“You hate lentils! You never want to eat another falafel for the rest of your life!” He almost yells. And I’d have covered my ears, if I wasn’t so surprised. How can he know that? He’s right. So, how does he know? How could he possibly?
“H-How do you know that?”
There’s a flicker of something in his eyes. Hope. “Because you told me. You told me.” He says, pointing at us each in turn.
No. I can’t have forgotten him, forgotten having told him that. I hate these reminders of my accident, that there are parts of my own life that I don’t know. The helplessness comes crashing down around me, and I reach forward and push him away.
“Please… please go,” I beg him.
“No, please, listen to me,” he begs right back.
“Let’s go, Jez.” I hear Toni say.
“She knows me, Toni… I don’t understand.” His voice breaks. And in turn it breaks something inside me. It’s not fair. It’s not fair to him. If there’s the smallest chance that… that he did exist in my past, he deserves an explanation. I need to explain to him.
I spin around, watching him back out of the room, his face confused and twisted in pain.
“Wait.” I say and he stops and eyes locking on mine. “I- I have amnesia,” I say. The phrase that’s defined my life lately.
“What? No.”
“I… I don’t remember you. I have amnesia.”
His face falls and there’s a tiny tipping of his head as he processes what I’ve said.
“So, everything you’re remembering? It didn’t happen for me. I don’t remember it. And I don’t know you. So please, do the same for me. Forget me. Like I’ve forgotten you.”
I walk over and slowly pull the door closed between us and walk back to bed.
Go away, mystery man. Just go.
I don’t want to be reminded of the things I’ve forgotten and lost.
The things I might’ve had but don’t have any more.
JEZ
As soon as we get back to my room, I rip my arm away from Toni. A white-hot pain, searing like a knife boring into my elbow, shoots both ways up and down my arm. I hear a noise like an injured wolf howl and don’t realize it’s me until I feel my body pushed back onto the bed, and Toni is patting my leg, saying my name. It feels like how I’ve heard panic attacks described, but never experienced for myself.
“Jez, Jez, it’s okay, it’s okay, take a breath.” I can just hear her words through the pain and stars dancing in front of me, and I drag some air into my lungs. “Good, that’s it, just calm down and keep breathing, Jez.”
I take a few breaths until I feel the pulse rushing in my ears slow a little.
“I’m okay,” I say, even though I’m not.
“You will be. You’re not okay quite yet, but you will be.”
“Do you mean short term or long term?” I rasp, trying to make light of the situation, a little embarrassed by my reaction.
“Both.”
I stop talking for a moment, until my breath is slow and steady again. And the pain has receded. In my arm at least.
“I know her, Toni. I do. I’m not crazy. We had… we met once.” I need someone to believe me.
“All this over someone you met once?”
“It was… special.”
She raises her eyebrows but doesn’t say anything, just walks over and makes a note on my chart.
“We didn’t even exchange names. But it was special. She was… is special.”
“Boy, I’m too old for this,” she says. But then sits down on the chair next to the bed, opposite me. “Which is exactly why you should tell me more.” There’s a gleeful look on her face, as if she’s awaiting some salacious details.
“Get your mind out of the gutter, it’s not like that.”
She rolls her eyes as if she doesn’t believe me. “Then why don’t you tell me what it’s like.”
“That girl… is insane. Crazy and wild and sweet and hilarious and we just talked for a little bit. And I really, really liked her. Like her. I haven’t stopped thinking about her since we met. Well, once I stopped playing sleeping beauty, that is.”
“So, what happened?”
“This.” I say, gesturing to my body. “This happened. I met her the night this happened. I’ve been wondering about her ever since. I didn’t know she played the ukulele then ”
“I’m sorry, Jez, but it doesn’t seem like she knows you. Or remembers you,” she says, her eyes looking sad.
“I know. How can that be? I remember all of it. Every word. What happened to her?”
Toni sighs and stands up, smoothing her hand over the bedsheet. “I can’t talk to you about another patient. I’m sorry.”
“Please.” I hear my own voice tremor, as if trying to convey how much it means to me to know.
She just sighs and reaches over and pats me on the cheek. “You can look at me with those big, green, puppy eyes all you like. I can’t tell you anything, Jez. I’m sorry.”
“So, it’s ‘Jez’ now, is it?”
She grins and her broad shoulders lift up in a big shrug. “Why not? Unless you want me to call you Dimple Butt.”
I make a look of mock shock. “Why, nurse Toni! Have you been admiring my butt?”
“Hard not to, when it needs sponge bathing. Anyway, I’m out, gotta go take care of my other patients. You want this door open or closed?”
“Open, please.” I want to be able to hear if she plays her ukulele again.
Toni gives me a wink as she leaves and makes a head tilt towards the squishy ball left on my table.
Subtle, Toni.
I spend the next hour playing back the two conversations I’ve had with that mystery woman in my head. The things we talked about that night, and the conversation we just had.
I play back her words, ‘everything you’re remembering? It didn’t happen for me. I don’t remember. And I don’t know you. So please, do the same for me. Forget me. Like I’ve forgotten you.’
I wince every time I remember the look in her eyes, of complete and utter lack of recognition of me. No. I don’t buy this amnesia shit. You can’t forget… you can’t forget something like that night. The connection we had was once in a lifetime.
Even now, I can smell her hair, the way her eyes, tired and slightly bloodshot, reflected the moon whenever she stared up at the sky. The way she felt against my body when I carried her out from the club. The way her neck tilted away from me, when I sat next to her, talking. The way my body grew hard at just the thought of kissing her. Of taking her, of making love to her.
Fuck.