Missing Pieces

15

For a long moment, I could do nothing but stare.

'It's to help you remember, Aspen.'

Aisha watched me as she reached for my arm. My gaze dropped to the needle as she brought it closer.

I didn't fight her as she cleaned the area before she pricked the skin with the tip. I barely felt the pinching pain as she administered the injection, before she stepped away.

"I can't put a bandage on it because she'll see and ask," she told me quietly, but the words hardly registered over the dull roar in my head.

Aisha's voice remained soft as she spoke again.

"I will find you again to explain the rest of what I've discovered, okay? But just know for now that your memories will return to you during moments you won't expect. Most of the time, it will be while you're asleep. If it feels real, it probably was at some point."

I sucked in a sharp breath, my gaze jumping to hers as I finally processed what she'd just said.

If it feels real...

Then, I'd been right. Kieran had been right.

"The last time I was here," I said quietly, not recognizing my own voice. "It wasn't a flu shot, was it?"

Her throat bobbed. "No. It was to reverse the effects of the medications they gave you at the hospital," she revealed quietly.

The blood drained from my body.

"When I was unconscious?" I croaked. "I don't understand, what does that...what does that mean?"

For the first time ever since I'd arrived, there was pity in her eyes.

"They wanted to make you forget," she whispered. "I'm trying to help you remember."

I must have made a sound. Some noise of utter disbelief. Or maybe absolute devastation. Whatever it was—it made Aisha step forward. She reached for my shoulder.

"I'm sorry I couldn't tell you," she continued. "Not while he was here."

Ezra. She meant Ezra.

I didn't react as I continued to stare at her lifelessly.

I heard footsteps approaching. I heard Veronica's voice, but I did not let that stop me from asking the one thing that rose above all the others.

"Did I lose my memory because of the accident I was in?" I asked, vaguely registering that there were tears streaming down my face. I wiped them away.

Someone knocked on the door, but I still caught the answer she whispered to me before she reached behind me to open it.

Veronica entered the room. Aisha left, her hand brushing my shoulder as she passed. Veronica smiled as she asked how I was and what had brought me here.

Maybe I answered. Maybe I didn't.

All I knew was that the woman in front of me was completely unaware of how my very world had just shattered into a million pieces because of the nurse that had just left this room.

Not that I blamed her.

She'd only told me the truth that I'd been too afraid to tell myself.

***

I felt detached from my body as I treaded out of the clinic, my eyes lazily finding Jude's car. He must have seen me too because he drove up to meet me at the front.