Kinsley fell in love with Phoenix Maverick, an NHL player for a team she never imagined supporting. But when Kinsley suffers from a head injury and forgets the last six years of her life, she struggles balancing being the person Phoenix fell in love...
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Late September 2016
Street lamps cast a glow into my dark bedroom, shadows of rain drops covered the wall, sliding down the window outside. I was grateful for the rain on nights I couldn't sleep, which was most.
Eerie silence at night isn't the sort of background I'd prefer to ponder to.
I pondered how strange it was to be at the age of twenty eight and have a past of expansive nothingness. No memories of the past six years. I was forever reminding myself that I was no longer in college, no longer working towards a degree in marketing and communications.
My fists bunched and pressed down on my lids, anger and resentment coursing through me again.
Sadie told me I'm qualified, I graduated. I'm good at my job. I haven't been back to work but the neurologist told me facts are what I was missing. Not skills. Whenever I'm ready, I can go back to the office, not just a cubicle, an actual office with my name on the door.
I might've known how to do my job, but I didn't remember the people I worked with or the clients I'd signed. It made the thought of returning, daunting.
Sadie told me there was a man in my life too. A new one. He'd been there the night of the injury. But in terms of what happened, the details are vague. A casualty of carelessness, a simple accident that no one could've predicted would lead to such dire consequences.
Rolling over to face the window, I watched the rain pelting the glass, the tree outside of Sadie's townhouse was blown back and forth, the pillow under my head cushioned the now healed bump. Just a bump. One that hurt, sure, but didn't seem like the sort of injury that could wipe me clean.
My mind, who I am, gone. I'd been reset, as Sadie liked to call it.
A scan revealed a severe lack of blood going to the right frontal lobe of my brain, giving me a moderate case of retrograde amnesia. Some people come back from it, some people don't. There's no known cure, so for now, I'm re learning who I am in the hopes that it'll return to me soon.
Someone asked me how I am today, at a coffee store when Sadie ordered for me. An iced long black, pump of caramel and oat milk. She said it's my favorite.
I hated it.
Anyway, the barista smiled at me, that customer service smile. The one where she's good at acting interested but my answer is irrelevant.
"Well, I haven't showered in two days. I can't eat. Sadie tells me I'm a vegan but as far as I remember, I love cheeseburgers. My hair is a mess, my mind is both keeping me locked out and locked in. I can't stop sifting, hoping to find a memory but it's all behind a closed door and not having the fucking key is sending me into a spiral."
I couldn't say any of that out loud though. You can't be that honest with people.
I am— was a barista in college. The staff never fail to have a good laugh at the over sharers after they walk out, naively relieved at venting to someone who 'wanted' to listen.
