Still Holding Out For You

Chapter 2

As he lay, trying to catch his breath, the overhead light clicked on and he flinched from the sudden light.  She had come running to his room when she’d heard him cry out, wondering what was going on.

“Are you okay?” she asked as she entered the room quickly.  She was at his bedside in a second.

Still taking deep breaths, more to ease the pain in his ribs than to slow his breathing, he nodded carefully.  “I’m fine,” he replied softly between breaths.  His eyes slowly adjusted to the light and he looked up at her face, noting the concern.

She noticed his flushed face and put her hand to his forehead to feel for a fever.  He felt slightly warm, but she wasn’t too worried about it.  “What happened?  Was it a nightmare or something?”

One arm was still wrapped protectively around his torso, but his breathing had returned to normal.  He nodded again.  “I think so, I don’t remember.”  He seemed to say that a lot recently.  “I just remember panicking right before I woke up.  I don’t know if it was something to do with the accident or not.”

Two days earlier, he had awoken to find a strange woman sitting on the bed next to him, wiping his forehead with a damp cloth.  She had long, dark brown hair and green eyes.  He had no idea who she was or where he was.  Then again, he had no idea who he was, either.

When he asked her what had happened to him, she told him that he had been in a car accident just down the road from the house.  She had brought him back to the house because the hospital was so far away.  She’d called a local doctor while he was unconscious, and the doctor had done everything he could do for him without taking him to the hospital.  Her reasoning for this was that she knew he would be more comfortable with her and in their own home.  So the doctor had wrapped his three broken ribs and put a cast on his broken left ankle.  The cuts and abrasions had been dressed properly.  She said the doctor had been back once to check to see if he had regained consciousness yet and that he would be returning soon.  It all seemed logical to him, but he had absolutely no idea if it was all true or not.  He had no memory of the accident or his life.

Over the next two days as he began his recovery, she had told him the details of their life together.  Her name was Keri Douglas and she was his fiancée of four months.  She told him his name was David Carlen.  As a child he had moved to the New York area with his family from Australia, which explained his accent.  They had been together for over a year and had been living together for three months now.  She was free-lance photographer and he was a journalist who was taking time to write his own novel.  The way it worked now, they were both working from home.  She traveled when her job required it and he wrote when he wanted to.  According to her, they were very happy.  He just couldn’t remember any of it.

When he asked about the accident, all she would tell him was that it was a car accident that had happened not too far from their house.  She wouldn’t tell him how it happened, so he suspected there was more to it than she wanted him to know right now.

As he readjusted his body on the bed, careful not to jostle his leg, she sat next to him.  She brushed his golden, blond hair away from his eyes.  Her fingertips traced the edge of a dark purple bruise at the corner of his right eye.  He flinched as she came in contact with it.  “Sorry,” she whispered.  “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked, her voice raising to a normal tone.

“As okay as I can be, I guess,” he said, sighing.

“Why?  What’s wrong?”

Other than not being able to remember who he was?  He shook his head slightly, trying again to remember his dream.  “I don’t know.  I just feel like there’s more to my dream.  I have this feeling that there’s something about it that I should know.  Like the reason I can’t remember it is because I would be remembering something else, too.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.  I guess if I knew that I would know what it was.”  He settled back into his pillows, closing his eyes briefly.

When she noticed him struggling to stay awake, she stood up.  “You should try to go back to sleep.  You need to rest if you’re going to heal.”  She kissed him on the cheek and went over to the doorway.  They had been sleeping in separate beds since the accident.  She said it was because she didn't want to risk hurting him by sleeping in the same bed with him.  He was sleeping in the spare bedroom that also served as his office when he wrote, she said.  She slept in their bedroom, alone.  She clicked off the light, closing the door almost all the way on her way out.

For a few moments after she left, he remained awake, trying to remember anything at all about his life before the last few days.  Something about it all didn’t make sense.  He just wished he knew what it was.  He didn't have much time before he drifted off to sleep again.

 

 

 

 

~*~ Song Credit - "Still Holding Out for You" by SheDaisy on the album The Whole SheBang