Page 74 of Rock Me

She pauses, then nods again, slowly. "Yes."

Fuck.

"Paige." I say, trying to urge her to give me more information but it sounds more accusatory than I meant to.

"I'm sorry. We, um, he and I agreed that it would be better to give you some time to heal first. You were pretty distressed when he came the first time."

"Oh my god." My head suddenly starts to pound, and I close my eyes, trying to brush away the stars that appear. I was barely dealing with one forgotten, let alone two, one who I've obviously had an intimate relationship with.

"It's okay, honey. We'll sort it out," she says, squeezing my hand.

"I don't want to sort it out!" I burst out loud, and she flinches but doesn’t say anything. "I don't feel ANYTHING for him, in fact, the last thing I DO remember is being utterly disgusted by him!" I shout even louder, finally ready to verbalize the feelings I've been having since he came into my room. "I don’t understand how this happened. It just doesn’t make any sense!!"

"Honey," she says softly, patting my shoulder. "You've got an injury. This is part of the recovery."

"Then I don't want to fucking recover," I yell, the anger still bubbling inside me.

"I know. I'm sorry. It sucks," she says. And I feel instantly bad for yelling, even if it wasn’t meant to be at her. Not after everything she's done for me. "Maybe, though. Maybe just give him a chance. I mean you are starting to remember a few more things slowly, maybe he'll come back to you soon."

"But what about Jez?" I say. Asking her the question, I've been asking myself since I found out I apparently have a boyfriend.

"What about him? Is he your boyfriend?"

"No. Not that I know of," I have to admit.

"Not that I know of either. You never mentioned him to me before. But Chris... Chris I know about."

"Shit." I lay my head down on her shoulder.

She sighs and brushes the hair from my forehead. "Don't think about it too much more tonight, honey. You need some rest."

"Yes, she does," we hear a voice at the door. "You are going to need your rest... so that you can go home in a few days."

"What?" Paige says, jumping to her feet, her mouth dropping open.

"What are you saying, doctor?" I ask him, afraid he's going to say it’s a joke.

He grins, like he’s used to this idiocy over happy news. "Well, we've looked at your test results from this morning, and it looks like everything's recovering as it should. Now, I know you still have a problem with your amnesia, but there's nothing we can do but monitor that. Otherwise, your skull fracture is all healed, your neck seems to be fine. You can go home."

All of the last few minutes is forgotten and Paige and I turn to each other and scream.

"YESSSSSSSSS!"

"FUCK YAYYYYYYYY"

The doctor grimaces and covers his ears and waits for us to calm down.

"Yes, well. Um, I'm glad you're happy. I'll come back tomorrow and we'll talk about what needs to be done when you go, but I'd say by Friday, you can get on out of here."

My whole body feels light, a weight lifted. "Oh my god, doctor, thank you!" I gush.

Paige runs over to him and gives him a big hug. He just stands there like a totem pole, but doesn’t look too unhappy. He gives me a nod and a smile before he leaves.

"Oh, Noémie ! You can go home!" Paige squeals.

I look at her, disbelievingly. "I know! I can’t believe it!"

"I'm going to get everything ready, okay? Don't you worry about a thing. I'll going to clean your room, shoo away the spiders, organize a huge party, maybe see if your Mom can come up!" It's the second time someone paced happily in my room that day, reeling off things on their fingertips.

"Hey, Paige," I call out to her, but she doesn’t hear me.

I grab a cushion and launch it at her head. She barely notices it bouncing off her cheek but she does turn around.

"Thank you," I say. And she grins.

"Paige and Noémie, together again!” she sings, doing a silly dance.

"Hey, shut up for a minute. Listen to me." She sits down and I take her hand in mine this time. "Thank you, for everything." She squirms a little, like the gratitude is uncomfortable for her. But I need her to know. "Thank you. I... I don't know where I'd be if it wasn't for you. There's no way I could've afforded all this. I’d be in some hospital, not knowing who or where I was. And God knows how long the insurance would’ve held out. I’m probably alive because of you.”

"Hey. I'm probably alive because of you."

“Well, that we know is true.”

We grin at each other until our faces get sore, and go back to dancing around the room.