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I could see his disappointment every time he confirmed I hadn’t remembered anything. I thought about lying, pretending it was coming back to me, but I didn’t even know enough to pull that off. I hated that I was hurting this man who had been nothing but kind to me. I had started dreading his visits because they were just a reminder that I didn’t know who he was… who I was.

I had put some pieces together based on my home. I loved to read, even if I couldn’t remember the stories. I had played the guitar, based on the sheet music and guitar hanging on my wall. Though, when I tried, hoping it would come back like muscle memory, I strummed aimlessly and pointlessly. I also couldn’t cook, being a danger to the kitchen itself.

I looked at my now soggy quesadilla, the scorch marks on the tortilla bloating from the water that was still washing over it. I couldn’t take it for one more moment, a tear slipping free, falling down my cheek and landing in the sink.

And then everything gave way.

A choked sound escaped me before the dam completely broke. I hit the hard floor, my knees and palms slapping against the cold surface as violent, uncontrollable sobs tore through my body. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think.

The tragedy of it was suffocating. I had a family, friends, a home—a whole sanctuary built on love that everyone around me could feel. Everyone except me. The memory loss had built a fortress around my past, leaving me stranded in a wasteland of nothingness. I was on the outside looking in, a stranger desperately beating her hands raw against a locked iron door, screaming for someone to let her in.

I was begging for a single scrap of familiarity, a single spark to light up the dark, but the door remained shut. And the realization that I might never get the key back broke whatever was left of me into pieces.

“Have you reached out to your support system?”

I pursed my lips at my therapist's question and contemplated slamming the laptop screen shut.

“I’ll take that as a no,” she mused. Not unkindly; she was always kind, and I couldn’t help but wonder how far she had to be pushed before she finally snapped.

I used to believe there were good people out there—people who, despite the world around them, were only ever kind, choosing good over bad at every turn. And then I was taken. I was held against my will. I watched myself slip away in the darkness, and I realized that wasn’t possible.

Everyone had bad in them, waiting to emerge.

“What about Silas? Have you reached out to him?”

I shook my head. I didn’t know how to reach out to him. He had stopped by a few times in that first week, but then it was too hard. I couldn’t bear to face the boy born in darkness in the harsh light of reality. My already fractured mind couldn’t consolidate the two, so instead I chose to ignore him. Well, not ignore him, but not take the initiative to see him. It felt easier.

“I don’t know how to talk to any of them,” I explained. “I feel like they expect something from me and I don’t know what.”

Well, I did know, to some extent. They wanted Goldie—the Goldie before. But I didn’t know her, and I didn’t think she was ever coming back. The doctors believed my memories would return with time, but as each day I woke up as a blank slate yet again, my hope waned. I wondered when I would run out of it.

“Have you told them this?”

I pursed my lips again. It was easier than answering.

“Please let me in,” I heard someone calling on the other side of the door and continued to ignore it. I was far too comfortable on my couch, piles of blankets over me, and the idea of seeing anyone felt impossible.

It was hard explaining to anyone how I felt. There was the logic within me that recognized these kind strangers were not the enemy. They were simply taking care of me: doing my dishes, bringing me food, doing my laundry, taking out my trash, loving me in every way they could. They were doing all the things I should have been—the only things I truly remembered. But the idea of pulling myself off my couch was too much, and they were too kind, too willing to leave me to my own devices. Which wasn’t fair of me to think. But a part of me wanted someone to drag me off this couch and force me to be human—to do the mundane tasks that we usually ignored, but that offered stability. Those little tasks were reminders that we were alive and these little things came hand in hand with breathing.

But it was these little mundane tasks that would in practice take minutes that felt impossible.

It just made me feel worse about myself. Why couldn’t I drag myself off my couch? Why couldn't I integrate back into my life, even if I couldn’t remember it? Why couldn’t I just be okay?

But I wasn’t. I was far from it. And I needed help, but I couldn’t bring myself to stand up, to open that door, and ask whoever had come today for help—to get on my knees and confess all my fears, beg for guidance, for love, for whatever help they could give me. So instead I burrowed deeper into my blankets, covering my ears to ignore the pleas just outside, and did my best to exist. Because that was all I could bring myself to do.

“Please, just let me know you’re alive in there!” I realized it was Fai on the other side, his voice raw with desperation as he spoke through the locked and closed door.

I hated the guilt that coursed through me, so I grabbed a spare slipper on the floor and threw it over my head toward the door, where it connected with a thump. Hopefully that was proof of life enough.

Lexington

“River!” I yelled down the hall, checking the clock as I packed my work bag.

He came bounding in, a concerned expression on his face, his light-up sneakers sparkling with each step. “I can’t find Gator.”

I grinned, scooping the stuffed alligator off the counter and dangling it in front of him. “Already taken care of, buddy. Now, did you brush your teeth?”

He nodded, but I could see the guilt written all over his face. He was an incredibly bad liar, but what four-year-old wasn’t?