I woke up, not knowing where I am. The room is unfamiliar. My first instinct is to scream my lungs out. Though, when I look around the room, I notice how this room is something that I would totally organize. Except, it's way too clean to be my room.
There is a huge window, with the curtains pulled back so the sun won't shine on my face. When I look at the clock I notice that it's way past school time and around noon.
The door opens and some random guy comes in, "Lauren, Leah wants to see you in a couple of minutes."
"Leah?" Who the hell is Leah?
"Yes, you know, your best friend." I look at him like he's crazy.
"Do I know you?" Now he's looking at me like I'm crazy.
"This isn't funny." He obviously thinks I'm joking. "I'm your Dad."
The man that said he was Dad came over to the bed where I was laying and put his head to my forehead, "Are you feeling okay?"
"I don't know." I sit up from the bed only to notice I'm in a tank-top and some shorts, at least I don't sleep in the nude.
"Do you remember anything?" He had a worried look in his eye.
"I don't think so." I didn't know what to think really.
"Well then you're staying home today." He pushed me back down into my bed and my head hit the pillow. "I'll call Leah and tell her you aren't feeling well. I'll be in around 8 hours from now. You think you'll be okay? Feel free to explore the house."
"Thanks." I re-closed my eyes, hoping all of this would be a dream. Then I heard the door close.
I blinked a couple of times before I shut my eyes once again and went to dream land. After a couple of more hours asleep, I think, I felt myself being shook awake.
"Lauren!" Someone yelled as they just kept shaking me. "Your Dad called and told me that you weren't feeling well, so I decided to drop by and see how you were doing."
I opened my eyes to see a pretty Indian girl standing in front of me, smiling in such a care-free manner. I take it this must be Leah.
"How did you get in here?" Did she break into my house?
"I used the key you gave me forever ago!" She held up a key that was a faded blue and had BFF written on it. "What's wrong with you?"
"I have no memory." I used a blunt statement to inform her.
Leah sat there and waited for me to let on that it was a joke, but her smile fell once she realized that I was being serious. "You don't remember me?"
"I'm sorry." I looked from her down to the light blue comforter.
"Don't be, it's not your fault." She hugged me while I tensed up a little bit, "You want to come back to my house and see if any of your memories spark?"
"Sure." I got out of my bed and headed over to a door that which I think would be my closet. I ended up being right.
I slipped off my tank-top and shorts, all the while having my back to Leah. All my clothes were hung up and nice, I think we might have a house maid.
I first looked through my jeans to see that I at least had some fashion sense in this life, skinny jeans all the way. So, I slipped on my skinnies and started looking though my shirts. It wasn't bad. There were a bunch of name brands and band tees. This reminded me of my closet back home.
Home.
That word hit me like a bullet. My home, back in Georgia. I'm Lauren Reagan. I don't belong here, wherever I am. Everybody must miss me like crazy, probably worried sick about me. Maybe I never existed as Lauren Reagan, maybe it was just a very long and detailed dream.
"What's my full name Leah?" Her head snapped from looking at my curtains to looking at my back.
"Lauren Nicole Reagan." Well, that's weird. Same name for me, yet I'm in a totally different place. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." I rubbed the back of my head a little bit. "It's just, I have memories as being someone else, yet I have the same name. "
"Memories of someone else?" She looked at me skeptically.
"Yeah. Like, my name is Lauren Nicole Reagan. I live in Georgia. My best friends are Victoria and Elise. I liked a boy name Graison. My parents are named Lori and Kevin, and they're divorced. I'm in a magnet school and taking mostly AP classes. I'm obsessed with music. I don't know what I'm doing here."
"So, you are a totally different person?" She looked at me like I was an alien from another planet. Why do I keep getting such weird looks?
"Yeah, I guess in a sense." I slipped on some random shirt that I liked. "Like, I have the memories of another person while I'm stuck in this body. I can learn to be me again, learn the memories. I'm practically a new person."
Leah didn't seem too thrilled about this. I understand how she must feel right now. I, well the old me I guess, was Leah's best friend. Now she has someone totally different in that place. I don't think I'd like that very much either.
"Leah, how old are you?" I stood up and sat down again on my bed, beside her.
"I'm 17 and a senior in high school." I looked to my left to see a mirror right by my bed. I look exactly the same. Same blue eyes. Same black hair. Same freckles everywhere, even the odd one under the eye. Kind of creepy in a way.
"Am I 17 too?" I asked curiously. Obviously, if she is 17 then I should be too.
"Nope, you're 15 and still a sophomore." She picked at a string that was coming off of my comforter.
"Why are we different ages?" I wondered. "Aren't best friends usually the same age?"
She gave me a crooked smile. "We've never really been ones to go by the book."
The next thing I know I'm in an old Honda, not sure what brand it was. We drove for about 5 minutes till we reached this nice medium sized house. There were 3 other cars in the driveway.
A boy came bounding out of the house with somewhat unruly hair going everywhere. He was very tall and had the same russet color skin that Leah had. As soon as he saw me a grin hit his face as he yelled, "Lauren!", and enveloped me in a hug. I wasn't sure what to do.
"Seth!" Leah whispered to him harshly, "Get off of Lauren!"
Seth sort of jumped when he heard the bitter words of his sister, not really sure of what he had done wrong.
"Lauren?" He noticed at how tense I was. "Are you okay?"
"I'm sorry…" I pulled away from him and went over by Leah.
"This is Seth." She pointed to the confused boy that stands in front of us. "He's my 14 year old brother, practically your younger brother to."
"What's going on?" Seth gave us strange looks.
"Lauren lost her memory." Seth turned towards me again and offered me his hand to shake, with a lop-sided grin spread out across his face.
"Do you think we should take her over to Embry's with us tonight?" Seth asked Leah, while Leah just sort of winced and turned away from him.
"Maybe seeing some of the guys will help her." Leah soon caught onto his plan, while grabbing my arm and dragging me into the house.
We spent the next couple of hours just looking through a bunch of old scrapbooks with pictures of me and Leah doing various things. Seems like Leah enjoys doing scrapbooks.
There were 5 different scrapbooks: L & L, The Clearwater Family Reunion (which I'm in…a lot), Leah's 16th Birthday Party, Lauren and Embry, Leah and Sam.
We first started with L & L. All of the pictures were composed of me and Leah, nobody else. All the pictures were from all over the years it seems. From when we were babies to a bunch of recent photos. At the point where all the pictures stopped, there was still a lot of room for us to put in some photos.
Leah brought out a camera with a smile on her face and told me to smile. A bright flash blinded me when she took the picture and I saw spots for the next couple of minutes.
"This will be the next picture to go into the album!"
The next album was Leah's 16th Birthday Party. There were tons of people in it, the only people I could recognize was Leah, Seth, and me. When I asked her if I knew all these people she just sort of gave me a sad smile.
Then after that album was The Clearwater Family Reunion. Once again, I only recognized the people I knew. Except, my dad was in a couple of the pictures this time.
Next album was Leah and Sam. There were tons of pictures of Leah and this guy. As soon as we got to that album, Leah walked out of the room crying. Seth shot me a glance before he went to go help out his sister. I'm not really sure why she was crying.
Now, this brings me to the album I'm about to open now: Lauren and Embry. When I open the album I see a picture of me and this Indian boy kissing. I continued to flip through the pages looking at all the pictures; most of them were all lovey-dovey. I had always wanted a relationship like this, and I seemed to have had it.
My stomach clenches as I keep looking through the album. I don't remember this boy; yet we seemed so in love. I had to admit, he is really cute, but I'm not so sure.
I hear a noise behind me, so I quickly turn around to see Seth walking back into the room. I wanted to know who this Embry person was.
"Who is Embry?" This question seems to knock him back.
"Embry is your boyfriend." He sits down beside me and picks up the photo album, quickly turning to near the back. He points to a picture of me and Embry on the beach during the sunset, holding hands. My head was on his shoulder while he had his arm around me. "This was your one year anniversary a couple of months ago."
"How will he react to me not having my memory?" The question was unavoidable, if I am with him then he needs to know.
"I'm not sure." Seth scratched the back of his head. "I guess we'll find out tonight."
A couple of minutes later Leah came out, her eyes only slightly swollen and red. She sat down right between me and Seth.
"Leah, whose Sam?" I asked about the person I had seen her dating.
Leah took a deep breath before she started to talk, "Sam is an old boyfriend of mine. We recently broke up and he started dating my cousin."
"He's dating your cousin?" I don't know this Sam guy, but if anyone does that then they obviously aren't a very good person to associate with.
As soon as that came out of my mouth, she started crying again. She lunged at me and curled her head into the nape of my neck. She continued crying for another 10 minutes before she just fell asleep from being exhausted.
Seth picked her up from being against me and carried her off to some other place in the house. I feel so bad for Leah.
"She'll sleep it off." Seth said while leaning against the doorframe, "I don't think she's going to come with us to Embry's though."
I just nodded my head while Seth came around to where I was sitting, sat on the couch with me, and we watched a movie for the next couple of hours.
