Where My Love Went - A Novella

Chapter Ten : Nostalgia

Josephine

"... amnesia... suffered..."

The doctor tries to explain everything to me, but I'm zoned out.

I have deja vu right now, but not the good kind. I feel like I'm in a dark place, somewhere I don't ever remember being.

"Josephine?" There's that voice. The one that feels like home, but belongs to a man I thought was created in my mind up until three days ago.

"Yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

"Am I okay?" I ask and he nods. "I'm handcuffed to a hospital bed, of course, I'm not okay."

He sighs and looks back at the doctor. "Are there ways to retrieve her memory?"

"Every case is different. When she's cleared you can try taking her to places she used to go before..." She clears her throat. "And see if that sparks anything. We recommend her being active, that goes for her body but even more so for her mind. Now that she's off the meds that foggy feeling she's probably used to having will go away and it'll be easier to clear things up in her head. I recommend therapy, and lots of it too."

"I'm right here, you can say this all to me."

"You've been... in and out of it. I need to tell someone more reliable." She hands me a clipboard. "If you could just sign this paper, you're free to go, and I'll see you in two weeks."

"I thought I was stuck in here another week."

"Mr.Anderberg has made arrangements for you to be moved somewhere more comfortable."

I look over at Will. "Where?"

"My place." He smiles while signing part of my discharge papers.

"A nurse will be in shortly to get you ready to leave. Sit tight until then."

***

"You live here?"

"Yup."

"By yourself?"

"Uh-huh."

"How?"

"I'm rich."

I give Will a deadpan look. "No shit, Sherlock."

He smiles. "There you are."

I furrow my brows. "What do you mean?"

He wets his lips. "Every once in a while you'll say something that you used to say all the time, or you'll make a face or something." I shake my head. He nods. "Let me show you something." Will reaches his hand out and it hangs in the air while I hesitate. After a minute, I slide my palm against his, intertwining our fingers, and everything stills.

It feels like I'm being enveloped in a hug. A familiar, cozy hug. A hug I've felt many times before.

"Are you okay?" Will asks.

I shake away the feeling. "Um, yeah. What did you want to show me?"

"It's this way." He nods toward the hallway. I'm led into a large bedroom.

I stop in my tracks when I see the pile of clothes next to the hamper. "Woah, hold on. Is this your room?"

He nods and pulls me to the bed. "Just, trust me."

"It's hard to trust a man you don't know."

His head tilts. "Maybe you don't know this man." He says as he walks into a closet. A few seconds later he returns. "But you know the boy he used to be."

I take a deep breath as he sits on the mattress beside me. The smell in the room is as comforting as his hand in mine. Will opens a box to reveal knickknack-like things inside. "What is this?"

"This is your stuff." He pulls out a keychain with keys on it. "You drove an old Honda. I gave you this keychain when you got the car." He points to the rubber duck hanging by a small chain. "Because we used to go feed-"

"The ducks at the pond in the park," I say, taking the keychain from his hand. "You fell in after getting chased by a goose once." I smile softly, running my thumb over the tiny duck.

"You remember that?"

I look up. "What? Um, no. I had a dream." I shake my head. "No dreams. Memories, right?"

Will nods. "Memories." He reaches into the box. "Let's see if you remember this." His hand emerges with a license plate in it.

"What's that from?"

"My first car in the US. You totaled it the week after I'd bought it. I saved up all my money just to buy that damn thing and the first time I let you get behind the wheel you hit a rear-end somebody on the highway." He laughs. "God, I was so mad at you at first, then you came up to my room, and you... you told me..." He trails off.

"What? What did I tell you?" I sit up straight. He looks away from me. "What did I say, Will?"

"Nothing important." He says, reaching back into the box.

I place my hand on his arm. "I'm never gonna be able to remember if you don't give me details."

Will sighs and looks up at me. "You told me you loved me for the first time."

I feel my cheeks turn bright red. "You didn't mean to. You were crying and you felt so bad and you said you'd buy me a new car with your college savings. I told you no, and you said "When you love someone you'll do whatever you can to make them happy"." He smiles down at the box. "I gave you my sweatshirt that night and you swore you'd never wash it until it stopped smelling like me."

"It was green, wasn't it?"

"Yeah."

"A hockey sweatshirt. With your name on the back. And your number." I stand up. "Your number. What was your number?"

"Twenty-three."

"Yes! Twenty-three!" I look around his room and notice the framed jerseys on the wall above his bed. "It's not twenty-three anymore?"

Will leans back on his palms and shakes his head. "Just that year."

Six jerseys are hanging on the wall, and only one of them has 23 on the back. The others all have 16.

"Why sixteen for so many years?"

"I refused to wear any other number." He states, glancing back at the jerseys.

"How come?"

Will stands up and looks me in the eyes and I feel that embrace once again. "Because we were sixteen when I fell in love with you."