Double Sided

Now That You Know

Jenna left awhile ago to see Debby. Tyler and I have been hanging out in the living room. "So can you tell me what happened to me now that you know everything?"

"I would love to, but now that I think about it, I don't know what happened." Tyler frowned. "No one does I guess."

"That's what I was afraid of." I sighed.

"What?"

"I don't know what happened to me and, everyone in this world is from me. You are all just what I make you in my head. So if I don't remember, then no one does."

"How do you get you to remember then?"

"Jenna and I have been doing things that I really do, like dye my hair, play the drums, stuff like that and it's been helping, but not enough."

"Well we just have to think of other things then. You get tattoos, listen to and play music, and you have a wife that is Debby, who you are dating. What else can we do? You obviously can't just propose to Debby." There was a moment of silence between us. "What if we start playing music?"

"We just did earlier."

"No. I mean, what if we start playing gigs. We could ask local bars and stuff if we could play."

"That might work." I was surprised at his idea.

"Do you think you'd be able to though?"

"Yeah. I can power through them. I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?"

"One hundred percent."

"Okay, let's do it then." He smiled. "We don't even really have to practice before we ask around that much because we know everything perfectly already."

"Yeah, this is perfect, and it'll provide some extra cash." I laughed.

"True. Speaking of that, should we close the coffee shop?"

"I mean, it would make things more like they are in real life, but it's such a huge part of this life."

"The sooner you wake up, the better, though."

"I guess." I frowned. This has been our whole life here, the coffee shop, it's our work, where we spend most of our days.

"I'll let Mark and Brad know that we are closing it then."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Don't you want to wake up?"

"Of course I do, but still-" I thought for awhile.

"You'll miss it. Won't you?"

"Yeah I guess. I mean, I don't know exactly how long I've been in a coma, but in this," I looked around, "well I've been here for almost two years."

"Are you saying you don't want to wake up?"

"I don't know. I just don't remember exactly what my life use to look like, what if this one is so much better?"

"That's a risk you'll have to take."

"It sounds selfish but part of me just wants to stay here. It's like, is it really worth all of this physical pain that I'm going through? As far as I know, in my real life I was bullied and my sister died, I'm insecure and I hurt myself. Do I really want to go back to that?"

"Josh," Tyler leaned towards me, "you have to remember the good things too. You're married, you have tons of fans depending on you, you have the real me, you have a family, you have everything that you would ever need. All you have here is this imaginary world, this version of your friends and family that isn't real, you don't have all your fans or your wife."