Layne's POV
Coming out of a coma is like when you think you're about to take a fifteen minute break, but then waking up three hours later. It's like that, only imagine you wake up six months later.
Yeah. That's what I did.
Except I woke up ten months later.
When I came to, I almost knocked myself back out. From what little I remembered about my mother and her nursing days, I knew I had been intubated. Which meant I'd been out a while. How long was a while though?
I scrolled my eyes around the room, unable to move. I could detect motion, but not enough to see who it was. Strange.
Suddenly a face leaned into my view. Dil.
"Thank God you're okay," he kissed my forehead and then removed himself from view again.
The rest of what I remember is hazy at best. Just word vomit and medical speak. Letters and numbers meaning nothing to me. For days people were in and out of my room, testing me for this and for this. I failed them all.
Waking up was like being reborn again. I had a therapist to teach me how to talk. I had one to teach me how to walk. One to teach me how to function in society. But no one to tell me what the fuck I was doing in a hospital in the first place.
I was three months into recovery when I finally asked.
"What happened to me?"
He looked up from his coffee and shook his head, "It doesn't matter now."
"I want to know," I persisted, "Tell me."
"For someone who just learned how to talk again, you sure have a lot to say," He chuckled, "Great progress."
"Don't change the subject. I want to know! Did something happen at the funeral?"
"So you remember the funeral?"
"Dil!"
"Alayna!" Aunt Saf entered the room, "Stop pestering your brother!"
"I'm pestering him with my memory loss?" I snapped. Saf gave me one look and I took it back, "Sorry."
"Your main focus needs to be your recovery. End of conversation," She kissed me on the head and I fought the urge to flinch away. Something about her gave me a stomachache.
Saf nagged Dil about somethings before leaving again. When if was just Dil and I again he whispered, "I'm sorry," he paused, "I know its hard. Anyway, I'm not gonna tell you again. Every time I do you get upset, throw a fit and then forget the next day. We'll have this same conversation again, tomorrow."
I started to argue with him, but didn't. He was right at the time. I was still healing.
And I was healing for a long time. A year to be exact. And then another. And then another. It seemed like an eternity before I was cleared for release from the hospital, and then another half before anything started to feel normal. It was weird.
Eventually, Dil had to bring me home. Despite my feelings, I didn't live in the hospital. After so long in one though, our small apartment felt huge. And I went straight into my room and slept for what could've been days. In my own bed. No IV's. No doctors. Just me and my sheets, occasionally accompanied by Max. Nobody visited me, aside from Dil and Aunt Saf, leading me to believe that whatever parts of my memory were still missing, weren't worth recalling.