Page 2 of That's Not My Name

What the actual fuck was that?

Did someone grab me?

They’re simple questions, but my mind supplies zero details. It just throbs. Like there’s a wall between me and understanding what’s happening. I clench my teeth and force another step. I need help. Maybe another car will pass or I can find a house. I have to keep moving.

I don’t know how long I stumble along, but it feels like hours. My mind zones out and snaps back so many times that I wonder if I’m losing consciousness.

Maybe I already have. Maybe this progress is all in my head, and I’m still in that ditch. Or worse, maybe Iamdead and this is hell. An endless purgatory of pain and solitude I’m doomed to wander until the end of time, looking for help that will never come.

Red and blue lights flicker on behind me, filling the road with color. Awhoop whoopfrom a police car almost startles me to the ground, but sheer relief keeps me standing. Someone’s going to help me. Tires crunch as they come to a stop and the lights create a me-shaped silhouette in the dirt. I start to turn—

“Donotmove. Hands where I can see them!” a man shouts.

My hands go up automatically and a moment later a door slams.

What is this? Did I do something wrong? Is that how I ended up here? Am I running from the cops?

Should I runnow?

“Turn around!”

I do, squinting into the bright headlights of the patrol car. An officer stands beside his vehicle, face in shadow, hand on the gun in his holster. I feel whatever blood’s still in my face drain away, because when I glance down at myself in the light, all I see is dirt and blood.

There’ssomuch blood.

“Jesus, you’re just a kid,” the officer says, taking his hand off his weapon. He creeps forward. “What happened to you? Did someone do this?”

I open my mouth to answer, but my knees give out and I drop. The cop tries to catch me, but we both hit the dirt hard.

He grabs at the radio receiver on his shoulder, but I can’t hear what he says over the roaring in my ears and the caged animal thrashing around in my chest. I stare at my hands, my jean leggings, the front of my light gray T-shirt—covered in blotches of dried mud and dark rivers of blood.

Hands grip my shoulders. I look up at the officer. His words defog in my mind.

“Can you hear me? Paramedics are on their way, but I need to know who you are,” he pleads. “What’s your name?”

My name?

I blink at him and reach for the answer, but no matter how hard I try, I hit that wall in my mind every time. What’s my name? How is thata hard question? I try to breathe but it’s too much. I start hyperventilating. Fresh tears pool in my eyes.

What’s your name?

I grab my throbbing head. “I don’t know!”

TWO

GIRL

DAY 1

The gray walls of the police station look as lifeless as I feel.

The patrolman who found me, Officer Bowman, sits across the table from me. We’re in a conference room—or maybe it’s an interrogation room. There’s only one window, but it faces the interior of the station and it’s blacked out. He left the door open though, so I must not be someone they want to keep locked in. That’s good at least.

He hasn’t stopped worrying at his lip since I refused medical treatment.

I may not know who I am, but I sure as hell know that nobody can make me go to the hospital if I don’t want to. Bright lights and loud sounds, more faces I don’t recognize, no way of telling who is a threat and who isn’t… No thank you.

A few hours ago, the paramedics cleaned the blood from my skin, which apparently all came from my nose. It’s bruised, not broken, but hurts like a bitch all the same. And I have a lump on the side of my head. I’ve been told to look for concussion symptoms for the next fewdays. They declared the rest of my injuries superficial and bandaged what they could.

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