In Memoriam ✓

Chapter Ten: I Don't Wanna Live Forever

Mallory

Reid didn't know me. He couldn't understand the past year of bliss we'd experienced. Memories flashed through my mind of autumn; comforting, warmer yet with Reid by my side. Winter, season of hidden beauty. Spring, a time for renewal and reinvigoration. And summer, which we were only just starting together.

This never existed to Reid. My hands shook in their place, my breath tremoring. I didn't bother moving, as Reid looked on with the same blank politeness on his face. It was just too much. I felt my body capsizing on itself, like a fragile aspen tree in a calm breeze. The plain cream walls of the hospital room looked oddly distorted.

Jada, Reid's mother, had the sense to usher me out of the hospital room, into the hallway outside. "How could this happen?" I asked her. My voice sounded scratchy and distant, even to my ears.

She winced. "The doctors said that Reid has retrograde amnesia. I'm sorry, honey."

I stared at the polished white floor in front of me. Jada shouldn't be sorry, or speak in that worried, careful tone. I should have been taking care of Reid's mother, not the other way around. But my throat tightened around any words of comfort that I could speak into existence.

I glanced up to see Jada's eyes fill with tears. I quickly looked down again at the specks on the floor. It felt like I was intruding on her private grief. I wasn't the only person impacted by Reid's amnesia, but he didn't remember me at all. 

I wasn't saying this to discredit anyone's distress over the situation; quite the opposite. I was his best friend and his girlfriend, but our relationship only spanned a year; our friendship, a few months longer. I didn't know Reid as a child. I wasn't his family, so was I allowed to feel the same way about this situation?"

"What was Reid's last memory?" I asked Jada to distract myself.

"It wasn't as recent as we could have hoped, but he remembered starting senior year at high school. Everything after that is clouded."

After speaking, Jada allowed herself a tiny, sorrowed smile. I could see that she was relieved. Terribly sad, but happy that she still had him. I realised that all this time, Jada was preparing for the worst. I still couldn't think about it without my stomach twisting in knots.

"You know, the memory loss is likely temporary. The doctor said so." Jada said. "I'm sure the past few years will come back to him very soon."

"And if it doesn't? If he never remembers me? What will I do then?"

And that was the shattering truth of it, the thing that finally broke my spirit. I didn't want our relationship to remain in stasis, but that was out of my control. Our fates were placed into the hands of a higher power, and my condemnation was as such.

My breathing became erratic, tumbling into shaky gasps for air. I pulled my hands through my hair and closed my eyes, aware that my heart rate was accelerating too quickly, hurting my chest with a ferocity I'd never felt before.

I felt Jada pushing me down onto a seat, telling me to calm down in a panicked voice. But I couldn't. Not with Reid gone. Not when he was taken from me like this.

Eventually, Jada took me to a waiting room so that we could talk to the doctor with Reid's dad. He was just as kind as Jada, but I was numb to it all. Once the doctor started talking, I clung to his words, hoping that he would offer something of help.

"Thankfully, no fuel leaked from the car, so there was no opportunity for burns or more serious consequences." the doctor said. He sounded just as cold as Nina had when she called me, but he was trained to feel neutral towards these kind of situations. He'd watched many people like us come in, scared for their loved ones.