State of Confusion

Chapter 1

         
IMPORTANT: Please read, Sleep State prior to reading this story. It will make a whole lot more sense if you do ; )

- Ana -

A moment lasts all of a second, but the memory lives on forever.

Ana. Her name never sounded so foreign as the ghostly whisper passed from his lips. Had she misunderstood him? Or had she created the brief illusion on behalf of her damaged thoughts? For the possibility of this man, who was no more than a stranger in passing, could not possibly utter or know her name, but he had, and now that moment had become a memory. One that had tattooed itself to the walls of her brain.

"She's still having a bitch fit," Kate commented.

With a bundle of hair on top of her head, no makeup, and dressed like a walking catalog for Victoria Secret's lingerie, somehow Kate still appeared stunning. How did she do it? She observed her best friend as she stood next to the cracked door of her hospital room with her arms crossed against her chest. Carefully, she listened to the commotion next door. The commotion she had caused.

Unable to keep track of how much time had passed since "the incident" happened, Ana sighed and rubbed her hands together. While she tried to stay in tune with the present, her mind fluttered to the past. A fleeting memory she could not shake from her thoughts. It had all happened so fast. One moment her name was be spoken from the befuddled man before her and the next she was being shipped off back to her room as chaos ensued.

Had it been her doing? Had Christian awakened thanks to her solemn words? Her heart raced at the thought like a grand stampede of wild horses who trotted furiously toward the finish line. No, it was not possible. It was a coincidence, an untimely coincidence that she had been witness to, but it still did not settle with her well.

The muffled sound of voices simmered next door. Ana dragged her hands down her face and looked up at her friend as her gaze scanned the scuffed tile floor as she continued to listen. 

Kate had been the first person she called after it had all unraveled. She had been the only person she knew to turn to in a moment like this. Her parents were out of the question. They would have only made matters worse. While Kate catered to her condition and amused her on most occasions, her time of silence was about to come to end. As Kate shook her head and signed, she closed the door quietly behind her as she walked over toward her hospital bed. 

Taking a seat, Kate pulled her legs up and sat Indian style as she tried to decipher everything she had just learned in a matter of fifteen minutes.

"He said your name," she stated in utter disbelief.

Apparently, the bombshell Christian had dropped in the form of a breathless whisper had not only rocked her world but others, too. While the nurses and doctors only focused on the matter of his conscious state, she, Kate and the vile woman who was his fiancee directed their concern elsewhere. She had not been the one to tell Elena what he had said upon his return to this world, but she was sure someone else had. The shrill sound of a woman's scorn could be heard all down their wing of the hospital only a few moments ago. That was just after Kate had arrived and she quickly got her up to speed with the events of the day that seemed to be never-ending in shock value.

"Walk me through it again," Kate ordered.

Ana rolled her neck to release some tension and shifted in her wheelchair.

"Where do you want me to begin?" She asked.

This madness had many beginnings. What she shared before with Kate had been the cliff notes version, but she knew now she needed to explain everything to her in essay format.