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I glance at Dr. Anderson, who doesn’t look happy. I watch him as he swipes his hand down his face and pauses to cup his hand over his mouth. He holds the pose for a minute in thought, his stark blue eyes full of consternation. I catch the two men shifting their eyes toward each other. There seems to be a silent conversation going on between them, all with a simple exchange of looks.
Suddenly, I realize it’s more than my head that’s aching. My brows come together with a new confusion. My backside hurts as well, and it’s the type of pain that has me guessing what kind of accident could cause this. This is more than a head injury, and I’m about to ask about it, when Dr. Anderson speaks up, interrupting my thoughts.
“Well, it appears we’ve got an amnesia issue, Travis.”
“What?” I blurt out. The realization of my predicament has my heart beating fast. I flinch when a machine suddenly begins beeping to my left. Dr. Anderson quickly moves to fiddle with the machine to silence it.
“Travis, we need to get her calmed down,” he says calmly over his shoulder. How can he be so calm and put together at a time like this? I watch through a haze as the doctor lifts a syringe in the air and draws liquid into a needle from a small dark bottle he’s holding upside down. When he’s done filling the syringe, he turns to me, giving me his full attention.
“I know your head hurts like it’s in a vise, so I’m going to give you medication for it. Is that all right with you?” I nod in reply. Dr. Anderson wastes no time as he gently takes my left arm and pricks me in the side of my bicep. I don’t care about the needle; I would take a hundred of them if it will get rid of the splintering headache and backache.
Why can’t I recall anything? I let out a long groan, and my head shouts in protest against the reverberating sound. My brain wants to explode, and my stomach twists with the new knowledge of my amnestic state. I feel as if I’m going to vomit from the sudden confusion and pain. This doctor must be very perceptive, because he immediately pipes in, leaning over the bed rail as he tries to soothe me.
“I want you to focus on your breathing right now. Everything is going to be okay, and you need to know you’re in very capable hands here.” Dr. Anderson gently rubs my shoulder with a fatherly touch and continues to speak in a reassuring tone. “The medicine is going to take a few minutes to get fully into your system, but once it does, you will feel much better. So what I need you to do is try and not tense up. I don’t want you worrying yourself over your memory loss right now. This sort of thing is normal after an accident such as yours. Your memory will return, but you’re going to need quite a bit of rest, and a lot of patience and time.”
I don’t know what to say. What does one say when they don’t remember anything? For some reason, though, I can remember Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, and how she wakes to find herself in a new world, except my new world is minus memories.
I slowly shake my head in befuddlement, numb with the knowledge I’ve lost my memory. I shift my gaze to Travis. “Do you know who I am?” I ask hopefully, praying he knows something about me.
Travis lets go of my hands and cradles my cheeks as tender compassion flashes across his sparkling eyes. He looks pained and conflicted all at the same time, which is odd, since he’s not the one in a hospital bed. His calloused thumbs work in small gentle circles over my cheeks.
“Julianna,” he whispers then pauses, searching the depths of my eyes. “That’s your name, but you let your close friends call you Jules. We’ve only known each other for about a month now.”
I ponder his statement. “What do you call me?” I suddenly feel pressure on the back of my head, and instinctively, my hand raises, moving on automatic without thought, wanting to investigate the damage done to my head. Travis stops my traveling hand by gently grasping my wrist.
“Don’t touch, sweetheart. You’re bandaged up.” He lays my hand back down and then cradles my cheek again, giving me a sexy smirk. “You like me to call you Jules.” He gives me a flirtatious wink, and I feel almost paralyzed under his spell as I take in his suave features and his stark white teeth, which are half-hidden behind his sensually full lips. He’s an enigma, and I seem to forget all my discomfort when he stands here smiling in front of me like this.
