The Wylie Diaries : Where The Flowers Bloom

Chapter Fifteen : Take Me Back

Waking up in hospital was a shock for me. A shock that would only take a few hours to adjust to. How long would it take for me to adjust to losing my memories?. Tyler has spent the last month telling me stories of how we fell in love, how we moved across the country together and how we created this successful business through hard work and determination. I often sit there, smiling and nodding as if to show interest in what he is saying, finding it difficult to comprehend the information that he is piling into me. I know he only wants to help me remember but it's been a whole month now and if my memories were going to come back, they would have already.

Everyday he comes back into the hospital with a new photograph that shows our time together and each day I try desperately to remember everything that we had done together. This whole thing has made me realise one thing though. The biggest mistake I made is the one that most people make on a daily basis. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs after its existence escaped my mind. There is this one picture of us sitting near a lake under the sun, the reflection of the sun lighting up the river behind us. Tyler says this is where he proposed to me. I wish I could remember what I felt, what we talked about and how we slept that night, looking forward to the years ahead. I wish I had treasured the 'doing' a little more and the 'getting it done' a little less.

The doctor says that i'm free to go home. He says there is "nothing medically wrong with me", even though I can no longer remember anything about my life over the past decade. Even when he said I could go home, it bothered me that I could no longer remember where home was.

"You ready to go home, Wylie?."

"Yeah i'm ready" I respond.

"I've made our room, it's all nice and tidy for when we get home."

"Our room?" I reply, unsure if I wanted to spend the night in a room with a stranger. "I think I want my own room.. for a little while. Until I get I get back to being me."

I could see a look of sadness come over Tyler. I don't think he was used to sleeping in a bed without me.

"It doesn't mean anything Tyler.. I just want don't want to do anything until i'm ready, you know? I've been through too much."

"I understand Wylie, it's just going to be weird sleeping without you."

I knew that he didn't really understand, how could he when I didn't even understand what was going on myself?

"Have you packed everything Wylie?."

"Yeah. Bag is a bit heavy but I'll manage."

"Well the cars out front. I'll take you home."

It suddenly hit me that this would be the first time I have gone outside since I woke up. The first memory I will have of the outside world will be this car journey on the way back to our house.

The sun felt warm, like an embracing hug. It's rays beating against my pale skin, skin which had been neglected by the sun for far too long. The trees, green and full of leaves, seemed to line the edges of the road.

"How long till we get there Tyler?" I question.

"Not long, we are almost there."

We take a turn right, driving off the road and down a windy path which seems to lead into the middle of nowhere. It takes about five minutes of following the path to reach a clearing. A single house sits in the middle of the area, next to a lake which catches the sunlight perfectly.

"This lake looks familiar" I say.

"It's the lake from the photograph. Where I proposed" Tyler responded.

It was. The lake looked exactly like the one in the photograph. Everything Tyler seems to say is true and yet I find myself still weary of being around somebody that I can no longer remember anything about. How could I believe that we had spent all this time together? You hear about those horror stories where somebody wakes up from an accident with no memory and gets kidnapped by someone who says they know them, then their organs are sold on the black market for a small price. I don't want that to happen to me.

I almost laugh out loud, realising the stupidity of what I was thinking. Tyler seemed genuine and if he had wanted to harvest my organs I think he would have done it by now.

I get out the car, closing the door behind me. Tyler takes my bags from the back seats and carrys them into the house which lay near the lake. As I walk inside, the old antique floor boards creek as they attempt to accomodate my weight.

"These floorboards are creaky. I dread to think what would happen if someone a bit rounder stood on them" I laughed.

"Hah! Yeah they are pretty bad. They can be changed if you want, don't worry" Tyler responds.

The house was perfect. It was a house that I could see myself living in forever. If I could remember how I felt before the crash, I'm sure it would be just pure happiness.

It was difficult for me to try to imagine what my life would have been like if the crash had never happened. I feel sorry for Tyler, spending your whole life with someone, building dreams and a family, only for it to be forgotten in an instant. How does somebody recover from something like that? It isn't easy on him, that's for sure. Yet he stays with me each day, helping me anyway he can.

"Come around back, there's more awesome things to see" Tyler says, motioning to the wooden door at the back of the house.

I go out through the door and arrive into a meadow.

"Before the crash, we spent most of our time here" Tyler says.

"Really?."

"Yeah. We loved to sit here, forget our troubles and just talk about the world."

It was amazing here. A single tall tree in the middle of the meadow, surrounded by flowers which dotted the meadow with various colours.

"I could see the attraction to this place. I mean, I can see why we picked it"

We sat for about half an hour, Tyler continuing to tell me stories about the past and our great experiences together, me attempting to remember anything I could but finding it impossible.

"Tyler" I interrupt.

"Yes?."

"I can't remember any of this stuff. You keep telling me these amazing stories of our life together and it makes me sad because I can't remember any of it. I've lost my whole entire life, ten years disappeared without a trace."

"I'm sorry Wylie, I know it's hard for -"

"That's just it, you don't know how hard it is. How hard it is to try so hard to remember something that your head hurts. How hard it is to see people you knew ten years ago looking so old, no memory of them or myself growing up." I stop myself before I continue ranting, aware that none of this is Tyler's fault. "I'm just sick of the past. I can't remember it so there is no point speaking about it. Why don't we do something different?."

"What do you mean?."

"Let's start again. We can pretend like it's the first time we have ever met, we can fall in love again and make new memories. Ones we can keep and not just ones we put in a photograph."

"I like the sound of that."

"Think about it. Who has ever had the privilege to fall in love with their soul mate twice in a life time?. We could start again and be even stronger."

"Let's do it."

"Make me fall in love with you again, Tyler. I promise I'll give it my best shot."

"Alright, Mr Phenix."