The last thing I expected was to fall into the arms of a dark-haired, blue-eyed man with dimples for days.
Not that I really expected anything. I mean, that’s all there was for me. Nothing.
I thought maybe the man who found me was a fisherman or someone older… less attractive.
I guess there was something else I could add to my ever-growing list of character traits. I liked men. Or rather, I found one in particular attractive.
Eddie was attractive; I couldn’t deny it. So handsome it filled in some of that stark silence in my mind. His face was exactly what I needed to mull over when nothing else was there. The blue of his eyes was almost startling, reminding of what the sky looked like on a summer day. The blue was accentuated by dark, long lashes and a head of hair so dark it made me think of midnight. It was thick and curly, kind of unruly in the sense it flopped over his forehead and ears. I liked his jawline, too, the strength in it, the clean line. I bet when he got angry and it flexed, it would make my stomach flip.
And he was tall, too. So tall. I had to crane my neck back to study him. When I almost fell and he was there, I noted the warmth of his skin, how alive he felt, even the erratic beating of his heart.
Settling back into the bed, I marveled at my own thoughts. It amazed me how effectively my mind was whirling, how noticing mere details on someone sprang alive parts of me that I thought were gone, too. It gave me hope. Hope that maybe I wasn’t as lost as everyone assumed.
Surely if I suspected the flexing of a man’s jaw would cause my tummy to quiver and understood a summer sky was blue and the midnight sky was black, then there was so much more buried inside me.
Right?
I had no idea. The things I was thinking could just be common knowledge, things my brain didn’t feel necessary to dump. I was overwhelmed, and it embarrassed me. I’d walked a few feet down the hall for crying out loud. I saw one person. One. Yet here I was trembling in my bed as if I’d seen a ghost, trying to figure out the meaning of life.
The door opened slowly. Eddie poked his dark, curly head inside. A little bit of my anxiety melted away. Enough so I was able to breathe.
“Still okay if I come in?” he asked.
I nodded.
I liked the way he didn’t stride right in, allowing the heavy door to slam behind him. Instead, he slid in, turned around, and guided the door shut softly. My eyes couldn’t depart from him even when he was turned away. Eddie was lean and long. His shoulders were broad, but they would have to be to support his height. He was dressed in a pair of faded jeans that were frayed at the hems, like he’d owned them a long time and barely wore shoes so they dragged the ground.
His shirt was navy blue and written on the back in white were the words “Loch General.” I had no idea what that was. There was also what looked like a picture of the Loch Ness Monster. The shoes on his feet were plain sneakers, all white with some blue stripes down the sides.
He ignored the rolling stool all the doctors used, instead reaching for the chair against the wall, and dragged it over beside the bed. It was like he planned to stay a while. The chair was more permanent than the stool. With a heavy sigh, he sat down, leaned back, and propped his shoes on the side of my bed.
“Your shoes are dirty,” I said, glancing down at the soles.
He made a small laughing sound and grinned. He had an ornery grin, the kind that said he got away with basically everything. Eddie pulled his feet off the blankets and made a show of kicking off the shoes. The sound they made on the tile was distinct. When it was done, his feet reappeared on my bed, this time covered in white socks.
“Better?” he asked, not bothered in the least.
I nodded once. “Much.”
He smiled again, and even though I barely knew anything, I understood the twinkle in his eyes was something rare. Something pure.
“So how are they treating you in here? How’s the food?”
I had a severe case of amnesia. He’d pulled me out of a lake, half dead. He’d obviously been waiting almost three months for me to wake up. And now his first question was about the food?
“Don’t really have anything to compare it to.” I tapped on the side of my head and shrugged. “‘Course I would think there has to be something out there better than soup and Jell-O.”
“Depends,” he remarked casually, tucking his arms against his middle. “Is it red or blue Jell-O?”
My lips curved upward. I wasn’t really used to the action. But I went with it. It was kind of nice. “Green.”
“That’s just unacceptable!” he said in mock outrage. When he sat forward, his sock-covered feet dropped off the bed. “How dare they serve something so foul!”
A sound came out of me. It was a laugh. I was laughing. Now I know what that sounds like.
Covering my mouth as if I were embarrassed to be happy, I added, “But nothing is worse than the banana they tried to make me eat.”
Eddie’s eyes lit up with amusement, but he shook his head and scowled. “Green Jell-O and fruit? I’m gonna give the first nurse I see a piece of my mind.”
I stuck out my tongue. Just thinking about that mushy yellow thing made me recoil.
Eddie chuckled, and thoughts of food faded from my mind. We stared at each other for long moments. The air around us seemed to shrink, or maybe my skin just felt momentarily tight. Reality crashed into the humor we shared, and a lot of the questions in my mind came to the surface.
Quietly I asked, “Where am I, like what state?”
His eyebrows shot up his forehead. “No one told you?”
I made a face. “They haven’t told me much of anything. They think I’m too delicate.”
His feet returned to the mattress when he lounged backward. “You’ve been through a lot.”
“None of it I can remember.” Was I allowed to be upset over things I couldn’t remember? I knew I wasn’t unaffected… But it was hard to feel like I was.
“You really don’t remember anything?” He regarded me closely. I didn’t know why, but every time he looked at me, I felt he was looking for something. Besides, how could I be upset when I really had no idea what was going on? All I had were bits and pieces… pieces of a not-so-pretty picture, but it seemed I needed more before it all sank in.
Once again, I turned inward, toward my blank mind and hollow world, and tried to recall even the slightest detail about myself. Anything. But I couldn’t. “Nothing.”
“Not even me?” he asked, his voice less relaxed than it had been up to this point. It was almost as if he knew he shouldn’t ask, but he couldn’t help himself.
“Why would I remember you? Should I?”
A momentary look of disappointment flashed deep in his eyes, but then he shook his head. “No. When I pulled you out of the water, you opened your eyes for a moment. I thought maybe you saw me…”
“Oh. I’m sorry. All I remember is waking up here.”
“It’s okay. It’s understandable.”
“They told you not to tell me anything, didn’t they?” I sat back against the pillow and sighed. Earlier today, during my alone time between doctor visits, I’d adjusted the bed so I could sit upright. Since I woke up from the coma, lying down was something I found I didn’t like.
In fact, it made me sort of uncomfortable. I didn’t tell anyone that. The doctor would have written it down with a constipated look on his face and then called the head shrinker. It wasn’t that big of a deal anyway. I mean obviously, I should be feeling some sort of discomfort after waking from an extended coma. I’d been lying prone in a bed for too long; of course my body combatted against doing it more.
“They also told me I couldn’t come in here and see you,” he said with a wink.
“But you came anyway,” I said, remembering what Dr. Beck told me. “Why did you come every day?”
“I couldn’t stay away.” His eyes roamed over my features, and for the first time since waking up, I thought about the way I looked.
“But why?” I urged, unable to look away from the intensity of his stare. I could be swallowed up in those deep blue depths.
“Because I pulled you out of the water. You were so… unresponsive. It was scary, and after bringing you here, I sort of felt invested. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“You felt sorry for me.” I pointed out.
“Actually,” he whispered, and in his voice was something raw and utterly truthful, “I feel sorry for the people you left behind, the people who could be missing you.”
“About that…” I blinked, trying to tear my attention from his face. “The doctors said no one has come here to identify me.”
He shook his head. “No, no one has come.”
Tears burned the backs of my eyes. Sometimes it was easy to push away, to feel detached, but then other times, it smacked me right in the face. No one came for me. I was utterly alone, and I didn’t even have a name.
“The police have been looking?” I asked, repeating something else the doctor said.
“Yeah, from what I know. It was a hot news story for a while. It was in the papers and on the radio. They’ve been looking into missing persons’ reports, but so far, nothing matches anything like your story.”
“I don’t even know my story!” I burst out. “How could they?”
Eddie cleared his throat. “I meant no one matching your description or general age has been reported missing since you’ve been here or a few months prior to that.”
I felt bad for snapping at him. He was the only person here, and I was taking out my frustration on him. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” He sat forward, elbows hitting his knees and his torso leaning over the edge of the bed. “Don’t apologize, not ever. Not to me.”
“I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
The storm in his eyes quelled. “I can take it.” The confidence in his tone was oddly calming. I liked his sense of assurance; it was solid when everything else was pretty much in crumbs.
“So…” I urged, tucking my legs beneath me and ruffling the crappy blankets on the bed. “Are you going to give me some information or what?”
He mock gasped. “I feel used. You only want me for my mind.”
“So far, your mind has been pretty un-useful.” I pointed out.
His teeth flashed in a quick smile. “We’re in Maine. A very small town up north.”
“Maine,” I murmured to myself, mulling it over, deciding if it felt familiar to me or not.
It didn’t.
“That’s on the East Coast, right? It’s cold here?” I asked, wondering where that information came from and why all the other more important details weren’t so easily reached.
“Yeah, but it’s not cold right now. It’s August. End of summer is coming, and it will start to get chilly soon.”
“And there’s a lake here?” I asked.
Eddie bobbed his head and pushed at the unruly hair on his forehead. “Lake Lochlain. Everyone calls it Lake Loch, though.”
“Is it a big lake?”
“Yeah, it’s big, bigger than the town actually. It’s a quiet kind of place, kind of off the map, not as modern as most places nowadays.”
“So women washing up onshore isn’t an everyday occurrence?” I joked, attempting to lighten my troubled thoughts.
“No,” Eddie replied, averting his gaze. His body shifted farther into the chair, though, and I couldn’t help but feel a pang of relief that he wasn’t about to leave.
I guess I could add something else to the list about me. I liked company. Or maybe it’s just Eddie.
“What about your shirt?” I gestured to the blue fabric covering his chest. “What’s Loch General?”
As if to remind himself of what he was wearing, Eddie looked down. “Loch General Store. We don’t have a big chain grocery store or anything for about twenty-five miles. We just have Loch Gen. It’s the town grocery store.” Plucking at the fabric of his shirt, he added, “I work there.”
“What do you do?” I said, curious.
“Bag groceries, run the register, handle payroll, stock shelves, inventory…” He laughed. “I pretty much do it all.”
My cheeks grew warm as I listened to him speak. He had a way of keeping my attention. Everything about him was interesting.
“Do you live nearby?” I blurted out, wanting him to keep talking.
“Yeah, I have a tiny cabin on the lake.”
“I’m sure it’s beautiful,” I murmured, my thoughts turning inward. I didn’t have a place to live. Or a job.
“Actually, it’s not.”
I blinked, surprised. Eddie laughed. “It was half falling down when I bought it. That’s how I could afford it. I’ve been slowly fixing it up.”
“That sounds kinda fun.”
He smirked. “It wouldn’t seem so fun after about eight hours of sanding wood and painting walls.”
“It’s better than this hospital bed.” I sighed.
Eddie sat forward. I thought he was reaching for my hand but changed his mind and pulled back. “Can I bring you anything? Anything at all?”
My life. “I think saving my life was more than enough. I’m the one who owes you.”
“No.” He spoke quickly and emphatically. “You don’t owe me a thing.”
“Did you see anything that night, Eddie?” I whispered. “At the lake? Was anyone else there?”
He didn’t answer at first. Instead, his forearm rested on the side of the bed and on it, his forehead. He stared down at the floor, and I just waited, thinking maybe he needed time to gather his memory. When he lifted his head, the azure shade of his irises was bleak.
“Sometimes I walk along the lake at night. It’s just something I like to do, to think.” I nodded, encouraging him to continue. “It was foggy that night, like it sometimes is. The wind was stronger than usual and the water seemed choppier. You weren’t on the shore.”
“But the doctor said…” I rebutted.
“I know. You would have ended up on the shore if I hadn’t seen you. You were a short distance out, about waist deep for me.” He held his hand up to his waist. “I saw you floating there, and I swam out and dragged you in.”
“Was I breathing?” I asked. It was odd. I knew this story was about me, but it didn’t feel like it. It felt I was being told about someone I didn’t know.
“No,” he murmured. “I did CPR.”
Without thought, I lifted the pads of my fingers to my lips, imagining his there, the breath from his body surging into mine.
“The second you started breathing, I drove you here to the hospital myself. Figured it would be faster than waiting for an ambulance.”
“Dr. Beck said I was in pretty bad shape,” I told him.
Eddie nodded. “Yeah, it was touch and go for a while. But I knew you would make it.”
“How did you know?” How could he know something more about me than I did?
“Because this is where you belong.” The intensity in his gaze was unnerving.
But instead of alienating me, it had the opposite effect. My deepest fear at the moment ripped right out of me as if it were magnetized and he was a giant lodestone. “What if I never remember?”
“Well,” Eddie mused, glancing up at the ceiling while he mulled it over. Our eyes met and held when his lowered and he finished his reply. “You’ll just have more space in that beautiful head of yours for new memories.”
They were hopeful words. Almost a promise of something better in the days ahead. A second ago, I would have clung to that positivity like a lifeline. And maybe I would later, when I lay in bed and tried to sleep.
But right now, I didn’t think about that. Instead, all I could think about was that Eddie just called me beautiful.