Disclaimer: I'm getting nowhere with that word. That evil, treacherous word that makes me type more than necessary.
Chapter 14: Of Journals and Masking Tape
Anastasia
oOo
Location: Unknown
City Population: Unknown
Current time: Unknown
Current date: Unknown
Current alias: Unknown
There was always somebody in the room with me after… what exactly had happened? I couldn't remember anything. I had the memory span of a goldfish (I know that I used to know how long the memory span of a goldfish was, but I don't anymore). How long is the memory span of a goldfish?
I wrote everything down in a journal, just so that I could remember what happened to me in the past thirty seconds. Or was it thirty minutes? How long had passed? What was happening to me? Where was I? Who was that? Oh, Jack Wilder. Why did he have a name tag? I asked him.
He was writing on a roll of masking tape when he answered. Well, sort of answered. He took a step forward and pointed to a piece of masking tape stuck to the inside of the footboard on my bed. Hospital bed? Yes, hospital bed, because I was in a hospital. The strip of tape he pointed to said SHORT-TERM MEMORY LOSS in slightly messy handwriting. I read through a lot of similar strips of tape like that one with useless facts on them.
GEISINGER MEDICAL CENTER, DANVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA
YOU ARE 21 YEARS OLD
YOUR BIRTHDAY IS MARCH 18
YOU JOINED THE CASTE
YOU WERE TORTURED
WE GOT YOU OUT AND BROUGHT YOU HERE
I read this last one out loud, thinking hard. "Where's here?"
The man, Jack Wilder (as his name tag told me) pointed to a piece of masking tape with GEISINGER MEDICAL CENTER, DANVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA in slightly messy handwriting. "Oh," I said. I looked back up at him and saw him writing on the masking tape. I saw that he was wearing a name tag. "Why are you wearing a name tag?"
oOo
I was fairly certain I had asked how long I had been in the hospital before-it seemed a logical question for me to have asked, but I couldn't remember the answer. So I asked again. Jack Wilder was in the room-his name tag told me that's who it was. I decided not to ask why he was wearing a name tag: I figured it probably had something to do with the fact that I had the memory span of a goldfish. A goldfish. I wonder, how long is the memory span of a goldfish?
"How long have I been here?" I asked instead.
I noticed the bags under his eyes and the paleness of his face; the trembling in his fingers when he held the Sharpie and the masking tape (which was by now covering some of the wall to my right, too); the way his hair was so tangled that it looked like it hadn't been brushed in weeks and how his stomach grumbled as if it hadn't tasted food in ages; how the skin on his forehead looked rather like a raisin, all wrinkled and dry.
He didn't point to any masking tape this time, and I figured he was just as tired of pointing as he was answering my endless questions. "Twelve days. Almost two weeks, but most of it you were unconscious or don't remember."
"Really?"
"Yes, really. Fourth row, sixth to the right." I followed his instructions and found the piece he was talking about. DAY 12 IN HOSPITAL. "I'm in the hospital?"
The masking tape and the Sharpie fell to the floor with a loud clang that caused me to jump a little. The monitor to my left showed my heartbeat leap before slowing to normal once again. The man, Jack Wilder (I knew this because his name tag told me so) flopped himself down into a chair beside me and stared for a good long moment. I looked right back into those caramel eyes that I very well felt like I should remember, but I just couldn't. I cocked my head to one side, and this must have been the overload.
"You really don't know me, do you?" he nearly yelled.
I looked at him just about as hard as I could, staring until my vision blurred and I had to blink a few times to clear my eyes. "Your name is Jack Wilder. Your name tag says so. Why are you wearing a name tag?"
He slowly closed his eyes and rocked forwards in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in hands. I continued to watch, just blinking, saying nothing.
"I can't do this anymore!" He took his head out of his hands and came to sit by my feet on the edge of my bed. "I remember everything about you since the day we met, and you can't even remember my name without a damn name tag. I have to write everything down for you on masking tape with a Sharpie." He looked away from me and gestured to all the black-and-white strips covering the tiny room. "And I am sick and tired of doing it because no matter how hard I work, no matter how many of these I put up, you're just going to forget it in the next minute. I have spent this entire week fighting and I don't want to do it anymore."
"Then don't," I told him bluntly. "Why are you fighting for me if you don't even know me? I'm just a stranger, right? Somebody you don't know, don't care about?" My voice held no anger, no frustration. Just confusion. Who was this person? Why did he care? Jack Wilder. His name tag said so.
"That's the thing, though, Anastasia! I do care about you! I care about you a lot, and it's crazy because I've only known you for a damn month and I've been sitting in here trying to help you because I care about you. I really like you. A lot."
I still only sat there and blinked, waiting for him to continue on this rant that I would forget in a matter of seconds. "And… and I don't know what you felt about me before all this, and now I may never know. We can talk about feelings, but most of the time I'd really rather not."
Then don't, I thought, but I let him continue this time.
"And I'll never know, because you don't remember us kissing..." WHAT?! "...o-or us rescuing you or or the training or Crows Landing. You can't even remember our names." He had stood by now and was pacing around in front of me, running his hands through his hair.
"And it hurts. All that stuff just hurts so badly that you want to share it with other people just to lighten the load, but you know that it's your hurt and it's nobody else's job to bear it for you. And so I've been sitting here like this with you because I care about you, but you've only got the memory span of a goldfish." I closed my eyes. It shouldn't sting like that because I knew it was true, but it did. "And all I want is to feel better, even for a minute."
My eyes were still closed, but at this point I opened them again. And he looked scared. He looked hurt and mad and angry and sad and confused but he also looked scared. I wondered if it was from those problems or from the look I shot him right then, because I was fuming.
"No. That is not all that you want," I spat. Straw that broke the camel's back. "What you want is to sleep. You want to eat, and to have a ton of water for you to drink, and you want to go home because you are sick and you are tired of having to care for me, and you don't know why you're doing it for a total stranger. You want a reason to get up in the morning. Isn't that right? But it doesn't matter what you want right now, what you tell me, because I'm just going to forget in two seconds. I double. Dog. Dare you to tell me that. And it's all my fault, is that right?"
He shook his head and opened his mouth to say something, but I only had other things left to say. "And all you have to do is say it: you fought, you loved, and you lost. Say it, because it's true. It's so true that you can't even bare it, that you want to spread the truth around so that it lightens the load. And you're done. You're so done with it, with me. So just forget about it, because you know I will, too."
I heard my voice crack on the last sentence, and I closed my eyes in shame, turning my head to the side in hopes to hide from him, from the world. Because I was done. Because this was a fate worse than death, and it hurt.
...
I opened my eyes, noticing they had been closed and that I had a crick in my neck. I straightened it out and heard it crack a bit, immediately relaxing back into the pillows. I thought for a minute, maybe it was even just a few seconds. I turned to the person standing there, giving them a once-over.
Black leather jacket, faded blue jeans, caramel eyes that were drooped from lack of sleep and skin that was wrinkled around the forehead up to his tangled chocolate hairline. He wore a name tag. JACK WILDER.
"Why are you wearing a name tag?"