I woke up to the sound of beeping.
Steady. Rhythmic. Mechanical.
My eyes fluttered open, but everything was blurry at first—white lights, sterile walls, shadows moving at the edge of my vision. My head felt heavy, too heavy, like I'd been asleep for years. My throat was dry, and when I tried to swallow, it was like sand scraping down.
"Miss? Can you hear me?"
A voice. Calm, professional. A nurse leaned over me, her smile soft but clinical. I blinked up at her, trying to focus.
"Yes," I croaked, though it barely sounded like me.
"Good. You've been unconscious for a while."
I looked around again. White walls, the smell of disinfectant, the steady rhythm of machines beside me. "Where… where am I?" My voice was barely a whisper.
"You're safe now," she said softly. "You're in the hospital. You were in a car accident."
Car accident.
The words sent a jolt through me, like electricity buzzing under my skin. My chest tightened. Images flickered in my head—headlights, the screech of brakes, pain. A flash of Ethan's car driving away. My legs had carried me after him, heartbroken and desperate.
And then—darkness.
"Car accident," I repeated, my voice cracking.
The nurse's smile faltered, just slightly. "You've been here for about two weeks. We had to keep you sedated at first, to let your body heal. You had a concussion… a head injury." She hesitated. "You lost a lot of blood. But you're stable now. You're going to be okay."
Okay.
But the word didn't sit right.
Because when I tried to reach for memories, they slipped through my fingers like water.
I squeezed my eyes shut, digging deeper, trying to force something—anything—to come back. My mind spun. Who did I call when I was scared? Where was home? Who would come through that door right now and take my hand, tell me I wasn't alone?
But the harder I reached, the emptier it felt.
I only saw shadows. Flashes. Pieces that didn't connect.
"I—" My throat closed. "I don't… I don't remember."
The nurse exchanged a glance with the doctor who had just walked in, his expression grim but gentle. He stepped closer, his hands folded behind his back like he'd had this conversation many times before.
"You've suffered memory loss," he said carefully. "It's a type of post-traumatic amnesia. Sometimes it's temporary. Sometimes it's longer-lasting. We can't know yet. But right now, what matters is that you focus on your recovery."
Memory loss.
The words felt unreal. Like they belonged to someone else, not me.
I tried again, pushing past the fog in my head. My name. My life. Something. "I… I'm Althea," I whispered, clinging to that. At least I remembered that.
The doctor nodded. "Yes. That's good. You remember your name. That's a start."
But beyond that? Nothing.
"Do I… do I have someone? Family? Friends?" My voice cracked on the last word, hope dangling by a thread.
The doctor's eyes softened. "We've tried to contact people. But so far, no one has come forward as immediate family."
No one.
It hit harder than the accident itself.
I looked away, blinking rapidly as tears burned my eyes. My chest felt hollow, caving in on itself. I was lying in a hospital bed, broken, and there was no one waiting for me. No one to tell me I was loved. No one to fight for me.
Just silence.
The nurse touched my hand gently. "Don't panic. It doesn't mean you're alone forever. Sometimes people need time, or maybe they haven't been reached yet."
But I knew by the way she said it—soft, cautious, rehearsed—that she didn't believe it either.
The truth was plain: I had no one.
I turned my head into the pillow, hot tears soaking the fabric. I tried to remember faces, voices, laughter. But all I got were fragments, like broken glass in my mind. A man's shadow. The echo of an argument. My heart aching, chasing something I couldn't name.
And then nothing.
I cried until I couldn't anymore.
Days passed. The nurses became my only company. They changed my IVs, checked my vitals, coaxed me to eat. Some were kind, chatting about their day, telling me stories about their children or their lives outside these walls. Others were brisk, clinical, in and out without a second glance.
The doctor visited often, testing me. "Do you remember your birthday?" "What city are you in?" "Who was the last person you spoke to before the accident?"
Every question was a knife twisting deeper.
Because the answer was always the same: I don't know.
It made me angry. Furious at myself, at the universe. Who was I, if I couldn't remember the people I loved? Did anyone even love me?
At night, when the halls were quiet and the only sound was the hum of machines, I stared at the ceiling and whispered questions into the dark.
"Was I happy?"
"Did someone miss me?"
"Was there someone who… loved me?"
The loneliness was crushing. I imagined someone walking through the door. A man, maybe, whose hand I could hold, whose eyes would light up just seeing me alive. I longed for it so badly that sometimes I dreamed it—warm lips on mine, a voice whispering my name like it mattered.
But when I woke up, it was always just me.
One afternoon, I caught sight of myself in the mirror across the room.
I froze.
For a second, I didn't even recognize the girl staring back. Pale skin, bruises fading along her jaw, bandages around her forehead. Her eyes—my eyes—looked haunted.
I raised a hand slowly, touched my cheek. "Who are you?" I whispered.
And there was no answer.
My chest ached, tears rising again. The girl in the mirror was a stranger.
The hospital tried to find placement for me after my release. Since I had no family, no one to take me home, they talked about rehabilitation centers, assisted housing. It was like I wasn't a person, just a problem to be solved.
Each conversation left me emptier, more invisible.
But deep down, a fire started to spark. Weak at first, but growing.
I didn't know my past. But I knew this: I wanted to live.
I wanted to find out who I was.
And maybe, just maybe, I wanted to find someone who could make me feel like I belonged.
Because the emptiness was too much to bear alone.
So I promised myself—one day, I'd fill in the blanks. One day, I'd remember. One day, I wouldn't wake up wondering if I mattered.
For now, though, I closed my eyes, letting the soft beeping of the machines lull me to sleep.
And in the quiet, even though I didn't understand why, one name lingered on my lips.
"Ethan…"
I didn't know who he was.
But the name tasted like heartbreak.