Page 124 of Catch the Sun

I close my eyes. My mind is a blank canvas, my urge to recall is the brushes and paint. Images drag across my memory as I lift my paintbrush and watch colors brim to life in careful strokes.

Orange.

Spatters of orange flicker across a night sky.

I’m staring up at shimmery streaks of light as loud booms echo through the darkness and mingle with far-off cheers.

“Fireworks,” I murmur, my eyes still closed. “I remember fireworks.”

“That’s good, Miss Ella,” Naomi responds, pulling a chair closer and sitting beside the bed. “You’ve been here for a while. Do you remember what happened before you got here?”

I pull from the deepest parts of my brain, but everything is a blurry cloud. Orange fireworks…and then darkness. “It all goes blank after that,” I whisper.

“That’s okay. Memories can take hours or days to return. Sometimes longer,” she explains. “Do you remember anything before the fireworks?”

My breath hitches.

A kiss.

I remember kissing a beautiful boy. My back against a door, my hands in his hair. Pale blue eyes look hungry and adoring as he pulls back and smiles at me like I’m his truest treasure.

“Kissing you feels like catching the sun.”

I exhale slowly. “A kiss,” I tell her. “I think I’m in my room. I hear…Christmas music.”

Naomi nods, assessing my vitals. “You were found at the bottom of a steep bluff. You took a hard fall,” she says. “Some tree branches slowed you down and lessened the impact, making you a very lucky girl. That type of fall could have been a lot worse.”

“How long have I been here?”

Her eyes soften with sympathy. “Four weeks.”

A stab of panic slices through my chest.

Four weeks.

Four. Weeks.

Naomi presses a hand to my shoulder and squeezes gently. “I’ll send the doctor in shortly. There’s a lot to go over. We’re going to prohibit visitors for a while as we monitor your condition. The first time you woke up, you were highly agitated, so we had to sedate you.”

Four weeks.

It’s all I can hear.

All I can process.

Tears burn my eyes as my body starts to tremble. “M-my mom…is she here?” I ask, voice quivering.

“She is. She’s in the waiting room with your boyfriend. They’ve been here every day.”

My boyfriend.

“Kissing you feels like catching the sun.”

The tears fall as I shake my head back and forth and lift both hands to my hair. Cords tangle as the beeps on my machine quicken with urgency. When I sweep my hair back, I notice that it’s not all there. Anxiety pokes me as I touch along the back of my head and hardly feel anything.

Half an inch of hair at most.

“My hair…” I croak, more panic taking over. “Where’s my hair?”

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