Back Then

It was another day in the very opposite of paradise— Sadie’s hospital room.

“Hello, Beautiful,” I said as I walked in, winking at her and trying to act normal, as if I wasn’t praying against all hope that this time she would actually recognize me.

She looked up at me. Her eyes were dull, the gray so light it was like an overcast day with no promise of rain or sun.

“Hi,” she said listlessly.

She had stopped fighting me about her memories, about what I was trying to get back. At first, she would get angry with me and tell me I was asking the impossible of her. Later, she would cry and tell me she was nothing more than a disappointment. Now, there was nothing left.

I had been upset about her mood swings, her violent fits of rage, and her hysterical outbursts. Sadie had always been a stable girl, someone everyone had depended on.

Now, she was unpredictable, different. To the point where I missed her instability, her fits of rage. All of that had been better than this lifeless shell sitting on her bed, staring at me like she was tired.

It wasn’t sleep tired, either. It was like she was tired of life. I could understand that.

Her mom hadn’t wanted to let me in. She had told me to let it go, to leave things as they were. There was only so much any of us could do before it became clear nothing was going to work. And she was beginning to get resentful that I kept pushing Sadie to remember things long after she had given up.

I often wondered if her mom was as mad at me as I was for “causing” the accident. She hadn’t even known we’d been at High Rock. I had had to call her and explain the awful news and she had come rushing with Sadie’s dad to the hospital.

So, it was natural to think she might be telling me to leave as a punishment. She’d never said she was angry with me— in fact, she had reassured me that it wasn’t my fault and that she knew that Sadie and I loved each other very much. She had often hoped and prayed that Sadie would remember me so we could be together again.

But by that point, she agreed with the doctors that it was better that I stay away. She said perhaps Sadie would have more peace and time alone to heal. Part of me even know she was right.

But I was stubborn. I didn’t want to listen. I wanted Sadie back and seeing her this way hurt me more and more every day.

Lately, I had been angry that I was the only one left with hope. Everyone else had thrown in the towel. Three months had been enough for Sadie to lose everyone she couldn’t remember, and I wouldn’t be another one of those people abandoning her.

But I understood it when I looked into her eyes. They were vacant, empty of fire, empty of the life I used to love about her.

Was this what we had come to?

I sat down next to her. I’d stopped reaching for her hand, trying to hold onto her. She wasn’t comfortable touching me anymore. Why would she be? I was a stranger to her now.

She knew some people, like the salesman she’d met a week before the accident when he had come knocking on her parent’s door trying to sell them a silly set of Encyclopedias we had laughed at him for later— who the hell buys Encyclopedias anymore? Doesn’t he know there’s a thing called Google now? Has he not heard of the Internet?— but she didn’t know me when we had dated for two years.

She remembered the guy, kind of, but nothing at all about us laughing or joking about the guy, because she didn’t remember me or anything at all about me. I didn’t understand how it was possible.

The doctors said they couldn’t explain it, but it was normal.

What the fuck was normal? Who the fuck were they to tell me this was normal?

And what did they learn in school if not what the hell was going on with their patients and why? I knew I was misplacing blame onto the doctors who were taking great care of Sadie, but I was beyond the point of caring.

It seemed all they did was tell me “I don’t know, but it’s normal. We’ll just have to wait and see. The brain is a peculiar thing,” and other such fucking bullshit nonsense that made me want to slam my fist through the window of Sadie’s hospital room and pull both of us through the hole I would make. Maybe I had some crazy idea that by doing that, we could be sucked back into the past, or into some alternative universe where she hadn’t had the accident or she at least still had her memory.

But as I saw the look on her face as she opened her mouth to talk to me, I could tell she had different ideas. She just wanted this to be over with.

“Brian, I can’t do this,” she said.

When she looked up at me, her face was solemn, her eyes big, but there was no trace of tears.

“What?” I asked.

It was a fucking ridiculous and completely unnecessary question, since I already knew what she meant. I guess I just had the need to have her explain it to me, so I could feel the dagger going through my heart nice and slow.

She shook her head.

“All of this,” she said. “I can’t do it anymore. It’s not fair to you, and let’s face it. I’m never going to be the same. I don’t know who you are, and every time you expect me to remember something and I don’t, I just feel like more and more of a disappointment.”

I heard a loud crack then. I shook my head.

“Don’t do this, baby, please.”

Her face closed a little at the accidental pet name.

“Don’t push me away,” I said, but I knew it was too late.

She shook her head again. Her hair was straight and plastered up against her head from laying in her hospital bed. It didn’t have the curly ringlets from the night of prom. But it still looked beautiful to me, as did everything else about her, and I couldn’t believe I was losing all of her.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

She looked at me with a face that said she was sorry she hurt me, but she wasn’t hurting, too. She didn’t feel a thing. She told the man she’d loved for two years goodbye without shedding a tear, and I had no choice but to walk out of her life for good.