I had a severe case of amnesia. He’d pulled me out of a lake, half dead. He’d obviously been waiting almost three months for me to wake up. And now his first question was about the food?
“Don’t really have anything to compare it to.” I tapped on the side of my head and shrugged. “‘Course I would think there has to be something out there better than soup and Jell-O.”
“Depends,” he remarked casually, tucking his arms against his middle. “Is it red or blue Jell-O?”
My lips curved upward. I wasn’t really used to the action. But I went with it. It was kind of nice. “Green.”
“That’s just unacceptable!” he said in mock outrage. When he sat forward, his sock-covered feet dropped off the bed. “How dare they serve something so foul!”
A sound came out of me. It was a laugh. I was laughing. Now I know what that sounds like.
Covering my mouth as if I were embarrassed to be happy, I added, “But nothing is worse than the banana they tried to make me eat.”
Eddie’s eyes lit up with amusement, but he shook his head and scowled. “Green Jell-O and fruit? I’m gonna give the first nurse I see a piece of my mind.”
I stuck out my tongue. Just thinking about that mushy yellow thing made me recoil.
Eddie chuckled, and thoughts of food faded from my mind. We stared at each other for long moments. The air around us seemed to shrink, or maybe my skin just felt momentarily tight. Reality crashed into the humor we shared, and a lot of the questions in my mind came to the surface.
Quietly I asked, “Where am I, like what state?”
His eyebrows shot up his forehead. “No one told you?”
I made a face. “They haven’t told me much of anything. They think I’m too delicate.”
His feet returned to the mattress when he lounged backward. “You’ve been through a lot.”
“None of it I can remember.” Was I allowed to be upset over things I couldn’t remember? I knew I wasn’t unaffected… But it was hard to feel like I was.
“You really don’t remember anything?” He regarded me closely. I didn’t know why, but every time he looked at me, I felt he was looking for something. Besides, how could I be upset when I really had no idea what was going on? All I had were bits and pieces… pieces of a not-so-pretty picture, but it seemed I needed more before it all sank in.
Once again, I turned inward, toward my blank mind and hollow world, and tried to recall even the slightest detail about myself. Anything. But I couldn’t. “Nothing.”
“Not even me?” he asked, his voice less relaxed than it had been up to this point. It was almost as if he knew he shouldn’t ask, but he couldn’t help himself.
“Why would I remember you? Should I?”
A momentary look of disappointment flashed deep in his eyes, but then he shook his head. “No. When I pulled you out of the water, you opened your eyes for a moment. I thought maybe you saw me…”
“Oh. I’m sorry. All I remember is waking up here.”
“It’s okay. It’s understandable.”
“They told you not to tell me anything, didn’t they?” I sat back against the pillow and sighed. Earlier today, during my alone time between doctor visits, I’d adjusted the bed so I could sit upright. Since I woke up from the coma, lying down was something I found I didn’t like.
In fact, it made me sort of uncomfortable. I didn’t tell anyone that. The doctor would have written it down with a constipated look on his face and then called the head shrinker. It wasn’t that big of a deal anyway. I mean obviously, I should be feeling some sort of discomfort after waking from an extended coma. I’d been lying prone in a bed for too long; of course my body combatted against doing it more.
“They also told me I couldn’t come in here and see you,” he said with a wink.
“But you came anyway,” I said, remembering what Dr. Beck told me. “Why did you come every day?”
“I couldn’t stay away.” His eyes roamed over my features, and for the first time since waking up, I thought about the way I looked.
“But why?” I urged, unable to look away from the intensity of his stare. I could be swallowed up in those deep blue depths.
“Because I pulled you out of the water. You were so… unresponsive. It was scary, and after bringing you here, I sort of felt invested. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“You felt sorry for me.” I pointed out.
“Actually,” he whispered, and in his voice was something raw and utterly truthful, “I feel sorry for the people you left behind, the people who could be missing you.”
“About that…” I blinked, trying to tear my attention from his face. “The doctors said no one has come here to identify me.”
He shook his head. “No, no one has come.”
Tears burned the backs of my eyes. Sometimes it was easy to push away, to feel detached, but then other times, it smacked me right in the face. No one came for me. I was utterly alone, and I didn’t even have a name.
“The police have been looking?” I asked, repeating something else the doctor said.
“Yeah, from what I know. It was a hot news story for a while. It was in the papers and on the radio. They’ve been looking into missing persons’ reports, but so far, nothing matches anything like your story.”
“I don’t even know my story!” I burst out. “How could they?”
Eddie cleared his throat. “I meant no one matching your description or general age has been reported missing since you’ve been here or a few months prior to that.”
I felt bad for snapping at him. He was the only person here, and I was taking out my frustration on him. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” He sat forward, elbows hitting his knees and his torso leaning over the edge of the bed. “Don’t apologize, not ever. Not to me.”
“I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
The storm in his eyes quelled. “I can take it.” The confidence in his tone was oddly calming. I liked his sense of assurance; it was solid when everything else was pretty much in crumbs.
“So…” I urged, tucking my legs beneath me and ruffling the crappy blankets on the bed. “Are you going to give me some information or what?”
He mock gasped. “I feel used. You only want me for my mind.”
“So far, your mind has been pretty un-useful.” I pointed out.
His teeth flashed in a quick smile. “We’re in Maine. A very small town up north.”
“Maine,” I murmured to myself, mulling it over, deciding if it felt familiar to me or not.
It didn’t.
“That’s on the East Coast, right? It’s cold here?” I asked, wondering where that information came from and why all the other more important details weren’t so easily reached.
“Yeah, but it’s not cold right now. It’s August. End of summer is coming, and it will start to get chilly soon.”
“And there’s a lake here?” I asked.
Eddie bobbed his head and pushed at the unruly hair on his forehead. “Lake Lochlain. Everyone calls it Lake Loch, though.”
“Is it a big lake?”
“Yeah, it’s big, bigger than the town actually. It’s a quiet kind of place, kind of off the map, not as modern as most places nowadays.”