lights on the ceiling.
My heartbeat sped up, and my heads started to sweat as I looked around. What happened? And why was I in the hospital?
I tried to get up, but my whole body was sore, and I had a slight throbbing in my stomach and throat, making it difficult for me to move.
I wracked my brain, trying to remember what had happened, but I drew a blank. Maybe I had gotten into a car accident? I had no idea but I was extremely confused.
"Layna!" someone called out. "Quick, Steve, get over here. She's awake!"
I flinched in pain as the noise caused a soft pounding in my head, but it was a relief to know that my parents were here; they would obviously know why I was in the hospital.
When I looked up at them they were both crying, just staring at me with wide eyes and holding each other at the door to my room. Steve broke apart first and came over to me, gently sitting on the bed beside me. I tried to sit up and hug him, but the burning pain in my stomach prevented me from moving too much.
"Don't try to move too much yet; everything is still going to be very sore," Steve said, gabbing onto my hand, and giving it a small kiss. "I'm so happy you're okay."
Tom came over as well, sitting on the opposite side. He leaned forward and gave me a soft kiss on my forehead.
"My little girl," Tom mumbled softly, "How do you feel?"
"Everything hurts," I whispered, my voice coming out hoarse.
"The doctor will be in here soon, and he'll give you some more medication for the pain," Steve said, running his thumb over the back of my hand.
"Okay," I said, laying my head back down on the pillow and closing my eyes. All this talking had increased the pounding in my head. "So what happened to me? Was I in an accident or something? Why am I here?"
There was an extremely long silence, so I looked up, excepting my parents to have left, it was so quiet.
They were both staring at me with shocked looks on their faces, and their jaws basically on the ground. Tom snapped out of it first, snapping his mouth shut. "What do you mean? Don't you remember?"
"Uh...no. That's why I was asking you. Did I get hit by a bus or something?" I joked, trying to lighten the mood. None of them laughed.
"No." Steve said, holding onto my hand a little tighter. "What do you remember?"
I thought back to the last thing I could remember. It hurt my head, but I vaguely recalled that it had been a Friday and I was babysitting, everything else was a little blurry. I told them this, and they just looked at me blankly.
"Layna, honey, that was ten days ago."
My heart stopped beating, and I felt nauseous. Ten days. I couldn't remember ten days of my life. What the hell had happened?
Before I could ask my parents, the doctor came in, with a nurse hot on his tail. He checked up on me, asking me how I felt, and prescribed some more medication for the pain. When Tom brought up the memory loss, he told us that he wasn't sure what could have caused it. Apparently I had hit my head hard at some point, which could have played a part of it, or it was because my brain was unconsciously suppressing the emotional trauma of whatever I had gone through. It also could be a mixture of the two, but he couldn't be sure.
When he left, I had more questions than I did when we started. What had been so emotionally scarring that I would suppress it? What the fuck had happened to me?
"Do you want to go get Derek?" Tom asked Steve. "He's probably wondering about her. I'll talk to her about what happened, okay?"
"Why is Derek here?" I asked them, "And why are you getting him? I don't want to see him. I haven't wanted to see him since he left," it was a lie and my parents knew that, but they said nothing.
"Sweetheart, hear me out before you decide anything." Tom said, trying to take my hand but I pulled away from him.
"No, I don't want to see him!" I yelled out, surprising myself, while also sending a white hot pain down my throat. "Where's Brian? I want to see him."
A tense silence fell over the room after I said that, with Tom and Steve staring at each other.
Steve broke it first, sitting down heavily on the chair beside my bed from where he was standing near the door. "Brian is not who you think he is, Layna. He's in jail."
I stared at Steve in confusion, then looked over to Tom who wouldn't meet my eye. "What?"
I'm going to tell you what I know okay?" Tom was staring hard at the wall. "It's not everything, since I only know what Detective Greene told me and he tried to spare me the details."
"Just spit it out," I said, getting annoyed. I wanted to know what was going on and I wanted to know now.
"You were kidnapped by your stalker, and held for five days. You managed to get access to a phone and you called the police, where they traced it to where they were holding you."
I lay my head back on the pillow, trying to wrap my brain around this information. I had been kidnapped, by the stalker who had been terrorizing me. He had held me, and done God knows what to me, and I couldn't remember a thing.
"You should also know that the person who did—"
"Layna," a voice called from the doorway, cracking over my name. I knew that voice, almost as well as I knew my own and hearing it again was doing bad things to my heart, because I had missed it, missed him, so much. But hearing it was bringing back all the pain that I had pushed away and not dealt with and it hurt.
I didn't, couldn't, look at him. I could hear my parents say something about giving us a minute and leaving, but I still couldn't look.
"Why are you here?" I whispered.
"You were in trouble." He said, and I could hear him walk towards the bed.
"Like you give a shit," I spat out.
"Of course I do, Layna! I've never stopped caring about you, no matter what you think! Ever since I left, I couldn't fucking forget you, and trust me I tried."
"Cut the bullshit!" I said, sitting up to look at him. He looked horrible. He had dark circles under his red-rimmed eyes, and he looked like he hadn't shaved in days. He was a mess, and from what I could gather, I was pretty sure it was because I had been kidnapped.
"There is no bullshit! And stop pretending you're the victim in this! Because if I remember correctly, I wasn't the one who did the breaking up. You didn't want me, and you made it clear. And yet, I was the idiot who couldn't get you out of his head, even though you seemed to do just fine, and look how that turned out for you." He winced, looking at me with wide eyes. "I'm sorry I didn't mean that, it just came out."
"What's that supposed to mean? Brian is a good boyfriend, who was there for me when I needed him."
"Did you hit your head or something? How can you say that about him after everything?" Derek froze, his eyes widening as he stared at me. "You did; you did hit your head. Oh fuck. Fuck," he slumped down on the chair, resting his head in his hands, curling into himself.
"What? Derek, please, what is it?" he was scaring me now.
"You don't remember? And no one told you?" he rubbed his face violently, then looked up at me. "Layna, Brian is the one who kidnapped you. He was your stalker and then he took you."
That was the last straw to this shit show of a day. I couldn't deal with this, couldn't deal with everything that they were telling me that I couldn't remember myself. So, like any sane person would, I burst into tears.
It was uncontrollable, and I was sobbing loudly into my hands, and it was hurting my throat and my stomach, but I didn't care. I had a right to break down.
"Layna, angel, is it okay to hold you?" Derek asked, and I nodded, unable to form coherent words, before throwing myself at him.
He caught me, holding me gently, and my whole body hurt but it was too nice for me to care.
And even though I had no idea what was happening, I was safe. Derek was here, and he was rubbing my back, and telling me that I was okay and that no one else could hurt me.
And in that moment, that was enough.