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He took a deep breath, then turned to the doctor. “Is that okay? Can she be alone?”

The doctor shrugged and looked to me. “While you don’t have your historical memories, you are forming new ones as expected. You remember how to do everything, even if you don’t remember how you learned it. You can’t drive yet, but you’re cleared to do everything else. It’s up to you, Goldie.”

It was true. I knew how to cook—at least the mechanics behind it. I could remember how to drive, and I even remembered that the drivers here sucked. I didn’t know the why behind that, but it was something I knew in the marrow of my bones. I knew how to exist; I knew how to survive. I just didn’t know the parts of my life that made me… well, me.

I smiled gratefully and looked to Fai. “I wanna go home.”

“Okay,” he accepted and stood. “Let me make some calls to make sure you have everything you need there. I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Okay.” I smiled and watched him leave the room.

I didn’t remember him, but I knew I cared for him. That was the strangest part of all this. I couldn’t remember these people or my life with them, but how they made me feel still burned deep in my soul. I knew Fai was family deep in my heart; he cared for me like his own child. I knew that, even if I didn’t remember it.

The doctor eyed me for a moment before placing his clipboard on the small table and sitting in Fai’s abandoned chair. “Have you talked to them yet?”

I shook my head. While I didn’t remember anything, I was still an adult, and it was my choice who knew what about my medical records. “I’m not ready.”

“That’s okay,” he mused. “Just remember to keep up with your medication, okay?”

I nodded, and he stood and left, leaving me alone in the room. I collapsed down onto the bed, a sigh escaping my lips. I felt completely exhausted, despite having done nothing over the past week but lie in this bed and talk. I talked to doctors, to police officers, a kind detective, and people who were my friends. That’s what they had said, at least. There were too many faces and names to remember them all, but I was doing my best, writing them in a small notebook I had asked Fai for.

I grabbed it from the nightstand, flipping through the pages:

Jackie

Oliver

Theo

Fai

Darren

The names I was trying to remember. I had Fai’s down; he was with me every day. The others were still a jumbled mess, but I knew with time I would have it all categorized. The only name I didn’t need to write down hadn’t been back to visit me: Lexington. The man with the green eyes I had never forgotten.

I was convinced the eyes I had remembered during my captivity were his, but I couldn’t recall why I would remember them. From what he said, we were barely friends—not much more than acquaintances. Yet it was his eyes that had stayed imprinted in my psyche for months, when everything else was lost in the sea of memories I couldn’t set sail in.

I wanted to ask why he hadn’t visited, but it didn’t feel like my place. No one had brought him up, which made me wonder if it was just a fluke that I had remembered him.

I stood with a grunt, taking a moment to stop the wave of nausea that coursed through me before wandering into the small bathroom. I was dressed in what I was told were my clothes. I knew it was a band T-shirt—I even knew the band—but I didn’t remember how I knew them. The shirt hung off my frame, the change in my body evident. Besides regaining my memory, my number-one goal was to put on weight.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror. The LED lights of the hospital were still uncomfortable for me, and the harsh light illuminated my even harsher reality.

My hair was short, brushing my brows now, my collarbones far too visible, and my dark eyes seemed to be missing a light within them. I gripped either side of the sink as a headache started its rampage through my mind. I squeezed my eyes closed, willing it to pass, but the darkness brought back the memories I wanted to forget: the sound of the metal door opening when Father was visiting, Silas’s cries that I heard through the walls as he begged Father to leave me alone. The darkness that had surrounded me for so long wasn’t left behind, as I had hoped when we escaped. It now lived within me, deep in my mind and soul.

I thought getting Silas and me out of that hellhole meant we would be free, but I still felt caged.

“Goldie!” Fai called, coming back into my room.

I shook away my thoughts and left the bathroom, finding him standing tentatively in the room. He had a worn leather jacket over one arm and a small bag in his other. “I got your discharge papers, and the assigned officers know you’re leaving and where you’re going. Whenever you’re ready, we can leave.”

I swallowed deeply and reached for the jacket. He handed it over, and I pulled it over my shoulders. I had forgotten about the officers who would be following me for the foreseeable future. They still hadn’t found where we were held and didn’t know where our captor was. Silas and I weren’t able to give them any useful information about him, neither of us being able to see him in the dark, nor hearing his voice. Well, Silas had heard him, but only on a few occasions. It was hard for him to describe it to the police, as he didn’t know what to compare it to. I had a rough idea of how tall he was and his general build, but that didn’t narrow down the search.

Two officers would be following me until he was found or the threat was gone. I didn’t mind; they wouldn’t be close, and any extra security would be beneficial.

I stuffed my hands into my jacket pockets and glanced around the hospital room. I wasn’t taking anything with me. The clothes we were found in were now bagged by investigators, and the very few things that I did have fit in my jacket pockets. I knew I had a life I was going back to, but in so many ways it felt like I was starting over. Starting clean. “I-I think I’m ready.”

I wasn’t ready to leave, but I was ready to start figuring out who I truly was—who I wanted to be.