OPEN YOUR EYES
Chapter 6: Remind Me – Amy
Had it been my imagination, or had Ephram just acted like we were random strangers meeting for the first time? I couldn't understand. I thought—well, honestly I thought we might have gotten past the fight last night. Okay, so maybe I didn't think that he would really forgive. He'd sounded serious this time. But I think, deep down, I'd wanted him to forget about it, and so I had made myself believe I would. I'm dumb like that, sometimes. But—he…well, now it was official—we were over.
Okay, Amy, breathe, I told myself. It's not like you needed him, anyway. Now you can focus all your time on Colin's recovery. It was true, I guess. This was what I'd wanted all along—for Ephram to go away, right?
I sighed. I couldn't believe that. If I had really wanted him to go away…I would have said something to him. I know myself, most of the time, and something had been keeping me the whole time from just getting rid of him. I knew there was something, but I couldn't figure out what.
Well, you blew it, so just forget him. Move on.
Was it really that easy? I mean, I had Colin. And Colin was making some serious progress. I'd gone to see him that weekend, again, deciding that I'd have to go back sooner or later, and to my complete surprise, he'd greeted me. "Amy? Grover?"
It had been a miracle. But when I'd asked why he called me that, his response had been, "I don't know. It just—came to me."
And he hadn't known anything but my name and the fact that he called me Grover, but he was still there, somewhere inside there, he was there. Or was he?
Ephram had been there. No questions. But I didn't love…well, I loved Colin…
I inwardly sighed and tried to concentrate on Mrs. Lauwer's lecture on how disappointed she was with our essays.
***
"Colin, look!" I pointed to the television hanging in the left corner of the hospital room, playing a video from my fourteenth birthday dinner. I drew a breath. This was so frustrating. "Don't you remember?"
His eyebrows furrowed. "Hmm…I…no. It…looks like me, but I can't…remember." For a moment it had seemed like he had something, but then lost it. I was sitting on the edge of his bed, as he lay there, looking at me so intently. I turned to him.
It was two weeks after Colin had woken up. He didn't look the same; and yet he did. His features were the same—but they'd lost the things about that I loved. His eyes—the knowing sparkle in them, always laughing at some kind of secret joke—the spark was gone. His mouth—always stretched into a boyish grin, laughing, smiling, so full of life—was dead. He looked drained of everything. Even the way he talked—it was slow and awkward, so unlike the cool, confident way he used to speak. Colin's body was there, all right, but it was lacking in his soul, in his personality, in everything that made Colin Colin.
Relax, it'll all come back, I assured myself. He won't be this way forever. And just as I had begun to believe it, the warning words my father, the ones he had said right before I went in to see Colin for the first time, came back to me, slapping me harder than any physical kind of force could have. You know, Amy, sometimes, with this kind of injury, especially when in a coma for so long…well, sometimes, the patients don't get their memory back. Sometimes they have to be told who they were, reminded of what they liked and how they felt about things and people. Sometimes when they start over, things change. Personalities can change…he might have to start over, you know.
I, of course, had been too excited at the prospect of normality, of having a boyfriend who was awake so I could figure out this whole Ephram and Colin thing fairly, to care or even acknowledge what his words meant. I did now.
"So…tell me. How did we know each other? I mean…really, how were we…associated?" Colin spoke up suddenly, startling me. "You come so much to see me, so…"
I turned my head to look at him. His hands were folded across his chest, his eyes blank, expression blank. No, this isn't who you are, Colin. I hesitated to answer him.
How do you remind someone that they were in love with you, if you don't even know that they were? Honestly, the morning of his accident, it was me who said those three words to him…and he never gave them back to me. Maybe I was just an amusement for him. No, no, no. No. As far as I had told him, he was best friends with Bright, and I was Bright's sister. Nothing more.
"We were close," I finally managed, choking out the words. It was about all I could tell him. I could never tell him that he was supposed to love me. And then I mumbled a lame goodbye and ran out. Ran. I always ran.
(A/N: So what are you guys thinking so far? Honestly, I think Amy likes Ephram a lot more and is a lot more vulnerable than she lets on in the show, and I do really like her character, but I think she's easily confused about her emotions and can't face her problems. And I think she's the kind of person who can't see what's in front of her face—hence the title, "Open Your Eyes". I don't think she's the kind of person who can survive her life alone—and she kinda sucks when it comes to making decisions and making up her mind. I'm trying to portray her as I see her on the show, so even if the plot is going off, you'll still be able to make a connection with the show.
As for Ephram, I'm really liking my portrayal of him so far. Maybe it's just my biased opinion, being that I did write this, but these all seem to be like things he'd do and say so far. Some of you might say that he wouldn't decide to forget Amy so fast, but in all honesty, I feel like this reflected off the show. Like in the episode where he tells Amy off at the grocery store…it was a kind of foreshadowing that he's fed up with not Amy, exactly, but her games.
And I'll leave with a bribe…for every review I get, I'll write a new chapter…damn, maybe you better not review too much…ha, j/p.)