I D E N T I T Y

The Cruel Aftermath

One week later:

Beep-beep-beep

Beep-beep-beep

Would you shut up, I glare at the heart rate monitor beside me.

I'm fine. I'm perfectly fine but no one will believe me. They won't let me leave this stupid hospital. My arm is facing the worse of it, looking more like a mangled mess of scars and burnt meat than an arm. But even so, I could handle it myself if they would just let me leave. I know I could.

I turn over in my hospital bed, twisting the thin cotton sheets. Rachel sits in a chair beside me, like she's done ever since I woke up. I snap to get her attention. She looks up at me hopefully, but the hope fades when I merely gesture for her to close the curtains. The sunlight's giving me a headache.

When I first awoke almost a week ago, I had a million questions. A thousand thoughts that worked me into a panic attack. They had to sedate me to get me to calm down. The next time I awoke, the panic was gone. Everything inside me felt gone. I haven't spoken since.

But I have written. Three things. Over and over again. I'm trying to remember, trying to hold on to what's important.

1. I am Peyton Comber
2. Allie Baker died for me
3. Kevin Helms might die for me

I haven't cried. I can't. I don't feel anything. And I thought that maybe if I wrote those things down I might feel something, anything, but it's all numb. Everything that mattered seems to be withering away, and I don't even know how I feel because I can't feel anything.

The doctors won't let me see him, they won't let me see Kevin. He's only a floor above mine and yet they won't let me see him. The first time I asked, my nurse said I wasn't well enough to see him. The second time she merely shook her head and looked at me with pity.

"Oh dear girl, you don't want to see him. It would only hurt you worse." She said, setting my tray of food on my lap and removing the untouched one she had brought earlier.

I haven't bothered to ask again, I'm too scared. I need to see him, though. It's my fault he's there. It's my fault he might die. He can't die. Kevin can't die. I wouldn't be able to be fixed if he did, wouldn't be able to feel anything again.

No one else can die because of me. They can't.

Allie...I don't even know if they found her body. I don't even know what her parents think. They know she's...I told the doctors and I can only assume they told her parents. Oh how angry they must be at me. I didn't mean to drag her into my mess.

She was only seventeen...she had so much more life to live.

And she'll never get it, because of me.

"Peyton? Peyton honey?" Rachel calls softly. I only look at her in response.

She sighs. "Jacklyn just called, she said you might want to watch what's on the news."

Of course I would. The whole town's buzzing with the latest incident. They all want to know why Peyton Comber is in the hospital again, what she did this time, and is she okay. No one's bothered to ask anything about Kevin, even though he's the one in the coma this time. Even though he might've lost everything: His memories, his life, his identity...It kills me that he might have to go through the same thing I did.

And, selfishly, a part of me keeps panicking over the fact that he may not remember me.

Everything we've been through together just erased from his mind. His whole life gone and no trace of it left behind. What if he wakes up and I'm nothing more than a stranger to him? Just a meaningless tall blonde girl who, in another life, he thought was worth dying for. The ache of it all is so sudden and so sharp that for a moment I think I might burst into tears. But still, no tears come. And the sudden pain is quickly numbed.