Page 63 of A Me and You Thing
“She had amnesia.”
“Where has she been all this time?”
“I don’t know that yet.”
“Are you okay?” Bree asks. I know this is a shock to Sawyer, but the question strikes me as strange.
“Yeah. I will be.”
They speak as though I’m not in the room or as if I can’t hear or understand them. I want to scream out that I’m right here, that I’m fine, that I just need rest. I know they won’t listen to me and I don’t have the strength to argue.
Sawyer looks down on me. I can see the love radiating in his eyes. I also see shock, yes. But I see happiness as well. Brimming. Off the scale.
That’s all I need to know.
The sirens sound out in the night air, getting closer. I don’t want to face anyone. I just want Sawyer and my home and my bed and my babies. I don’t want the world intruding, sensationalizing my story.
“No media. Please, no media,” I whisper.
It occurs to me that he has no idea what I’ve been through. He’s probably thinking the worst. It was terrible, but it could have been a thousand times worse. I hate that it happened, but I will recover and be fine. I’m thankful that it’s recoverable. Many things in life are not.
Sawyer nods and pulls me close, cradling me to his chest.
And that’s how the paramedics find us.
Chapter Twenty
Quinn
“EVERYTHING APPEARS NORMAL and I have no reason to doubt she’ll make a full recovery,” the doctor says as he peruses my MRI results while standing at my bedside. “Her head injury was quite severe—severe enough to cause retrograde amnesia for two years.”
“What does that mean?” Sawyer asks, holding my hand.
I’ve been through a battery of tests during my three-day stay in the hospital. In between those tests I’ve slept, hardly able to keep my eyes open due to whatever drugs they’ve been giving me to keep me calm. As long as I knew Sawyer was at my side, I could rest peacefully. He hasn’t left me alone, not once. Every time I awakened, I would find my hand in his and his intense eyes on mine as he stared at me with a furrowed brow. Sometimes, I awakened to his hand gently caressing my cheek. I would fall back to sleep, feeling loved and cherished. Late at night, I would find him lightly dozing in the chair next to mine, our hands still tightly clasped. The minute I stirred, he would awaken and ask if I was okay. I can’t begin to put into words how much his presence has soothed me. He hasn’t let go of me or left me, and I have loved it. I think we both needed this time to regain our balance before resuming our lives.
Now, the calming drugs are wearing off and they’re done pumping me full of antibiotics. I’m so ready to go home. I admit, the enforced rest has been just what I needed. I’m feeling better and better every day. Thinking more clearly. Remembering more details. Regaining my strength. When I showed up on Sawyer’s doorstep, I thought I was fine.
I’m quickly realizing I wasn’t. Not then, not now.
But I will be. That’s all that matters.
The doctor’s words interrupt my thoughts. “The technical definition of amnesia is simply that a person has lost a memory they once had. They might have lost one memory or many. Some feel as though someone has erased their past. Retrograde amnesia means you have lost your memories prior to your accident. Some people can’t remember the minute before the accident, some can’t recall the last four hours before the accident, and others can’t recall the last year of their lives before the accident. It’s different for everyone. As people recover, their memories tend to return. Typically, memories return in bits and pieces, but there’s no hard and fast rule for how it all works. A smaller degree of amnesia usually signifies a less traumatic head injury. The length of her memory loss, combined with the loss of knowledge of who she was tells me her head injury was severe. However, she was also in a foreign country surrounded by unfamiliar stimuli. There was nothing around her to trigger memories, not even the language. Had she been in her home, surrounded by loved ones, it’s more than likely that her memories would’ve returned at a faster rate.”
That makes sense to me. I remember feeling so lost and confused all the time. Am I thinking clearly now? I think so. I feel like me again.
“Can I take her home?”
“Yes, I’ll release her. She was dehydrated, malnutritioned, and suffering from exhaustion. The best thing for her is a healthy diet along with plenty of rest. I would like to see her once a week for the next while, just to follow up. If she has any headaches, blurry vision, dizziness, fainting spells, numbness in her extremities, or short-term memory issues, I want to know about it. Also, you might want to consider a plastic surgeon for the scar on her forehead in the near future. It’s cosmetic and completely up to her, but it can be smoothed over. Most importantly, I’d like her to see a psychologist right away. She needs to talk about what she’s been through. There may be emotional ramifications. Please be prepared for that.”
Once again, people are talking about me as if I’m not in the room. I lost my memories, not my brain. “I’m fine,” I protest, my voice scratchy. I guess I need to expect to be treated with kid gloves for a while. But, a psychologist?
Sawyer glances at me, then back to the doctor. “I’ll see to it that she makes her appointments.”
The doctor moves to leave, then pauses. “When she’s ready to talk about her experience, you should contact the proper authorities.”
“I plan to. I’m not sure there’s much to be done though. She was in Nicaragua.”
“You may be right. Let me know how it goes. See you next week.”
