Forgotten

December 1st, 2016

She lay motionless beneath the hospital lights, head wrapped in white bandages, a tube down her throat.

A reddish-purple bruise swallowed her right eye. Her lip was split, swollen.

At her bedside, my fingers locked around her hand.

Please wake up.

The monitor marked time in the quiet, steady and indifferent. I hated it for being the only proof she was still here.

Days had long since blurred together. Visiting hours bled into one endless vigil of white walls, burnt coffee, and nurses urging me to get some rest like sleep still belonged to me. The doctor said she might not wake up. The swelling still hadn’t gone down.

Every look at her brought the same thought, hard enough to turn my stomach.

I should have been there.

Should’ve picked up the phone. Called again. Gone after her. Done something.

Her mother should’ve been holding her other hand.

Instead, it was me, standing there like I had any right.

Me, pretending I could keep her tethered just by refusing to let go.

Heat stung behind my eyes. My sleeve dragged across my face before the tears could fall.

Don’t cry. Don’t do that here. Don’t make this about you.

So I held still and kept my grip gentle, as if calm could cage the panic.

It couldn’t.

Thoughts kept splintering, looping back jagged and unfinished.

What if she never wakes up? What if she does and she’s not the same? What if she asks where I was?

That last one lodged under my ribs.

Because there was no answer that didn’t make me sound weak. Or selfish. Or useless.

“How is she?” a gruff voice asked behind me.

My spine snapped straight. The back of my hand swept across my face like it could erase the evidence.

“She’s...” My voice broke. I swallowed hard and forced it out again. “Stable. They started weaning her off sedation two days ago, but she hasn’t woken up. It’s up to her now.”

Up to her.

Like she hadn’t already done enough.

Her grandfather moved to the other side of the bed, each footfall careful, measured. His red hair looked almost violent in a room this pale.

He took her free hand and held it lightly, thumb resting over her knuckles.

Together, we stood there watching her life hang by a thread, waiting for anything. A twitch. A breath. A sign.

My jaw locked. My throat tightened with it.

Come on, baby. Come back. I’m here.

Stupid. Too late counted for nothing. Too late was just another word for failed.

Still, I held on as if staying now could make up for not being there then.

Then her fingers moved.

My gaze dropped. My grip cinched before I could stop it.

Her lashes fluttered.

Relief slammed through me so hard it hurt.

She jolted awake in a panic, hands flying to her throat.

The ventilator alarm shrieked.

“Don’t pull,” the nurse snapped, already moving. She hit the call button with her elbow. “Respiratory, now.”

Footsteps thundered down the hall.

Instinct took over. My hands caught her wrists. She fought anyway, choking around the tube, eyes blown wide with raw, animal terror.

“Okay,” the nurse said, clipped and calm. “We’re taking it out. On three. One... two...”

A suction catheter slid in, quick and practiced. She deflated the cuff.

“Three.”

The tube came free in one smooth pull.

She folded forward, coughing so hard her whole body shook. Tears clung to her lashes as she dragged in ragged breaths. The nurse pressed an oxygen mask over her mouth.

“Breathe,” she said. “Just breathe.”

Her gaze skittered around the room, wild and untethered, as though even the walls were strangers.

“Do you know where you are?” the nurse asked gently.

She shook her head.

The nurse checked her pupils with a penlight. She flinched from the brightness.

“Let me get the doctor,” the nurse said. “He’ll explain more.”

When she left, the quiet rushed back in.

Before I could stop myself, I bent and pressed a trembling kiss to her bandaged forehead.

“You’re going to be okay,” I murmured. “I’m here.”

Her eyes snapped to mine.

She shrank into the pillows, breath hitching, panic racing across her face.

“I know you’re scared,” I said, hands lifted, voice low. “I’m right here.”

Her knuckles cracked against my jaw.

My head whipped sideways. Pain flashed white.

Her voice came out raw and thin at first, then broke wide open.

“Someone help me!” she screamed. “There’s a stranger in my room!”

She scrambled backward, wild with fear.

Her grandfather moved fast, gathering her into his arms.

“Hush, child,” he said. “I’m here. You’re safe.”

She clung to him, fingers knotting in his overcoat, face buried in his chest as she twisted away from me.

Everything in my body went numb.

The room seemed to stretch, widening until everything felt impossibly far away.

Over her shaking shoulders, her grandfather met my eyes.

The same question sat in both our faces.

Had our worst fear just come true?

My hand reached for hers again, needing proof, needing anything.

She recoiled so hard it was like my touch burned.

Her grandfather soothed her with slow circles over her shoulder, then eased back just enough to see her face.

“Do you know who I am, child?” he asked softly.

She studied him, gaze tracing the familiar lines. Her breathing slowed by a fraction. After a long moment, she gave a faint nod.

“It’s hard to forget you, old man,” she rasped.

A breath scraped into my lungs.

“Do you know who I am?” The question burst out too fast, too desperate.

She frowned, searching my face like the answer ought to be there.

Seconds stretched thin.

Then came the smallest shake of her head.

Apologetic. Final.

“No.”

The word landed cold and clean.

My throat sealed shut.

Not give me a second. Not I almost remember. Just no.

Behind it all, the monitor kept counting, steady and indifferent, as if nothing in that room had just split wide open.

I stood there staring at her, waiting for something to crack the moment apart. A flinch. A spark. Anything.

Nothing came.

She only looked at me the way people look at strangers who’ve stepped too close.

Cold crept into my hands.

This wasn’t real.

It couldn’t be.

Not after her laugh in my ear. Her feet in my lap. Her stealing fries off my plate. Falling asleep on my shoulder like it was the easiest thing in the world.

Not after she told me she loved me.

The doctor returned with the nurse and moved around us, checking vitals, asking simple questions. Name. Date. The last thing she remembered.

None of the answers included me.

Still I waited for my name to surface somewhere. In a memory. In a slip. In the shape of her mouth.

It never did.

The doctor spoke to her grandfather in a low voice. His gaze flicked toward me once, then away.

“Keep her calm,” he said. “Familiar anchors help.”

The rest didn’t need saying.

I wasn’t one of them.

They asked me to step into the hallway.

Every instinct in me wanted to argue. To tell them she knew me. That this was temporary. That they couldn’t push me out like I was nothing.

Instead, I stepped back.

Because she was shaking. Because panic climbed all over her face every time I got too close. Because staying would only make it worse.

The door shut, and the white tile swallowed the sound.

I paced once. Twice. Then stopped when my legs couldn’t decide whether to run or collapse.

My hands shook so badly they disappeared into my pockets.

Think. Do something.

There had to be something.

But every thought slammed into the same wall.

She didn’t know me.

The heels of my hands pressed into my eyes until sparks burst behind them.

This is my fault.

The thought came sharp and cruel.

If I’d been there, maybe she wouldn’t have gotten hurt. If I’d called again. If I’d gone after her. If I’d done anything sooner.

I should have protected her.

That was the worst part.

Not that she forgot me.

That I had failed her first.

When her grandfather finally stepped into the hall, his shoulders looked heavier, his face carved by a decision he hated.

“For now,” he said quietly, eyes skimming past mine, “it’s best if you don’t come around. She needs time. Space. Let her relearn her life one piece at a time.”

I stared at him.

Then the meaning landed.

A fight rose hot in my throat. I wanted to tell him I was part of her life, not something extra they could set aside until it was convenient.

But one thought froze me where I stood.

If I pushed, they’d shut me out for good.

So I nodded once.

Like he hadn’t just asked me to disappear.

Like I wasn’t one sentence away from coming apart in the middle of a hospital hallway.

Each step away had to be forced, my hands trembling at my sides as if I were still pretending to hold myself together.

The collapse waited until I got outside.

Three months later

Thunder rolled low through a dark sky as my fist pounded the door.

“Please, let me in! I need to see her!” My voice cracked into a sob. “You can’t do this to me. I love her!”

Rain soaked straight through my clothes, cold and relentless. It streamed down my face until grief and weather became the same thing.

Give her time, they’d said.

It was a trap.

Time hadn’t helped.

Time had turned me into a ghost outside her life, begging to be let back in.

The door flew open.

It wasn’t her grandfather.

A man stood there, broad and hard-eyed, filling the frame like he’d been waiting for me.

And behind him, there she was.

One glimpse and my chest caved in.

I tried to push past him.

He shoved me back hard enough to send me into the mud.

Pain shot up my spine. Gravel bit into my palms. Rain slapped cold across my face.

Still, I got up.

Of course I did.

Another lunge. Another useless reach.

“Please,” I choked out. “Just let me talk to her. She’ll remember me. I know she will.”

The man didn’t budge.

Behind him, she stayed still.

No recognition. No reaching. No flicker of anything that had ever belonged to me.

Only distance.

Thunder rolled overhead, slow and steady, counting seconds the way the monitor had.

I looked at her and felt every stupid, desperate scrap of hope inside me begin to rot.

Say something. Look at me. Do anything.

She didn’t.

The man stepped forward, just enough to make the message plain.

Go.

My hands curled into fists at my sides.

Every part of me wanted to fight him. To shove past him. To shout until she remembered me just so the hurting would stop.

Instead, I stood there in the rain, soaked to the bone, staring at the girl I loved as if she were already a memory.

“I love you,” I said, my voice wrecked. “Please.”

Nothing changed.

Her face stayed blank. Guarded. Almost afraid.

Like I was the danger now.

That cut deeper than being thrown into the dirt.

The door started to close.

One step carried me forward before I even realized I’d moved.

Then it slammed shut in my face.

The sound cracked through me harder than the thunder.

For a second, all I could do was stand there, staring at the wood, rain dripping from my hair and chin, breath coming too fast.

Then a laugh slipped out.

Not because anything was funny.

Because if it didn’t, a scream would.

I never felt her weight in my arms again.

Never stole another breathless kiss on her roof beneath the pale moon.

There was no place for me in her life.