I tried to relax, but I couldn’t.
I was in pain, and the not knowing how I came to be in hospital was stressing me out. The doctor came to my bedside and asked me to do a few things before we could talk. I followed his little penlight, then his finger, then when he touched a part of my body with his pen, he asked me if I could feel it. I told him that I could feel everywhere the pen touched. He asked me to say the names of random objects when he pointed them out. He asked me to move my arms and legs and toes. It pleased him when I completed each task.
“Can you remember anything about your time with us, Noah?” he quizzed, and I noted then that he spoke with an accent. “Anything at all.”
“A tiny bit,” I answered. “I woke up once before now, but I must have fallen back asleep. I opened my eyes and I was here, but I don’t know how I got here. The nurse says I was in an accident but I can’t remember any accident.”
He nodded and made a note of some sort on the chart in his hand. We went through a series of questions about my well-being, about my pain level from one to ten, and a bunch of other things I didn’t really care about. When the examination was over and the doctor had finished making notes on what I now knew was my personal patient chart, he looked up at me and smiled once more.
“I know this is tiresome, but I could go back to jail if I don’t follow protocol.”
I blinked. “You’ve been to jail?”
“Once,” he answered with a nod. “In Monopoly. It wasn’t fun, I’ll tell you that much.”
I stared at him in silence, then he laughed and looked at the nurse and said, “Tough crowd.”
I humoured him when his gaze returned to mine. “Ha ha.”
“Sorry.” He grinned. “No more bad jokes.”
“You can tell me a million of them after you answer my questions,” I bargained. “How does that sound?”
“Like a deal.” The doctor winked. “Fire away.”
I had so many questions that I needed the answers to, but I didn’t know where to begin. At random, I picked a few and said, “What happened to me? Why don’t I remember anything? Why is talking hard?”
The nurse reached over and patted my hand when my voice cracked. I was scared, really scared. Having no memory of how I came to be in the hospital was worse than anything I had ever experienced before. I felt very vulnerable.
“What I’m about to say will sound very scary,” Doctor Abara said, “but trust me when I say that, right now, you’re okay and you’re in the best place receiving the best care.”
That doesn’t sound very good.
I swallowed. “Okay.”
“You were in an accident where you hit your head very hard, so to protect itself your body has been in a coma for fifteen days.”
“What?” I exclaimed in shocked disbelief. “A coma? Fifteen days?”
The machine next to me started beeping rapidly, but one screen-tap from the nurse silenced it.
“I know it must be startling to hear, but you’re okay,” he stressed gently. “What you need to do right now is take a few calming breaths. Noah, look at me. Noah!”
I lifted my hands to my head and whimpered. The throbbing pain had drastically worsened; it was so bad that I could barely hear anything the doctor was saying. I felt my eyes roll back and my vision started to fade to nothingness, when suddenly my head dropped back against my pillow. I fell into darkness, feeling scared and very much alone.
CHAPTER TWO
NOAH
Eighteen years old . . .
“Noah?” His voice drifted towards me like a song on the wind. “If you’re playin’ hide and seek, ye picked a rubbish spot to hide, green eyes. I’m already in your house, you can’t exactly get away from me.”
I opened my mouth, not knowing what I was going to say in response, but I didn’t have to worry about it when hands clamped down on my waist, making me screech in surprise. Warm, strong arms slid around me to keep me from darting away, and low laughter filled the room.
“Gotcha.”
I shivered as his hot breath fanned my ear and neck.
“I wasn’t hiding,” I said, lifting my chin. “I was just . . . I was just—”
“Ye were just what? Lookin’ behind the bathroom door for someone else?”
I blew out a big puff of air as frustration gripped me.
“Fine,” I grunted. “You caught me; I was hiding.”
My body turned to face his, and when he nudged under my chin with his finger, encouraging me to look up at him, my stomach burst into a mess of butterflies. I was a tall girl, taller than every girl I went to school with. I stood five foot ten inches, but Elliot’s massive six foot five inches dwarfed me and made me feel tiny, feminine.