About a Boy

About a Boy - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Waking Up

June 2013 was when the car crash happened. I was in a coma for two months and I woke in August. I remember it like it was yesterday, it was the weirdest feeling I had ever felt, I had never felt more alone because all the people around me knew me and I had no idea who they were.

After waking up I didn't move for a while. I just let my eyes get used to where I was and just looked. I was in a hospital and there was chatter outside the room. In the corner was a woman, asleep, sitting in a chair, leaning her head on the wall. I didn't want to move and wake her up because I didn't know who she was. 

It didn't take long for me to get restless. Keep in mind that I had the mind of a 14 year old and I hadn't yet figured out that my mind had just deleted most of my high school years and dropped me in 2013, what was supposed to be my freshman year of College. Once I moved a little bit it didn’t take me long to notice that I was taller. Suddenly I brought my arms from under the covers of the hospital blanket and started touching my flat chest, my short hair and the rest of me that was significantly different. After that the doctors said that I probably passed out from shock. 

I woke up a second time to people around me. I was sitting up and a doctor was talking to me. "Harry?" He kept saying "Harry?" I watched as a blurry shape of the doctor looked left and said "He's coming round now". He turned back to me, "Harry, you're in the hospital, you were in a car accident and you hit your head." 

I nodded my head after I noticed that he was waiting for a response from me. I started looking around again. The girl who had been sleeping was now standing next to me holding my hand and the two guys in the room were people I actually recognized. Jason and Tyler were my friends from elementary school. I looked at them and noticed that they had grown quite a lot. Thinking that maybe I just hadn't seen them in a while. We'd been the best of friends since we were 5 years old and even though in high school after I moved to a private girls school we saw each other less, we kept in contact.

"Hey Harry" Jason said with a smile. "How you feeling?" 

"You can nod good or shake your head bad if you want?" Tyler added. I was glad of this because I had suddenly remembered why I had passed out before. I nodded yes before touching my flat chest again. Flat. It was weird. But god it was nice. 

The doctor, who had disappeared, had returned with a clip board. "Harry, we're just going to do some tests." I remember after hearing that thinking 'good because it's probably a little bit unusual that after a car crash I've woken up as a boy'. I remember thinking to ask if maybe it would be ok if I could just stay the way I was. Looking back I realized how out of it I must have still been.

"Can you count to 5 for me?" the doctor asked. I adjusted myself in the bed and sat up a little bit. 

I remember thinking to myself, 'good, I can remember that.' "1,2,3,4,5" 

"Very good. Now can you name the members of your family for me"

"David - dad, Margret - Mom and Laura - sister."

"Excellent"

"Now can you tell me what the year is."

At this point I was pretty impressed with myself. I knew I was getting things right and that my memory must have been fine. "2009" I said confidently.

The doctor who had been scratching something on his clipboard suddenly paused. He slowly looked up and said "sorry?"

A little less confidently I said "2009".

Obviously after that moment the doctor left to go talk to some other doctors and pretty soon he came back and started explaining things to my friends and I. He explained that they were going to do some more tests but it looked like I had lost the memory of roughly 4 years of my life. It took a lot of explaining and to the doctors surprise, explaining why I was a boy was not the hardest.