Remind Me

Chapter Forty-Seven

"It's a concussion," the doctor's voice hits my subconscious ears, but my mind refuses to comprehend it. And my eyes don't want to open. "Highly severe."

"And... What exactly does that mean for her?"

"She's probably going to take things in a lot slower. With the amount of force her head hit both the pole and the cement ground, she could even experience some faulty memory."

"Faulty memory?" The other asks, but I can't put a name to the voice. "She already lost her memory."

"I see that on her records. So that's where this gets messed up. Looking at the MRI, the memory portion of her brain has changed again. It isn't long term, though. It's short term. There's not much more memory damage to be done to this one. Her head's been through a lot of trauma in these past two years, and I'm afraid that even the slightest discrepancy from here on out will set her completely over the edge. It's miracle enough as it is that she lived through this severe of a concussion again."

"So she can't do anything anymore?"

"She can do things, easy things. She can't go upside down in any fashion. She can't do anything that will whip her head around. Nothing wild," the doctor says.

"So you say she's going to have some short term memory problems, right? Does that mean she won't remember a conversation we had seconds before? Will I never be able to have a solid conversation with her again?"

"I can't tell exactly how severely she'll take it until she wakes up. It'll be something to get used to, I'm sure."

"And there's nothing you can do?"

"We give her time and give her space. There's a low chance, but there's still a chance, of her brain overcoming that. Everything depends on her brain's resistant power."

"And that's it?"

"That's it."

*•*•*

As soon as my eyes open, my head is pounding furiously. The light is burning my eyes and the pain throbbing is unbearable.

"Brinley," a voice says, and a hand closes over my own.

I can't even stick on that voice for a second because the pounding in my brain is killing me. I shove my hand against my head, squeezing my eyes shut tight.

"Doctor, we need painkiller."

"Brinley, I need you to look at me for a second," the doctor's voice says. I open my eyes slowly, and everything is blurry and turning black. "I'm going to need you to swallow these pills. They're very effective and you'll find that migrant relieved in about twenty seconds."

I take the pills he puts in my hand immediately, desperate for the relief he promises. And sure enough, my headache dulls to a small throb. As my vision clears up, I find Owen sitting in the chair beside me, Clarin across the room.

"Are you feeling okay, besides the headache? Any stomach aches? Tooth aches? Bodily soreness?" The doctor asks me.

"No," I reply. The only pain I can really recognize is in my head.

"That's a good sign," he says. "And what about blurring vision? When you look left to right, is your vision slower than usual?"

I do as he says, and I feel dizzy immediately. "Yes, it's definitely blurring."

He nods and takes a note on his paper. "And you can name everyone in this room right now?"

I look at the three and nod. "Yes."

"Do you remember why you're here? What happened before?" He asks.

"Mmm..." I search back to the pit of my brain but I can't recall what it was. Why am I in a hospital? "No?"