"Brittany?"
Brittany stirred at the mention of her name but didn't open her eyes.
"Brittany hunny, are you awake?"
Knowing that the voice was merely asking the question to signal that they knew she was, she reluctantly lifted her eyelids just enough and looked to her side to where her mother was perched on the edge of the bed smiling adoringly at her.
"Hmmmm" she hummed lazily and closed her eyes again. She rolled her head away to show that she wasn't quite ready to be awake to the world yet.
"What is it, Mum? I'm sleeping."
"I know, Snowflake but I just wanted to check in on you, see if you're feeling any better." Mrs Pierce cooed with worry, "How are you feeling?"
Confused at the unnecessary worry lacing her Mothers voice and the use of her pet name, Brittany groaned at the effort to sit up and face her mother. With a sleepy palm she wiped her eyes and tried to focus her vision into reality.
"What? What are you talking about Mum, I'm fine. Are you feeling okay?" She retaliated with a sloppy grin.
Her mother's face fell into a mixture of concern and her own version of confusion.
"Brittany... do you not remember what happened yesterday?" Mrs Pierce brought her hand up and placed it on Brittany's arm for comfort and squeezed to reassure Brittany of whatever it was she wasn't understanding.
"What do you mean? Of course I rememb-.." Brittany started but then realised she didn't. Why couldn't she remember yesterday? She remembered going to school and play fighting with Jett, kissing Artie when he told her she was beautiful and laughing at his impressions but then after that... there was nothing. No, not nothing. There was something. There was definitely something. Like a faded image of sorts that had been washed out and then tucked into the back of her mind. Like her subconscious had drowned it, buried it and held it under a wave of doubt, keeping it there till it could decide whether or not it should live. "I... I remember sitting in Mr Kroll's class but then after that there's nothing, like there wasn't 'a rest of the day'. I don't understand. What happened?"
Brittany looked into her mother's eyes and saw that they were glistening with tears. She took her Mum's hand that was squeezing her arm little too tightly and laced their fingers together. She tried to show on her own face that she was okay now. That whatever had transpired yesterday hadn't leaked over into today.
Sensing this, her Mother smiled sweetly and let out a soft breath of relief. "I don't exactly know what happened hunny and neither does the Doctor. But according to your teacher and your friends, you were fine and then about 10 minutes into the lesson you just took off running. You were found unconscious in the woods not far from your school an hour later. " With those last few words, a crack in her Mothers voice betrayed her calm facade and a treacherous tear tumbled down her face.
"I was?" Brittany asked with a whisper of disbelief.
"Yes. Artie said that the class started, and then he noticed that you were acting a bit strange. He said he reached over to see if you were okay and then you freaked out a bit, like you didn't know where you were or who he was or what was happening."
Brittany just stared past her mother, focusing on nothing in particular. She ran? Why? Why would she run? Where to or who from? Why would she freak out on Artie? She tried to dig past the blockage in her mind that protected the answers but it didn't move, it didn't flinch. It just sat there, teasing her with the possibility of being penetrated, secure in its evasiveness. She could feel herself getting more frustrated and scared, not because she was overly shocked at what she was being told, more so at the fact that it all felt so familiar yet she couldn't say why. She could feel the image tingling in her mind, rattling its watery cage, calling for her. Letting her know that there was truth in her mother's words and a secret in its keep.
Moments of silence stretched between them and Brittany just continued to stare. She could feel her mother panicking more and more with every passing second but she didn't want to break her concentration. If she talked or moved, the memory might sink further behind its wall and for some reason, she knew it was important that that did not happen. If she could just lure it in, bait it, convince it to grab the hook and hold on, then maybe she could reel it in and know it. But with a flash of a waving hand and a calling of her name, Brittany blinked and the line was broken.
"Snowflake, are you listening to me?"
Blinking a few more times to rehydrate her eyes, Brittany refocused her attention back on her mother.
"Huh, what? Sorry, I went into a little bit of a dwam there."
Mrs Pierce sighed and gazed off to the side. She opened her mouth a couple of times as if she was about to say something but couldn't quite figure out how to say it. Brittany waited patiently and prepared herself for whatever it was her Mother was struggling to communicate. She knew that it was either going to be the beginning of a very uncomfortable conversation or that her Mother was about to lecture her on something that every parent feels they must.
With one final guppy breath, Mrs Pierce turned back to her daughter with a seriousness Brittany had only ever seen a couple of times.
"Brittany, I'm only going to ask this once and once only. And the only reason I am asking is so that we have covered all ground." She said pointedly.
"Uhmmm... okay?" Brittany said expectantly. A disclaimer for an upcoming conversation always gave her the fear. The fear of an awkward, intimate moment that her parents had a habit of dropping her in and the fear started to get the better of her. She untangled her fingers from her mothers and used them to fidget with her bed covers. She averted her eyes to her bedroom door and prayed that this wasn't going to be as painful as the sex talk.
"Are you on drugs?"
It took just a moment for Brittany to register what she had just been asked but as soon as it was processed and her brain understood it, she couldn't help but let out an abrupt laugh. She looked back at her mother to see if the joke was playing on her face too but it remained sturdy in it sincerity which only made the question all the more amusing. Brittany couldn't help the uprising of giggles that burst out of her. She began to relax, realising that her Mothers needless build up had peaked and the fear was not to be feared at all.
"Brittany, this isn't funny!" Her Mother protested.
"Drugs?" Brittany laughed, "Mum, come on. You think I'm on drugs?"
"Well it is an explanation for what happened yesterday and for your behaviour and the Doctor wanted me to rule it out!" Her mother defended.
With her laughter subsiding and the need to sooth her Mothers worries, Brittany coughed to regain composure and took back her Mothers hand. "Mum, I'm not on drugs. I wouldn't even know where to get drugs. And even if I was going to do drugs, why would I do them at school?"
Mrs Pierce listened carefully and nodded at her daughters reasoning but maintained eye contact. Brittany knew she was searching for any hint of lie in her words which, in her opinion, was pretty pointless. They both knew, lying had never been something Brittany could pull off or was very comfortable with. It was part of the reason she was nicknamed Snowflake - expose her to any sort of heat and she melted. But seeing her Mother forget this, showed that it was important and wanting to be done with the conversation, she remained superfluously stoic.
"Fine. I believe you."
"Thank you!" Brittany exclaimed and dramatically threw her hands out as though she were appealing for witnesses.
Her mother laughed at her exaggeration and playfully pushed Brittany's shoulder. The atmosphere lightened and a sense of relief shrouded them both.
"I'm sorry, Snowflake but I did have to ask. And this is still something we need to address even if you do feel fine now. People don't just get up and flee a place they're comfortable with and then be found unconscious in the freezing cold. I'm going to book you an appointment and we're going to get some tests done and we're going to get to the bottom of this."
Brittany collapsed the muscles holding up her head and let it fall against the headrest, "Mum, I hate hospitals and Doctors and needles and questions." She whined petulantly, "I'm fine! I promise! It was probably just the heat! You know I don't do well in the heat! And they pump that place with so much heat that I feel like an overdone cupcake!"
"Well hunny, you're my cupcake," her mother chucked, "And besides, it would make me feel a whole lot better. I couldn't live with myself if I let this go and something went wrong. Let me be sure."
"Ugh, fine..." Brittany complained, "Now, I just wish I had been on drugs."
"Hey! We do not joke about that." Her Mother half-heartedly chastised.
Brittany returned a half-hearted apologetic smile. She resumed a more upright position and stretched out the stress of the morning. Her mother got up from where she had been sitting and started making her way towards the door. Brittany watched her leave only to realise she had been unconscious and that irrational panic of not knowing the time, set in about her.
"Wait, Mum! What time is it?"
Her mother turned to face her whilst simultaneously opening the door and tilted her head. "Eh, I think it's a little after 7, why?"
"In the morning?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Uhmm School?" Brittany said, not understanding how that wasn't obvious. She swung her legs out of her bed and made her way over to her wardrobe.
Watching, her Mother let go of the door handle and made a couple of quickened steps towards her. "Brittany, you don't have to go in today. You should rest. I know you feel fine but your body is obviously needing a day or two of rest. Your teachers will understand."
Brittany rolled her eyes at her mother's objections. Usually she wouldn't mind a couple of days out of Hell; in fact often she wished for it. But that uneasiness hadn't left her. That awareness of the amnesic memory, trapped in her own mind's stubbornness was still there. She had ignored the gnawing and did her best to suppress her own curious worry for the sake of her Mother but she needed to know. She couldn't sit here all day, torturing herself with ignorance. Diluting the truth with fabricated explanations and plausible place holders. Whatever the truth was, she wasn't going to find it in a Netflix marathon.
"No, Mum, I know. But I don't want to just sit here all day feeling fine. I'll be bored and lonely."
"Well, I can stay with you? Hmm? I can phone work and let them know what's going on. I could even try and get that appointment for today and then after we can watch a few movies? Eat some junk food?"
Her Mother said this with her voice building like it was the most increasingly exciting idea that had ever been concocted and Brittany could visibly see her being convinced by her own words. Brittany on the other hand couldn't think of anything worse and knew that if she didn't shut it down, it would most likely happen. She didn't want to come clean about why she wanted to go to school but she also knew that lying wasn't an option. All she could do was appeal to her Mother's rational side and hope that a redacted form of the truth would be enough.
"Jesus. Mum, please no. Don't call in sick to work when there is none sickness to be had here. I'm fine, really. And the appointment can wait. If I go in, I can talk to Jett and Artie and see if there is anything that might help figure out what happened, ye know? Something that I can possibly tell the Doctors?"
She could see her mum accepting what she was saying. Pandering to what her Mother was most concerned about was always the way to go. She was wavering and it showed.
"And besides," Brittany continued, fussing with a jumper she had taken from the wardrobe. "I want to find who found me. It was probably dumb luck since it was in the middle of the evergreens and anyone decent would have done the same thing and helped me but I want to know who it was. I want to find them and thank them."
"Oh well, it was a couple of boys in your year, I think. I talked to them yesterday when they called me down to the school."
"You did? Who was it?"
"Awk two lovely boys. Quite tall, very handsome. What was their names again?" Her Mother wondered to herself whilst Brittany busied herself tying together an outfit. "Oh, I know! Mike Chang and Noah something. You know them?"
At the names her mother recalled, Brittany looked up from her task. Mike Chang and Noah something? She had never heard those names. She knew the names of pretty much everyone in her year and if they were as tall and as handsome as her Mother seemed to think, she would know them even if they were in the years below.
"No."
