Chapter 3
Okay. So here’s what we know: I was in a car accident.?
Don’t remember it. Didn’t see it coming.
But I believe Carol—my nurse. Because, honestly, if she says it happened, it fucking happened.
She doesn’t seem like the type to exaggerate.
Blonde hair twisted up in a messy knot, eyes sharp enough to cut glass, and a mouth that could flay you or make you laugh depending on her caffeine intake.
Zero bedside bullshit. Just speed, sarcasm, and a surprising amount of muscle for someone who looks like she moonlights in yoga ads.
She told me—between jabbing needles into my veins and muttering something about “goddamn idiots and tequila Tuesdays”—that some drunk moron thought it was a good idea to test Newton’s laws on my car. Full speed. Four-car pile-up. I was apparently the unlucky meat in the metal sandwich.
Good news? I’m alive. No ventilator, no machines beeping to keep me breathing.
Just some stitches in my scalp, a left arm locked up in a cast, and a migraine trying to pound its way out through my skull.
Carol says I’m lucky. I’ve seen her definition of “lucky”—it involves not bleeding out on the floor, so I guess I’ll take it.
Bad news? My brain’s fucked. Not in the stroke-victim kind of way. Just… blank.
No name. No age. No memory of where I live or if anyone’s looking for me. No wallet. No phone. Nothing but a hospital bracelet and a gown that leaves my ass hanging out.
Apparently, when the fire department pulled me out of the car, I was unconscious.
They cut my clothes off, bagged what they could, but there wasn’t a single thing with a name on it.
No driver’s license. No receipts. No credit card.
Not even a fucking keychain with a football team on it.
Just me, broken bones, a concussion, and silence.
Carol keeps checking on me. Every few hours, she comes by, pokes and prods, makes me say the date (wrong), makes me squeeze her fingers (firmly), and tosses me a look like I’m either about to die or about to start crying, and she doesn’t have time for either.
She calls me “Crash.” It started as a joke, but it’s stuck.
And honestly?
Right now, that’s the only identity I’ve got.
I’m halfway into an Olympic-level wrestling match with my own damn arm—this stupid cast weighs a ton, and every movement feels like trying to fold a cinderblock.
The sling’s twisted, the pillow’s shifted, and I’m one bad elbow-slip away from flinging the entire thing off the bed when the door bangs open.
Carol backs in, hips first, tray balanced like a pro, her scrubs wrinkled, hair a mess, and somehow she still looks like she owns the damn place.
“Dinner time,” she announces, in that dry-as-concrete voice that makes it sound like she’s delivering a death sentence. “Hope you like hospital mash and peas. Gourmet shit.”
I groan dramatically. “Please tell me there’s at least salt involved.”
“Dream on, Crash,” she says, swinging the tray onto the little wheeled table like she’s flipping a card onto the table in a poker game. “Salt is a luxury reserved for patients without head trauma and the hospital’s lawyers’ nightmares.”
She eyes my struggle for a beat, then steps closer, sighing. “Jesus, you look like you’re trying to arm-wrestle your sheets and losing.”
“Because I am,” I mutter. “This cast is made of lead. Who decided to immobilize me and then put the mashed potatoes just out of reach? Torture?”
“Rehab,” she deadpans. “Eat your way back to health. Or don’t. I’ll just write you up as ‘non-compliant’ and enjoy watching the dietitian throw a tantrum tomorrow.”
She adjusts the tray stand with one hand, nudging it closer to me until the plastic-wrapped meal is directly under my nose. I get a whiff—something vaguely buttery and entirely synthetic.
“Smells like glue,” I say.
“Which is an upgrade,” she fires back. “Last week’s meatloaf could’ve been used to patch drywall.”
I stare at her for a second. “You always this charming, or is it just me?”
She grins. “Oh, Crash, I’m always this charming. You’re just the only one awake enough to suffer through it.” Then she jabs a spoon into the lump of mash and offers it to me like she’s feeding a toddler. “Say ahh.”
“Fuck off,” I say, but I’m already opening my mouth.
She smirks. “That’s the spirit.”
After two bites—maybe three, but who’s counting—I’m seriously contemplating just gnawing on the plastic fork instead.
The mash is dry, like they squeezed all the moisture out and then punished it for existing.
The peas taste like they’ve been rehydrated from some Cold War bunker supply.
I swallow anyway, because Carol’s watching me like a hawk who might stab me with the spoon if I complain too loud.
I pause, clear my throat, and ask the question that’s been burning a hole in my brain since I woke up in this fluorescent-lit purgatory.
“Did someone ask for me?”
She doesn’t flinch. Just keeps rearranging the tray like the answer isn’t going to sucker-punch me.
She shakes her head once. “No. But we put out that a tall, dark-haired concussed man is on the lookout for a name and family. Very dramatic,” she adds with a faint smirk. “Social worker helped file it statewide. You’re a walking John Doe now. VIP status.”
I nod, slow. My fingers twitch against the blanket.
That should sting more than it does, but it’s just numb.
I guess I didn’t really expect some tearful reunion through the doors.
No one storming in, screaming my name, sobbing into my bruised chest.
Still… it leaves a weird hollow space in my gut. Or maybe that’s just the peas.
“Someone will turn up,” she says casually. Not softly, not sweetly, but with that sharp-edged confidence she wears like armor. Like she’s already decided it’ll happen and the universe will just fall in line.
“Yeah?” I ask, half-challenging.
She shrugs. “Sure. You’ve got the face of someone who ruins brunches and breaks hearts. Someone’s probably already filing a missing persons report with way too many adjectives.”
That gets a dry laugh out of me. “What adjectives would you use?”
Carol raises an eyebrow. “Tall. Dumb. Mildly charming when sedated.”
I grin. “You like me.”
“I like quiet patients,” she corrects. “You just haven’t found your pain meds yet.”
She turns to leave, already halfway to the door when she tosses back over her shoulder, “Finish your peas, Crash. We’re not done hoping yet.”
I watch her walk out, the door swinging shut behind her with a soft click. The silence that follows feels heavier than it should. Like it’s pressing in around me, crowding the edges of the bed, crawling up the walls. The kind of quiet that makes your thoughts get too loud.
I look down at the tray. The peas sit there like little green lies. I stab one halfheartedly and pop it into my mouth just so I can say I tried.
Someone will turn up.
Carol said it like it was a fact. Like gravity. Like the sky being blue and hospital coffee tasting like burnt tar. But what if no one does? What if I’m nobody? What if there’s no one out there looking because I don’t belong to anyone?
I shift, adjusting the damn cast again. My body aches. My head’s a foggy mess of static and flashes—none of it useful. Just impressions. Feelings. Not even full memories. The smell of gasoline. Wind. Cold metal. Panic. Then black.
The name “Crash” isn’t mine, but it’s all I’ve got. That, and the way Carol says it with that teasing lilt in her voice. Like she’s already decided I’ll keep answering to it. Like she’s got me figured out.
But she doesn’t. No one does. Not even me.
I glance at the clock. Only fifteen minutes have passed since she left. Feels like an hour. I wish she’d come back. Not even for the company, not really. Just for the anchor. She’s the only thing that feels real right now.
My thumb brushes against the inside of my cast, fingers itchy with restlessness. Maybe my name is written somewhere deep in my bones and I just need to shake hard enough to remember.
I lean back against the pillow, staring at the ceiling, trying to imagine someone looking for me.
A woman? A brother? A roommate? Do I have a dog? A cat? Am I married? Divorced? A fugitive?
Or maybe I’m just gone—like someone erased me, clean and perfect, and dumped me right in Carol’s sarcastic lap like a cosmic joke.
The thought makes me smile a little.
Someone will turn up.
She better be right.