Me, Myself, and I

the information trainee

"What the hell, White?"

Kyle had thrown the door open. My wrists still shook into my fingers and past the tips as I stuttered back, reached for the table, waited for the walls crush us.

"I...I didn't—"

Ben spoke this time, a feebleness overlapping the usual deadpan delivery. "Kyle, who is this?"

"You remember him?" I said.

Kyle rubbed his eyes, let the moment sit as his breaths drew out longer. "Ben, this is Julia. We showed you her picture a while back. Richard's daughter, yeah?" He turned to me. "Short term effects, most of the time. Nothing to worry your pretty little head about." He dropped his hands, put one on the window. "Born with that stupid thing. Wasn't supposed to come back." He eyed the bald area on Ben's head, his usual curls that could coat it obliterated into a soft stubble. "What a sucky spot for a tumor."

"That surgery...they took out a brain tumor," I said, hugging myself. I looked at Kyle, no more empty eyes. "What does he remember?"

"You can talk to him, you know?" He shook his head, stared at the buzzing lights above, hardly illuminating the picture. "Me, the unmentionables. I think everything up to about nine months ago?" He smiled. "Thought maybe it'd all clicked in his head when you—"

"Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't anyone—"

"Kyle!"

Great. Perfect.

The door nearly collapsed into the wall, a nurse, Ben's parents, Dad. Very red faces, very purple eye sockets. "You brought her in here?" The parents started yelling, Dad and I shrinking against the wall as Kyle joined in. "How could you do this?" I caught a moment of Ben's apathy and chose the chair instead. Their voices grew and grew, and my head pounded, I wiped at my eyes. Caught Ben's face again. Devoid eyes, blank as paper, meaningless as my textbook pages. My chest pounded, I didn't see color anymore, breaths shallower—

I stepped outside the door. The yelling stopped. Dad's shadow came first, followed by Ben's parents and Kyle, sobered up from the tantrums. We'd left Ben alone again. Door on the hinge again. Our whispery voices echoed down the hallway like squeaky wheels on a rusted hospital bed.

"He doesn't remember me," I said to no one in particular.

Dad shook his head.

I wiped my eyes. "Why didn't you tell me? It's not just... He doesn't remember any of us? Austin? The therapy kids?"

Shook his head again.

"But he remembers..." I stared at our audience. Kyle nodded. I thought of Ben behind that door, isolated into the pod of buzzing lights and tubes.

"We didn't want anyone to overreact," Dad said.

Ben's mom, dabbing at her acrylic eyeliner, added, "This has happened before. He was twelve. His memories did come back, and the tumor shrunk." She eyed Kyle. "There was no need to get anyone else involved. It...hurts too much. You're making a bad situation worse."

"Well, I disagree," Kyle said. "She's here now. We can speed up this process and listen to the doctors for once."

I found my footing again. "I don't understand. Why doesn't he remember us?"

Mr. Wood sighed. "We removed a tumor next to his frontal and temporal lobes. We knew the risks, but the seizures, they wouldn't stop. They always come back. This was the only decision that could be made. We're lucky he didn't lose more."

"So, what, you just planned to let him sit in this room until it all magically came back again?"

They exchanged glances.

"I could have helped. I could have done something besides sit there like an idiot. I thought...I thought he was dying! I thought that..."

"Doesn't matter what you thought," Kyle said. "Point is you can help us now, right?"

"You haven't told any of the therapy kids?" I said.

Dad shook his head. "I'd like to keep it that way. They've got enough to juggle, and we don't need to be piling on more if this really is temporary."

"Temporary," I said.

"Yes, he made a full recovery last time we shrunk it, because we actually let him be around the people he'd forgotten." Kyle avoided my dad's gaze, taking a few steps towards me as his voice grew. "I brought you here to help. No therapy kids, whatever. Who else did my brother talk to?"

"You don't know who his friends are?" I bit my tongue. No Austin. No Stuart. Willie, Kim. Who else...

I eyed the vending machine, different flavors of soda and candy, one absurd chocolate bar in a cotton candy shape. My phone felt heavy in my bag as my most recent call replayed in my head, right atop the hood of my car with California's sandy beaches in a blissful background. I slipped my phone out. She'd tried to call me back.

"Who?" Kyle said.

I watched their expressions change, a light shining in them, my phone vibrated.

I tapped the voice icon and spoke quietly, letting everyone's hopeful gazes stick. "Hey, sorry I missed you. Call me when you get this. I have a huge favor to ask." I paused, watched Kyle's eyes crease before I added, "It's about Ben."

The message sent. Five minutes later, Ben's ex-girlfriend, Valerie Blythe, called me back.