Each Moment Lost to the Past
Chapter 1
Bella's POV
The familiar soft click and a swooshing of air alerts me to the entrance of someone in my room. The room I'm in and the sound of the door are one the only familiar things to me now. And the strangers, not the strangers themselves but the presence of them, that come in and out to prod me and ask questions about if I remember anything new.
As the tapping of shoes hesitantly draw closer, I struggle to keep my breathing regular and eyes from fluttering in my semblance of sleep.
It's the third day that I've been here in the hospital, and the woman who was beside me when I woke up very rarely leaves my side. I wish she would. Her crying makes me even more anxious and her petting attention and attempts at comfort make me uncomfortable. She is a stranger to me. I'm told she's my mother.
She stops at the very edge of my bed, and I have to restrain myself from flinching when something brushes against my face. Thin fingers tuck my hair behind my ear and linger. There is a miserable little sniffle that has guilt crawling like a worm into my chest.
I was told that we were in a car wreck, which I figured just by where I woke up. Rene, the woman who is my mother, was teaching me how to drive at the time when the other car came around the bend to fast. Luckily, no one was injured too terribly other than a few bumps and bruises and a broken arm on the other driver's side. Except for me. Apparently, my mind is broken.
The doctors wanted me to go home yesterday, but Rene insisted we stay even though they say that there is nothing they can do. I have a mild concussion, and I have no memories. The first problem is not uncommon, and there's not much that they can do about the second. They said that the mind is a tricky thing. Not much is known about memory loss; it will come back on its own, or it won't.
Rene didn't like that diagnosis, though I'd take it if I can just get out of this place. I get the strange impression that I didn't like hospitals before I lost my memories, either.
There is the soft click and swish of the door, familiar, like the monotonous ticking of the clock on the wall. There is the tap-tap of a stranger's shoes entering the room- maybe another doctor come to try and convince the sniffling woman that there is nothing they can do for me.
"Rene?" and unfamiliar voice asks, sounding hesitant and awkward. Worried too.
"Charlie," the woman by my head breathes, and moves quickly in his direction. There is the rustle of clothing, maybe a hug, and more or Rene's weeping. "Oh, Charlie, you made it."
Curiosity burns at me, along with a faint familiarity with the name, and I'm half tempted to 'wake up' just to see who this new stranger is that is able to comfort the woman without being screamed at. I don't, though. No curiosity could tempt me enough to willingly try and face my 'mother.'
"Do they know anything? How is she?" The man rumbles quietly, clearly making an effort to not 'wake' me.
"The doctors here are useless. They don't know how to fix her- they say there's nothing that they can do!" Rene moans miserably.
It's quiet for a bit, and I can't help shifting slightly. Do sleeping people remain so still? I don't think so. I wish they would just leave so I can stop pretending. They come closer to the bed.
"Bella?" Rene calls softly, laying a hand on my shoulder.
Reluctantly, I go through the fake motions of 'waking up.' I shift, moan a bit, and rub tiredly at my eyes. That last part isn't fake. I'm exhausted.
I blink my eyes open slowly, catching my first sight of the new stranger. He's middle aged. Has a full head of dark hair. A mustache. He stares at me in so much concern and hope that I know that I'm related to him in some way.
"Bella," Rene says, drawing my attention to her tear-streaked face hovering over me way too close for comfort. "Do you recognize this man?"
"Um…" I say, slowly sitting up and briefly debating lying and saying that I do, just so she won't inevitably start crying again. That lie could very easily be disproven, though. "Sorry," I mumble, turning my eyes to the white bedsheets beneath me.
Rene starts weeping again, and I grimace.
The man puts a comforting hand on her shoulder and whispers something in her ear. I relax slightly when the woman makes a break for the door, wiping at her puffy eyes, before I turn wearily to the man I'm now alone with.
He offers a small smile. It's awkward, but strangely comforting. At least he's not crying.
"Hello, Bella," He says quietly, holding out his hand in what I assume is a handshake. I slowly take the offered hand. It's warm and calloused, like he actually works with his hands. His grip is sturdy, but gentle. He doesn't look offended when I let go quickly. "I'm Charlie. I'm your father."
Dreed envelopes my chest and I immediately drop my gaze to my lap. "I'm sorry," I mumble again.
"It's okay," he says gently, and I wearily glance back up at him. He is very different than Rene, I can't help noticing. He doesn't reach out to touch me again, and I find myself relaxing slightly and becoming more curious. "I'm sorry it took me so long to visit. I live in Washington state and I had to set things up at work so that I could be gone for a while."
I hadn't even thought that I had a dad. The thought hadn't even crossed my mind the three days that I've been here. I suppose other things have been occupying my thoughts.
"Where do you work?" I find myself asking, before wincing. Asking questions about things I should know always sets Rene off. Charlie only offers another little awkward smile that is starting to become as familiar as the click and swish of the door.
"I'm the Chief of Police in a small town called Forks." Another twinge of familiarity hits me, making my breathe hitch and my brow to furrow as I search desperately for what I could be remembering. Nothing is forthcoming. It's a very distant recognition, like I might have heard something about Chief of Polices or something about forks. Maybe I'd heard one of the doctors say something about it. Disappointed, I let my concentration fade as my head gives a dull throb of protest.
"You alright, Bella?" Charlie asks, and I remember that he is still standing a little way from my bed.
"Yeah," I say quickly. "Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry, my head just started hurting a little."
"Do you want me to get a doctor?" He asks in concern, taking an aborted step forward before he seems to mentally check himself and return to his previous position.
"No, I'm okay," I quickly dismiss. Doctors only ask a million questions I don't know the answers to and make my head hurt even more. "I think I'm just tired. Apparently, I don't sleep very well in hospitals."
That seems to get that familiar little smile again from the man.
"Yeah, you've always been like that. Always hated hospitals, though you always seemed to end up here more than most kids. I'll talk to Rene and try to get her to let you go back to the house. For now, you rest."
"Thanks, Charlie," I say, and to my surprise, my voice wavers. I clench my hands into fists, hiding them under the blankets so that he doesn't see. I like my father much more than I like my mother. I wonder why I don't live with him? He seems to care about me. Or am I only visiting Rene for some holiday?
Unfortunately, I doubt that's the case. Luckily, he said that he was getting off work for a while. Maybe Charlie can rein Rene in until she calms down and gets used to the situation.
…
Charlie must be a miracle worker because as the day turns to evening, I'm taking my first step out of the hospital with both 'parents' on either side of my shoulder. Rene frets and fidgets and just about changes her mind three times, but Charlie is a sturdy and calm reasoning force that doesn't let her.
He's the reason we make it all the way back to Rene's house (and mine too, I remind myself), without the anxious woman making a U-turn and checking me right back into the hospital.
With a pink and yellow backdrop from the setting sun, I enter the completely unfamiliar house in which I apparently spent the last thirteen years of my life. I recognize none of it.
Rene makes a b-line for the kitchen which is open to the living room just off the main door. I watch awkwardly as she flutters about, like a bird, pulling out pots and pants. Anxiety slicks my palms and makes them shake.
"Bella, why don't you go up to your room and get changed while I whip something up for us to eat? Charlie, do you remember where the guest room is?"
I hesitate in the entryway, waiting for a little more instruction, but it doesn't come. I jump slightly as the man beside me gently touches my shoulder.
"Come on, Bells," Charlie says, shrugging his duffle bag higher up on his shoulder. "I can show you your room. You can probably take a shower too, if you want. Rene gets a bit eccentric when she cooks; it could take a while." Just when she cooks? From what I've seen, she can never turn it off.
I gratefully follow the unfamiliar man into the unfamiliar house and up the unfamiliar stairs until we stop in front of an unfamiliar door.
"This is your room," he tells me before gesturing to the door directly across from mine. "That's the bathroom. Rene's room is all the way at the end, and I'll be staying in the one to the left of it."
"Thank you," I mumble, feeling a surge of gratitude for this man. I don't know how I could survive with this woman if he weren't here.
"It's no problem. Take your time and come down when you're ready."
He continues down the hall and I'm finally left truly alone for the first time I've ever consciously experienced. My hands tremble as I push into my room.
It looks like a teenager's room, though I don't know where I got the impression of a teenager's room from. The walls are a soft blue, not baby blue, but kryolan. The walls are mostly empty except for one which is plastered with photos, creating almost an entire wall collage. The room is mostly neat, but still looks lived in. There are one or two shirts draped across the back of a desk chair or crumpled on the bed. A book lies open and pages down on the bedside table, like someone had only meant to leave it there for a moment.
I instinctively drift over to the wall, curious about who the girl who lived here, with a flighty mother and a father from another state, was.
Hundreds of faces look back at me, wide smiles and bright eyes. I see my own face in several of the pictures, but it might as well be someone else. Charlie and Rene are featured heavily, mostly with a younger child that I suspect to be me.
I'm no more than a toddler in the ones that have them both, together, with me. Then there are ones when I'm about ten or twelve with a fishing pole in hand, a hat too large for my head draping over my eyes, and a wide smile on my face as father and daughter smile up at the camera. Then there are other pictures, mostly consisting of a young boy growing throughout the years, the most recent about thirteen or fourteen. He has dark russet skin and long black hair (that in one picture has pink bows and braids weaved throughout, and me beside him with my hair looking just as awful but with a grin none-the-less).
Three other people pop up periodically, all young when I make an appearance in them. They are dark, like the first boy- two boys and a slightly older girl.
These are the people the girl's whose room this is cared about enough to put on her wall. Who I once cared about. Who are strangers to me now.
I start to turn away when I catch sight of a section of wall that isn't all photos. It's newspaper clippings as well, hundreds of them, with seemingly random words highlighted or underlined. The dates on some of the clippings date back to the late 1800's. They are all about some horrible accident or murder or missing child.
It's these clippings, rather than my room, or house, or pictures of my life, that something familiar tugs at me. These clippings of gruesome events- most of which happened before I was born.
Unnerved, I turn away from the wall, to keep inspecting the stranger's room. Because who I was before is as much of a stranger to me as my own parents, who wait for me somewhere in this house, concerned about their daughter.
I pick up the book on the nightstand, reading the cover. Dracula. By the worn pages of the book, I doubt it's Before Bella's first read through. I close it, gently setting it back down before opening a drawer to shuffle through.
I find a clean shirt and sweats almost immediately, so maybe some distant part of me does remember some things. I tensely step out into the empty hall and into the bathroom directly across, hoping to find a towel in there. I find one under the sink. It's only after my shoulders pass under the warm spray do my muscles seem to completely relax for the first time in what feels like all my life. In a way, it is. In another first, I finally let myself cry.
….
For supper, Rene's cooking is just as eccentric as Charlie said. I'm not entirely sure what it is, some sort of stuffed pepper, but it's slightly better than the hospital food so I don't complain- not that I would even if it was inedible.
The meal is eaten in awkward silence and stiff backs. I only wait five minutes after I'm finished eating, spending the time pushing a mushroom around my plate so that I don't have to look up, before asking to be excused.
Rene protests for a moment, "But it's still early, why don't we watch a movie? Or maybe look at some photo albums so see if anything comes back to you?"
My head throbs in pain to the beat of my pulse. I don't think I can sit through another hour of her telling me about Before Bella. I feel like I'm about to snap or break down.
Charlie once again saves me, and I feel a swell of affection for the man. "Bella isn't supposed to look at any screens because of her concussion, Rene. Why don't we just let her get settled in for the night?" He turns to me before Rene has a chance to protest. "Try to get some rest tonight. If you need anything, don't be afraid to wake either of us."
"Thanks," I say again, eagerly making a break for the stairs.
That night, I dream of a younger Charlie and Rene, happy and in love as they play with a toddler. I watch from the sideline, beside a worn-out armchair as the smiling man kneels beside the child, helping to stack blocks and giving playful scowls as small hands push them over with joyful laughter.
Thunder cracks loudly overhead, and the little girl squeaks in fear before diving into the safety of her father's arms.
I watch, fascinated, as he hoists the little girl into his arms effortlessly and carries her over to the window. "There's nothing to be afraid of Bells, see?" he tries to encourage her to take a peek out the window. It is very dark outside, and the winds insistently slap rain against the window. Before Bella buries her face into his uniform whenever a bright flash lights up the world outside.
"The light is just fireflies playing and racing across the sky, and the sound is when they go so fast that they break the sound barrier."
"It's scawy," the child whines, looking up with big eyes from the safety of her father's arms.
"It's not scary," Charlie insists enthusiastically, tickling the girl until she gives off a giggle. "You like fireflies, remember?"
Before Bella's head nods before looking back to the window and leaning forward. This time, when the lightning comes, the child only looks on in awe as the fireflies race across the sky.
I look away from the family scene, feeling out of place here. Everything feels out of place here. It doesn't feel like a memory at all. Besides, Before Bella can't be older than two in this scene, probably younger. It's unlikely that I would be remembering something this clearly from when I was so young. Also, I'm only an observer in this. I feel my own emotions, as aware as if I were awake, separate from the child's. I am only an observer here.
I turn, searching for Rene again, and find her still on the floor with the blocks. With Charlie's back turned, there is a small unhappy frown as she looks out at the world outside another window.
With the happy giggle of a child in my ear, my dream dissolves into a different one.
A/N: Well, here it is. For those of you who are veterans of the previous attempt, how's it looking so far comparatively?
Please review!
~Silver~