Page 85 of Amnesia

I was numb.

The memory assaulted me again, just flashes this time, not a full-on takeover. Realizing what just happened horrified me.

I bit down on my lip so hard the metallic taste of blood spread across my tongue.

“I’m coming in!” Maggie yelled.

“No!” I said, dismayed at the thought of her seeing me in this condition. “I’ll be right out. I’m coming out!”

“I’m waiting right here!” she announced, and her insistence brought me back a little more into the moment.

My present and past were warring. It felt like the good and the bad battling it out. Dear God, the past was beyond bad. Just that little glimpse was so very horrifying.

My fingers felt like ice and creaked when I sat up and flexed them. My toes looked blue. I must have been lying there a long time.

I shut off the shower, bringing quiet to the room. The only sound was the slow dripping of water into the drain on the floor. My legs were wobbly, my teeth still chattering. Holding on tight to the shower door, I stepped out and snatched up the fluffy towel waiting for me. Warmth seeped into my limbs, making them tingle with pinpricks of discomfort.

The mirror over the sink was fogged. Using my hand, I wiped away a streak and glanced at myself. I drew back, barely recognizing the woman who stared back.

Tears filled my eyes, and I turned away. If those were the kind of memories waiting for me, if that was what my life was like before I became Amnesia… then I was right.

I was better off not knowing. I didn’t want to remember.

A low knock came on the door. “Amnesia, please.”

The door cracked open, and I peered out.

Maggie gasped. “Honey! What happened?”

Water droplets fell from the ends of my saturated hair and trailed over my shoulders, between my shoulder blades, and down my back.

“I remembered something,” I said, hollow, wishing to God I could forget again.

Her face mirrored the terror I felt. “What did you remember?”

“A name,” I told her. My chin wobbled. “My name.”

The water was choppy tonight. The waves slapped around, bullying one other and violently crashing against the pebbled shore. The wind matched the water’s fierceness, ripping at my hair and clothes, as if warning me to go inside.

I couldn’t go inside. Not now, maybe not at all tonight. I felt a bone-deep loss.

Though this loss was similar, it was eerily distinctive, but the difference wasn’t one I could put my finger on.

I wished things were different. I wished the past didn’t shape our futures. I wished I’d swallowed all my fears and just told Amnesia everything. I made my choice, though. I chose her, even though from the outside looking in, it appeared I’d chosen myself.

I chose to protect her, which cost me everything.

At least the regret I would live with now would be regret of my own making.

The wind blew again, cutting into me fiercely. Autumn had definitely taken hold here. Summer was just a distant memory now.

The grass was long. I needed to mow it, but I didn’t see the point. Long blades whipped around, battering against my legs and shoes, as if berating me for being such a crappy landscaper.

Staring out across the churning water, my gaze homed in on Rumor Island. It seemed farther away right now in the fading light of day. It didn’t matter the hour; it always seemed slightly ominous, the house up high as if it rose up out of the water and perched there on its throne.

Memories from long ago swirled in my brain, the wind whistling in my ears.

“Eddie!” I thought I heard my name, carried near by the wind. I ignored it, sure it was just more memories haunting me.

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