Page 27 of Midnight Between Us
From the sterile scent of antiseptic trying—and failing—to cover something softer.Faint, familiar.Shampoo, maybe.Hers?Someone else’s soap?It lingers on the sheets like a question no one’s answered, and for a moment, I wish it weren’t there at all.Because if I can’t remember who she is, what’s the point of missing her?
The skin on my left thigh itches.Not a light itch—an impossible, buried-alive kind of itch.The kind that lives beneath the surface, driving you out of your mind because your body refuses to cooperate.
My right hand barely flexes—the gauze tugs when I try, stiff and unforgiving.My shoulders ache like I’ve been stapled to this bed, forgotten here.My gown clings to me, damp with stale sweat.There’s a dull, growing pressure along my hip, like I lost a fight with something I don’t remember.
My mouth tastes like cheap cotton and something worse—regret, maybe.
I want water.Real water.Not the ice chips they keep spooning into my mouth as if I should be grateful.I want answers.I want the scraping behind my ribs to stop every time I think about her voice—the way it cracked when she told me no, she didn’t know me.Like maybe she meant it a little less than she wanted to.
But I don’t ask for anything.
One thing I know is that silence is easier than disappointment—I just don’t know how I learned that.
The door creaks open.
This time, it’s nother.
It’s a man, probably in his forties.Straight-backed and confident, as doctors typically are when they’re not the ones bleeding.He holds a tablet in his hand.Clad in a white coat with a stethoscope, he exudes a practiced calm that indicates he knows exactly how this conversation should proceed.
“Good afternoon,” he says, flipping through notes.“I’m Dr.Aldridge, the neurosurgeon.I’m here to run a few cognitive assessments.Check on your memory.”
I don’t correct him.Not about the time of day—because, for all I know, it’s seven in the fucking morning.Not about my memory either.That part feels more shattered than my body, and I’m not sure which one I’m supposed to be scared of.
He gives me a small smile like I’m a riddle he’s solved before.“Let’s start simple.Do you know what year it is?”
I pause.My mind turns over and finds ...well, nothing.
“No.”
“Current president?”
I blink.President ...I feel like I should know this, but the only thing that comes to mind is something truly stupid, and I just say it: “President Dwayne Elizondo Camacho?”
His mouth twitches, amused.“Close.But not quite.”
He scribbles something on the chart.Probably something like: “patient disoriented but sarcastic as fuck.”
“Do you remember the accident?”
I draw in a shallow breath.“No.”
“What about anything before the crash?”
Was there a crash?Images come to me—hazy and wrong.The chill of air I didn’t breathe.The crush of fog that felt like skin.Water, maybe.Not drowning.Just ...cold.
“Fog.Water.Cold,” I mumble.
He nods.Jots it down.“That’s common.Trauma doesn’t always erase memory—it just fractures it.You might remember pieces.Faces.Sounds.Bits of a song or a smell.”
“I remembered someone,” I say, surprising even myself.
He glances up.Eyes sharper now.
“I don’t know her name,” I continue.Should I tell him that she looked like the doctor who was earlier in the room?I choose not to and add, “But she was there.Not during the accident.Before or maybe after.Somewhere colder than this room.She begged me not to leave.”
A beat passes.He doesn’t say anything.
I sigh and add, “I could feel her presence.”
