Henry Mills/Jared Gilmore Imagines

Amnesia

~Jared Gilmore~

The reader loses her memory and her boyfriend tries to salvage it.

Warnings: reader withdrawal, hospitals, alcohol, drunk driving, amnesia, emotions

Personal Rating: 10/10

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"No! Y/N!"
Those are the last words you remember hearing. They ring in the darkness, a voice without an owner. The story behind the voice is blurry, almost gone, fading with each passing moment. When the was voice finally silenced, there was only darkness. Black covered every inch of your vision. Your vision. Who does the vision belong to? You? Who are you? For a split second images pass across the screen, and you assume you're remembering something. You remember a tall female standing up, leading you through a crowd, and on my other side, a tall male. Mom and dad.
You're unaware of how those names found their way to your brain, but for some reason the name sticks with them. Mom and dad.
You remember them leading you into a building, you remember having this feeling inside. A feeling of fear. Fearing the unexpected, fear of being laughed at, fear of being left out.
Mom turned to you and said, "you're going to have a great year in third grade"
Third grade? What does that mean?
Suddenly, a new image- a new memory flashes in front of you years later. You're in a room and there's yelling outside your doors. Your cheeks are wet and there's a strange feeling in the room: a sort of feeling where you don't feel like anything is worth living for. The feeling finds a name. Sadness.
Sadness.
You don't like the feeling at all. Suddenly you hear silence after a loud door slam. Silence. What happened.
Mom and dad. The words find a way to your head. Mom and dad and sadness.
That's the last thing you remember before light guides you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At the end of the light tunnel, you're still in darkness. But you have control of something. You can control something. You move something.
And somehow noise breaks out, voices filling your ears. They're quiet words, whispers, but they disrupt you. You move the same movements again, and suddenly, light intrudes your vision, and you stop working that muscle, and darkness engulfed you again. Something cold touches near the area where you saw light. Hand. Eyes. Face.
The words make them self present in your brain. There's a hand cupping your face, and the muscle you just moved is your eyes.
Eyes open.
You need to open your eyes.
You move the muscle, and when you do, a male stands in front of you, a smile on his face.
He says something you remember hearing in the darkness.
"Y/N"
Y/N? Is that who I am?
You want to call out to him, tell him that you understand, but you don't know how to communicate. You don't know who this man is. You don't what his intentions are. His eyes water, smiling.
Mouth.
The word comes to you suddenly. You can communicate with your mouth. You open your lips, and try to speak the language you're thinking in your brain.
"What"
Is all that comes out. It feels like an accomplishment since your lips feel so weak.
"What did you say, love?"
Love? You barely know this guy and he's confessing his love for you?
You move your lips again.
"What is happening?"
"Well, you just woke up"
"Who"
"Huh?"
"Who" you repeat, "Who woke up"
"You. Y/N did"
"who are you?" You ask.
His smile immediately transforms to a frown, and his chest heaves.
"What do mean?"
"Who are" you stop to take a break, "Who are you?"
"Me? You don remember me? Jared?"
"Who?" You ask.
"Jared! It's me! We've known each other since 8th grade and we started dating last year?"
"Dating....like....courting?"
He smiles again, "Yeah like, courting. You loved that word"
"I did?"
"Yeah. Y/N stop playing tricks"
"I....." you loose the words you were going to say, "I don't know what's going on"
Suddenly, someone else walks in. I notice their figure and remember.
Mom and dad and sadness.
"Mom?" You croak.
"Yes!" She says, then turns to Jared, "She didn't get memory loss like the doctor said"
Jared hangs his head low, his hand dragging away from my cheek.
"She remembers you. But not me" Jared sighs, slumping in the chair.
Mom goes over to him, and rubs his back, "I'm so sorry"
His head on in his hands. I hear sniffing and when he removes his hands, his face is wet.
Sadness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two weeks later, I am dismissed from the hospital. I seem to have forgotten the last two years according to my doctor.
The sad boy had come to me everyday with something new about our "past" but I don't remember. He brought me meaningless necklaces and bracelets. He brought me my favorite kind of flower and a paper swan I gave him.
"Remember how we met?"
You stare at him blankly.
"We met during Christmas time. In 9th grade, when our parents had a rotary party at your house. Fifty people came"
You listen. You don't remember any of it. It feels like he's telling someone else's story.
"We were the only kids there who were teenagers. They made us sit with the little kids, remember?"
You shake your head.
"So you took me to your room, secretly. You told me things I never knew, and your room was so unique, with newspaper hung around the room, along with some artwork and photography. I'll never forget what you said to me"
"What did I say?"
"Well, I asked you about love. If you've ever been in it. You said, 'Girls are like apple trees. The ones that are easiest to pick are normally at the bottom, rotten. The ones at the top are the hardest to reach but they're the sweetest. I consider myself the sweetest, so I know it's going to be a while till I get picked. So, honestly, I don't care when I'm in love'"
He smiles, and takes my hand.
Suddenly, an image passes. Of his lips on mine. I withdrawal my hand immediately. There's no story behind it, nothing to clue me into what might have happened. It was just half a second of a kiss.
I should tell the sad boy.
But I don't.
~
"See, your room is a work of art!" Jared tells me. He doesn't touch me. Good. Because if he did I would probably slap him.
I trace the newspapers. Most of them are a listing of award winning books. But it doesn't recall any memory whatsoever.
"I'm sorry"
He sighs, "It's okay. I'll come back tomorrow"
He places his hand on your shoulder ever so slightly- but another image is flashed in front of your eyes, so you withdrawal violently.
You and Jared were both in a room. You were leaning against each other, and there were smiles on your faces. Your eyes were focused on the screen. But Jared eyes were on you. There's a sort of feeling in the room that just makes you want to dance and laugh.
Happiness.
The word finds its way to your brain.
"What Y/N?"
His voice is full of hope, and happiness. You want to blurt out what just happened.
But you don't.
~
A week later, you've been sitting in your room, staring at photos. There are photos of friends, family, and the sad boy.
But in the photos, he's not sad. He's happy. That word again. Holding the picture above you, you place it down on the nightstand next to you.
Your mom, the only person you're living with, knocks on your door.
"Honey, Jared is here again" she says, drumming her fingers on the door, "Can he come?"
You've been rejecting him every day form coming, because when he's around you remember. And while there's happiness, there's also fear. It was a feeling at the bottom of your stomach that made you want to curl into a ball and lay on your bed under the covers, away from all the troubles and fearsome things in this world.
You sit cross-legged on your bed, "Let him in"
She surprisingly smiles.
Jared enters with out a smile- the sad boy.
"Hey Y/N" he says sadly.
You pat the bed across from you. He raises his eyebrows. This quite a leap from not even speaking to sitting on your bed.
He sits across from you, joining as if you were a mystical animal, his movements gentle, hardly moving the bed.
"Tell me how I lost my memory"
He arches an eyebrow.
"No one will tell me what happened to me"
He bites his lip, and shifts, "It's kind of cliché. A car crash"
"Why is it so hard for anyone to tell me that?"
"Because...I told them not to"
"Why?"
"I'm the reason you were in that car crash, Y/N"
Your facial expression doesn't change, but inside your head, thoughts are being scattered around your brain, and you can't process or think of any words to say.
So he just continues, "We were at a party, and I had a little too much to drink...."
Drink?
"How old are you?"
"Seventeen" he breathes.
"You shouldn't be drinking"
"That's what you told me that night, but I didn't listen to you" he says, hanging his head low.
"Keep going" you encourage. He's hesitant and fidgety, but continues nonetheless at your wishes.
"I had to take you home, and I was completely under the influence of the alcohol-" his voice gets shakier as he continues, "I drove, and I was hysterically laughing. You were begging me to let you drive, and I said I got it under control. As soon as I said that I drove past a red light and gently rammed into a car. It was fine. No one was hurt. I stopped in the middle of the road, and you were reprimanding me, and I was looking at you and the light behind your head. I thought I was seeing Angels, but it was the light of a zooming car, and it rammed into your side, and I couldn't do a damn thing. I didn't say anything until after it had been done"
He was almost crying, but you kept the same facial expression the whole time.
"I was conscious for the whole thing, screaming for you to wake up, but you wouldn't"
You're eyes found the floor.
"I'm sorry, I'm just emotional"
You look back up at him. It hurts to see him. The sad boy moping in sadness.
His hand is so open, so unprotected. Reaching out and touching would be another step forward, and you're not sure wheat her or not you were ready for it.
But before you can even register, he's hugging you.
The images don't stop when they flood you this time- it's memories and this time it feels real. You're reliving your past.
Meeting Jared around eighth grade and the dinner party during freshman year and hanging out at school. Doing crazy things during lunch and performing whole Broadway plays together when the auditorium was empty. Your first date was at his house. The house was empty and you were watching a movie; one of the Star Wars movies. You remember baking a cake the same night, throwing flour at one another, and finally ending with a kiss. You remember more dates. More movies. For your birthday, you went to see Broadway plays locally playing in San Diego. For Christmas he got you tickets to NY to your favorite play. You remember kissing, and touching and movement. You remember sitting in classes together, throwing little papers at people to annoy them. You remember kissing him goodbye when he had to go to Peru to visit his grandpa for three months. You remember his face on the screen, you remember his voice and sweet messages he wrote you daily. You remember his return, and you remember the first day of school party.
Where the crash happened.
You pull away again, shocked, at what you say. The boy in front of you was no longer the sad boy; but Jared Scott Gilmore; your loving boyfriend whose cared for you since he first spoke to you at the Christmas party freshman year.
"Y/N? I'm sorry, that was too forward"
Suddenly, you grab his collar and kiss him, hands holding each other. His tenseness frightens, but suddenly, he has worried look on his face when he pulls away from you.
"Y/N?"
You're smiling. Smiling bright, so that each tooth makes itself present it him. Your cheeks are rosy, and your eyes feel full of light and energy.
"I remember" you say, nodding.
"You remember?" He asks, excited, one of his hands cupping your cheeks.
You nod, tears escaping your eyes.
Happiness.
"You remember!" He says. He plants kisses on your lips so many times; little pecks, in between each kiss, he's whispering, "I love you so much" over and over again.