Chapter 10 Jessica
Jessica
The overhead light comes on, and there’s a doctor standing by the door, his hand on the switch.
I stop screaming, silenced by the view of the room.
I try to look to the right, then the left.
Oh, thank God. It’s a hospital room, not a torture chamber.
I’m latched to a gurney, which is so much better than The Princess Bride Bed of a Thousand Souls or whatever it was called.
Still mildly alarming, though.
“You don’t need to scream.” The doctor takes a clipboard from a hook by the door. “If you scream, you’re going to hurt your throat and you’re going to be dehydrated. There’s nothing here to fear. Are you in any pain?”
Am I in pain? I strain forward in an attempt to see the rest of my body, but I can’t see past my boobs.
He approaches, peering at me. “I need to know if you’re in any pain.”
“No.” I clear my throat, and the action causes me to start hacking.
He waits for my coughing to pass. He’s not bad looking. My mom dated a doctor last year, and that guy looked like a wrinkly potato with a giant nose. She’d called him “nice looking,” but that was a load of fresh bullshit. Maybe his bank account was nice looking.
This guy has a nice bank account, if the Rolex on his wrist is any clue.
“My name is Joe Marino. You can call me Dr. Joe. I’m the head of medicine here.”
Here. His lab coat has some sort of monogram on it, but I can’t tell what it says.
“You were pretty out of it when you came in.” He writes something on his clipboard. “Feel like talking right now? It’d be great to get some more information from you.”
“Sure.” I can’t even nod in this thing. My wrists are sweating, and that’s a first for me.
“Name?” He moves the pen to a new spot on the paper and waits.
I pause. Frown.
My name.
Okay, I know this. Two words. Maybe three. Louisa May Alcott has three.
“You might not remember it,” he says casually, like it’s normal for someone to forget their name. “You’re potentially experiencing some short-term memory loss, which is common after a traumatic event.”
“Did I have a traumatic event?” I must have, unless this is the normal sleeping arrangement in this place.
“Well, something was traumatic enough for you to admit yourself. Do you remember what you told us when you came in?”
I admitted myself? I stare blankly at him and try to remember, but the last I recall, I was eating dinner. I made chicken alfredo, one of those frozen, just-dump-a-bag-into-a-skillet-and-stir things. It wasn’t great. Kind of rubbery. Mom had said it was good.
Oh, she’ll know my name. Hers too. Right now, all I can lock in to is that she had brown hair. Her face is just a big blur, like someone rubbed over it with an eraser.
“Focus, please.” He waves his hand to catch my attention. “Do you remember what you told us when you came in? What you’d done?”
What you’d done. I didn’t like the sound of that. It wasn’t just the words; it was the way he said it, like he was accusing me of something. What I’d done ... What could I have possibly done?
Missed my shift, probably. If that wasn’t it then, it definitely was now. My shift at ... I blink.
“Do you remember?”
I try to shake my head no, but the brace around my head pins it in place. “No. Can you get me out of this thing? I peed on myself.”
“Avoiding the reality won’t make it go away.”
This is ridiculous. I just told him that I peed on myself, which is really embarrassing to admit.
“I’ll help you deal with it. That’s my job. It’s what I do.”
“Can your job be to untie my hands? I really need to scratch my nose.” I flap my hands against the bed.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened last night?” He sits on the edge of the bed, and I don’t like the press of his butt against my leg.
I try to move it away but can’t. “I ate chicken alfredo.”
“Okay, chicken alfredo.” He writes that down. “What else?”
“There was broccoli in it.”
He just looks at me, his pen’s tip still against the page. “Did anyone eat dinner with you?”
“Yeah, my mom.”
“You live with your mom?”
Do I live with my mom? God, I hope not. I’m like ... Shit. How old am I? I growl in frustration. I need a mirror. If I could look in a mirror, I’d know my freaking name. My age. My living situation. “Do you have a mirror?”
“Okay, we’ll stop for today, sound good?” He moves to his feet and checks a bag of fluids that is hanging off a stand to my right.
“No, wait. I can remember.” I pinch my eyes closed and try to grab on to something, anything. I was hiking in the woods. Another memory of a little dog, something gray, in my lap. We were speeding to help it. All useless memories. I don’t even know who “we” are.
“It’s okay.” He pulls something out of his pocket—a syringe—and inserts it into a port on the side of the line running to my hand. “It’s common for these memories to come back in a day or so. Rest up and I’ll check back in with you.”
“But I peed my pants,” I say weakly. It feels like something that should matter.
He doesn’t respond, just hangs up the clipboard and flicks off the light switch. Everything goes dark except for him, outlined in the light from the door.
“Sleep,” he orders.