Forget Me Not

Chapter 6: Into The Unfamiliar

After the dismissal of their fourth period class, the group congregated at their usual lunch table. Noticing the very person she was avoiding was gone, Mal frowned.

"Where's Doug?" She asked, Jay and Carlos giving each other looks.

"So you still care about him?" Jay questioned, biting into his hamburger that was exploding with an array of toppings.

"Well I care enough that he's still alive," Mal answered.

"He was in AP Psych last hour, but I'm not sure where he is now," Lonnie glanced around the room, trying to spot the golden-brown ponytail attached to a head with glasses.

Swallowing his own lunch, Carlos cleared his throat. "He might be seeing the counselor. He texted me last night. Oh, and he said Evie is losing her memory,"

He picked up his fork to begin eating his sautéed vegetables, until he noticed everyone else's twisted faces.

"What does he mean 'losing her memory?'" Mal inquired, with disbelief that those words even fit in the same sentence as Evie's name. She put her hamburger back on her plate and stared at the sandwich. She was instantly reminded of only a few weeks back when Evie tried a hamburger for the first time. The blue-haired Princess hadn't ever eaten meat thanks to Grimhilde. The school's lunch that day had catapulted Evie to become a proud omnivore.

Stuck in her own memory, Mal didn't hear Carlos' further explanation.

"What?" Mal asked, Ben looking her way.

Ben spoke up, saving the junior another mouthful of explaining. "Carlos said Evie is slowly losing her memory to the point where he thinks she may not remember certain things. At least according to Doug."

Mal sighed and turned to her head toward her boyfriend. Ben took her hand and scooted closer to her on the bench, aware that her emotions were jumbled and that she was more worried about her best friend than she let on.

"Gosh, that's tough," Lonnie commented, Jane quietly nodding her head. The junior cheerleader looked off into space. Carlos tried to find where Jane was staring but she wasn't looking at anything in particular. Lately she'd was keeping to herself. This was concerning to Carlos who had been regularly checking up on her, only for Jane to request to be alone. He also hadn't seen Jane eating lunch and dinner as she used to, instead picking at it.

Though no one knew, Jane didn't understand how Evie was the one who had to fall. Why hadn't it been her? Or any of the other girls? Or no one at all.

The afternoon droned on as the six friends stuck around the cafeteria for the entire hour, finding homework, mindless chatting and phone games enough to occupy the time. Feeling the presence of someone at the table, they all looked up simultaneously. Doug sat down and put his bag on the floor.

"Hi, guys," he greeted his friends, receiving tepid replies in turn. A lot more lively than everyone else, Doug smiled. "How have you all been?"

Jay looked up from his phone with a shrug. Mal raised her brow questioning why he even asked. Lonnie tore her eyes from her textbook, the first to respond.

"I'm okay."

Ben nodded his head, agreeing to Lonnie's statement. "Work is piling up, but nonetheless, I'm alright." After Ben spoke, the table went back into silence. Mutually, the entire friend group wanted things to go back to normal. They weren't going to accept that this was their new normal without Evie. It just couldn't be.

***

At the hospital the following day, Doug worked on homework as usual. With it being October, the rush to apply to colleges had taken over Auradon Prep. Before the accident, Evie had just finished applying to her top three schools, as did Doug. However, they both planned to apply to multiple more. Luckily she had gotten her testing done, particularly the ACE or the Auradon Curricular Exam.

Peeking over his shoulder at Evie, it had become quite unnerving to watch her as she had been unconscious for days now. No longer being asked constantly about her, being in class felt as normal as possible. However, schoolwork was a little more difficult as he often found his thoughts surrounding the condition of Evie and the pressures involved in one's senior year.

Must be kind of nice to just let the world pass you by, Doug thought.

He returned to his assignment, suddenly losing motivation to work on the case study. He closed his laptop and took out his AP Literature novel. Flipping to where he left off, he started to read his assigned portion. Taking Evie's hand, he noticed her heartbeat jump as she had done before.

As he made it through to the 26th chapter, he looked away from the book to eye the heart monitor. Her beat had started to slow as if he had let go of her hand, of which he hadn't.

This is exactly what he was talking about, he thought in reference to Dr. Thomas who got the results of Evie's EEG brain activity scans. The doctor analyzed that Evie was losing her memory. Carlos' text message re-established itself back in his mind, so much that he let go of her hand. Her heart beat returned to a stable pace, signaling that his touch was still familiar.

With his spirits down, Doug contemplated what he'd do if his touch became unfamiliar. What would he do with himself if her memory loss went as far as to erase him and the gang?

The door to the room opened, the nurse who was usually around when Doug visited walking to the other side of the curtain to check her vitals. He had begun to realize a pattern at which Evie was frequently checked throughout the day.

"How are you today?" The woman asked. Doug looked up from Evie to the nurse.

"I am doing alright. Is there a prognosis of how long she might be in this state for?" He inquired. The nurse finished updating the board with the time she was last checked on and shook her head.

"No. That's where things become unknown to even us. It's truly up to Miss Evie here. I'm sure sitting with her and holding her hand is comforting, but there is only so much we can do on the outside."

Understanding, Doug nodded his head and sighed. Accepting the situation, he took her hand once more, only for her heart to beat slightly above her normal pace, but nowhere near the pace it used to when he first held her hand. She's forgetting me, Doug thought. It didn't seem too faze the nurse that Evie's heartbeat wasn't as excited as before. The woman simply smiled and left the room, leaving Doug to himself.