Chapter 3
Three
AURELIA
Somehow morning had already come. A nurse was here an hour ago with a doctor to give me my discharge papers. They left a bag with the clothes I wore the night of the accident.
I’ve been staring at it for twenty minutes now.
Inside is the silver dress, folded neatly, and Daniel’s black blazer he gave me because I was too cold. On top of it, in a smaller bag, rests a gold necklace with a tiny heart medallion and a silver engagement ring with a solitaire diamond.
I loved Daniel. I really did. I fell in love with him once.
Somehow, that love slowly faded until it felt more like a contract everyone expected me to fulfill.
And I did. I’m the perfect example of what a people pleaser looks like.
And by the time I realized they were the least important people I needed to please, it was already too late.
I had sacrificed my own happiness for theirs. I hated myself for it.
They say your first love either stays with you forever or teaches you a lesson. For me, it was a lesson. I just still don’t know what it was supposed to teach me.
Daniel wasn’t a horrible person. He was a good man. But sometimes even good men do bad things to the people they love. At some point you stop seeing the good when the bad starts happening a little too often.
My gaze drifts to the clock. It’s 8:30 a.m.
I slide my legs off the bed and stand. Pain spreads through my body with the first step. It comes sharp, but I swallow it down and keep walking toward the bathroom.
When I reach the sink, I grip the porcelain and slowly lift my head. It’s the first time I’ve seen myself in the mirror since I woke up.
My hair is a mess, all tangled and dull. The cinnamon color is still there, but darker somehow. Like the shine has been washed out of it. My skin looks pale and tired. And my eyes…
My eyes look the same. They lost their glow a long time ago.
Tears fill them anyway, blurring the girl staring back at me. I blink them away. My mom wouldn’t want me to cry.
I slide the hospital gown off my shoulders and let it fall to the floor.
The bruises are gone now. In their place are thin scars that trace my skin like a memory. They will follow me everywhere.
I reach for the silver dress and pull it on. The fabric slips over my body too easily. It hangs on me now.
When I look back into the mirror, I hesitate. I don’t recognize myself. This girl isn’t the Aurelia Vale I knew.
I close my eyes. My lower lip trembles as I exhale, fighting the pressure building in my chest. People think I’m lucky to be alive. But that thought feels impossible to believe.
I turn toward the door. My hand finds the handle, and I pull it open.
Dasha is sitting on the edge of the bed. She is holding the gold necklace in her palm.
“Your mother gave you this, didn’t she?” She smiles. “You wore it on your first lesson.”
“Yes.” I steady myself against the doorframe. My fingers press into the wood to keep my balance. “She bought it the day before I started.”
She lifts the necklace carefully, then slips it back into the small plastic bag beside the ring.
I move toward her, forcing each step to look steady. My feet don’t listen. It feels like I have two left feet attached to me, like every step needs to be remembered first.
She notices immediately, stands, and hurries toward me. The moment her hand closes around mine, I pull away.
“I’m fine, Dasha,” I say quickly.
She freezes for a second, her hand still hanging in the air between us. She lowers it and returns to the bed, and from her purse, she pulls out a yellow envelope.
“Martha gave me your documents,” she says. “She found them when they were clearing the house. She kept them in case you woke up. But your clothes… she donated those to charity.”
I nod.
It’s crazy how quickly everything disappears. As if everyone had already decided I would never wake up. I didn’t even get the chance to keep a photo of my parents.
Three months in a coma, and my whole life is gone. Now I have to figure out how to live in what is left.
She holds the envelope out to me. When my fingers touch it, I open it immediately and glance inside. There are just papers and my passport. Nothing else.
My attention drifts back to the bed, to the ring and necklace lying there.
I don’t realize how long I’ve been staring at them.
“You should sell the ring,” Dasha says. “We can find a pawn shop.” She exhales. “I know it might be too soon. But it could give you something to start with.”
Her words hum in my ears while the clock on the wall keeps ticking in the background, its ticking sound growing louder, counting down the seconds until I must leave the hospital and start over.
At some point between my drifting thoughts, Dasha takes Daniel’s blazer and lays it across my back.
It’s a strange feeling, how things stay behind with people, forgotten, while someone else quietly carries them away. The blazer settles over my shoulders, and instead of choking me, it feels warm against my skin.
It still smells like the ocean. The scent of salty water is deep in the fabric, but his cologne has faded away.
My fingers move to the collar, and I pull it tighter around me. Something presses lightly against my ribs. I lift the fabric just enough to find a small pocket sewn into the lining. I slip my fingers inside and pull out an old photograph.
A little girl looks back at me. Her long blonde hair falls over her shoulders, the wind brushing it across her face.
My brows knit as I stare at it. The photo was taken near a cliffside by the ocean. And as far as I know, Daniel doesn’t have any young relatives.
I slide the photo back into the pocket. As I tuck it in, I notice a small letter “R” stitched in white thread beside it.
This blazer isn’t his.
“Earth to Aurelia.” Dasha snaps her fingers in front of my face.
“Yeah.” I lift my head toward her.
“I asked if you are ready to go.”
“Yes.” I clear my throat. I take the small bag with the ring and necklace from the bed and slip it into the pocket of the blazer.
“Did the Grants take all of Daniel’s belongings?” I ask.
She raises a brow. “Except the blazer you are wearing.”
“And anything from my parents?”
She shakes her head.
I move slowly to the small table beside the bed, pick up the notebook Dasha gave me, slip the yellow envelope between its pages, and draw it close to my chest.
“I’m ready to go.”
Even though I wasn’t.
She looks at me and raises her brow, like she can sense something is off. She doesn’t ask, and she doesn’t push. She just lifts her arm, fist tucked close to her chest, and tilts it slightly toward me.
I slide my arm through hers.
I guess this is it. The part where I leave everything here and figure out where to go, and what to do next.
My fingers curl tighter around her arm as we move toward the door. The papers are already signed. Everything that was mine three months ago now fits in my pocket. Everything I am rests against my chest.
We walk slowly down the corridor. Nurses glance up as we pass, offering short smiles before looking down again. To them, I’m just one patient less. One less room to check. One less chart to read.
To me, this is stepping into something I can’t see.
The hospital is on the ground level. There’s no elevator, and no stairs, just a straight path forward with one long corridor that leads out.
Dasha pushes the entrance door open, and the air changes instantly.
We’re outside.
The sunlight hits me too fast. My eyes squeeze shut, and I lift my hand to shield my face with my palm pressing against my forehead. When I finally force my eyes open, everything looks too bright, too sharp.
Nothing has changed in three months. And yet everything feels different.
Across the road, there’s a small diner. The sign above, in bold letters, read Daisy’s Diner.
Dasha nudges me gently, and we cross the street together. Everything around us moves. Cars pass; voices blend into a low, distant noise, yet it all feels far away.
She opens the door, and we step inside.
Warmth hits me immediately. Almost suffocating.
The bell above the door rings again as we step in, cutting through the low hum of voices and the scrape of forks against plates. It must have rung a dozen times already, each time folding into the noise of the diner, welcoming one more body inside.
A waitress moves between tables in a yellow uniform, with a white apron tied at her waist. She refills coffee cups the second someone lifts them.
Most of the people here are nurses on their breaks.
There are a few older men that sit alone with their eyes following the movement around the room, like they’re waiting to be noticed.
The booths are almost full, except for one.
Dasha doesn’t hesitate, and pulls me along. My steps quicken to match hers. As we reach the booth I slide onto the orange leather seat. It’s colder than I expected. The chill seeps through my clothes.
A song plays from the jukebox in the corner. One of the waitresses hums along as she walks past. She looks about my age, and every head seems to turn when she moves, smiles following her like she’s the reason they came here in the first place.
“What can I get ya’?” she asks, chewing gum, pen already hovering over her notepad.
“Coffee,” Dasha says. “Black.”
I glance at the waitress, then at Dasha. My stomach twists, empty but not asking for anything. I reach for the menu on the metal table and hold it up, pretending to read.
“Honey,” the waitress says, shifting the gum in her mouth. “It’s upside down.”
She takes it from my hands, flips it, and places it back in front of me. Her fingers tap twice against the picture of pancakes. She hums, nodding to herself.
“Everyone’s favorite,” she says, then gestures toward the kitchen. “Earl makes the best pancakes in town.”
“We’ll get those,” Dasha says. “And tea.”
“What kind of tea?” the waitress asks.
“Just any.” Dasha shakes her head, her eyes moving towards me.