My name. Why couldn't I remember the most basic thing? Everyone was meant to at least know their name, as something that identified them, as something that stayed with them even through the darkest times.
What’s in a name?
I jerked my head up from a stiff white pillow. How long I had been asleep, I couldn’t remember. But then again, it felt like my mind was wiped as a whole anyway, not like I’d be remembering anything at this rate. A sharp pain passed through my head, jolting my mind and making me wince. As the pain faded, I noticed something pulling me back down. Pushing me back onto the bed to lie motionless like I had been doing these past few days, weeks, months, years. Which one of those, I didn’t know.
I finally peeled back my eyelids, opening my eyes wide for what felt like the first time in forever, and I looked around the place, taking in all the small details. Curtains obscured my view of the outside world, and the screaming voices full of joy that coming from outside of the window, made me feel all the more isolated from the remainder of the world. Suddenly, there was a sound of rushing footsteps and not soon after that I felt my vision fade to tiny fragmented particles as I felt myself slip into oblivion....
I felt like I was drowning. Like I was falling into a large pit of darkness, with nothing and no-one but myself. I had no other choice. No-one understood me. All anyone ever ended up doing was looking at me in disgust, and walking away. Only to leave me sitting there. Sobbing, with my frame shaking as the tears dripped down my face. As the feeling of loneliness seeped into my heart like poison, deeper and deeper until it penetrated, and left me feeling like I was dying. And there was no antidote in sight.
Suddenly, there came light, flooding in from the opened curtain, until a figure stood beside the bed seconds later, blocking the light almost as soon it had appeared. I glanced up in hope. My parents? I was only met with disappointment. It was just him.
"Sorry!" he kept saying, "It was an accident". But there is a certain border to how serious something had to be, to be still considered an accident. And unfortunately for him, this was one incident that hopped over the border, and danced around merrily, right in front of my closed eyelids.
Tragic past? Depressing reality? A firm yes to both. And most likely an even worse future at that. Yeah, I had it all.
I had no purpose anymore, at least it didn’t feel like it. If I had lost my memory, then how would I be expected to live life normally, as I had before this breaking point?
One every thirteen minutes. One death from a car crash death thirteen minutes. But what were the odds that it would ever be my parents. Why my parents? And to think, the only reason I ever even found out was because of the stupid gossips that crowded this crappy hospital.
Why me?
My heartbeat began to race, the pace rapidly escalating until all I heard in my ears was the fast paced beating of the machine positioned beside my bed. The fury and anger that flooded my veins, caused my eyes to burn with the menace of both emotions as my mind raged out of control. A loud scream, laced with frustration filled the air the hospital, drowning out the mechanical noise if only for a few seconds. It didn’t take me long to realise that it had come from me. Quick and tapping footsteps echoed the halls as they approached my bed. Seconds later, I felt my conscience fade once again into the sub-reality...
Alan. My closest friend. Together forever, a promise that we both made to one another. Pinky-promise, hope to die, stick a pin in my eye.
Oh how I wished that I would be the one to stick in that pin.
People told me it wasn’t his fault, he had to move with his parents to Canada and leave me behind in England. But that’s not the problem that I had with him. Because even if he left, there wasn't an excuse for him not to talk to me, to not reply to any of my messages.
But then he came along.
He was just like Alan and if I hadn't know better I would have said that was Alan himself.
I gave him all the trust that I could, all the trust that was left, which wasn’t much considering my broken faith and broken mind.
What felt like several seconds later, I jerked awake once again for about the third time. I felt the cold sweat start to pour down my back. He was still standing there. And I wanted him to go.
I tried to scream at him to leave, to make some motions, some hand gestures that would make him turn around and walk in the opposite direction. But it was as if my whole body was paralysed- no sound escaped my mouth, and my arm wouldn’t lift itself from the side of the hospital bed. A sudden burst of pain flooded through my jaw. I clenched it in reaction, the reaction I had to all pain, which made it even worse.
If I couldn’t get him to leave, I knew that I would at least have to leave this room myself.
But my legs felt like they were tied down to the bed, along with the the rest of me. Shaking my head in defeat, I noticed his gaze upon something positioned at the end of my bed. I lifted my head as high as my controlled conditions allowed me to, and also began to read the sign:
Jennifer Andrews, 15
Victim of attempted murder
