I turn toward the door. My hand finds the handle, and I pull it open.
Dasha is sitting on the edge of the bed. She is holding the gold necklace in her palm.
“Your mother gave you this, didn’t she?” She smiles. “You wore it on your first lesson.”
“Yes.” I steady myself against the doorframe. My fingers press into the wood to keep my balance. “She bought it the day before I started.”
She lifts the necklace carefully, then slips it back into the small plastic bag beside the ring.
I move toward her, forcing each step to look steady. My feet don’t listen. It feels like I have two left feet attached to me, like every step needs to be remembered first.
She notices immediately, stands, and hurries toward me. The moment her hand closes around mine, I pull away.
“I’m fine, Dasha,” I say quickly.
She freezes for a second, her hand still hanging in the air between us. She lowers it and returns to the bed, and from her purse, she pulls out a yellow envelope.
“Martha gave me your documents,” she says. “She found them when they were clearing the house. She kept them in case you woke up. But your clothes… she donated those to charity.”
I nod.
It’s crazy how quickly everything disappears. As if everyone had already decided I would never wake up. I didn’t even get the chance to keep a photo of my parents.
Three months in a coma, and my whole life is gone. Now I have to figure out how to live in what is left.
She holds the envelope out to me. When my fingers touch it, I open it immediately and glance inside. There are just papers and my passport. Nothing else.
My attention drifts back to the bed, to the ring and necklace lying there.
I don’t realize how long I’ve been staring at them.
“You should sell the ring,” Dasha says. “We can find a pawn shop.” She exhales. “I know it might be too soon. But it could give you something to start with.”
Her words hum in my ears while the clock on the wall keeps ticking in the background, its ticking sound growing louder, counting down the seconds until I must leave the hospital and start over.
At some point between my drifting thoughts, Dasha takes Daniel’s blazer and lays it across my back.
It’s a strange feeling, how things stay behind with people, forgotten, while someone else quietly carries them away. The blazer settles over my shoulders, and instead of choking me, it feels warm against my skin.
It still smells like the ocean. The scent of salty water is deep in the fabric, but his cologne has faded away.
My fingers move to the collar, and I pull it tighter around me. Something presses lightly against my ribs. I lift the fabric just enough to find a small pocket sewn into the lining. I slip my fingers inside and pull out an old photograph.
A little girl looks back at me. Her long blonde hair falls over her shoulders, the wind brushing it across her face.
My brows knit as I stare at it. The photo was taken near a cliffside by the ocean. And as far as I know, Daniel doesn’t have any young relatives.
I slide the photo back into the pocket. As I tuck it in, I notice a small letter “R” stitched in white thread beside it.
This blazer isn’t his.
“Earth to Aurelia.” Dasha snaps her fingers in front of my face.
“Yeah.” I lift my head toward her.
“I asked if you are ready to go.”
“Yes.” I clear my throat. I take the small bag with the ring and necklace from the bed and slip it into the pocket of the blazer.
