She'd said not to let them catch on. She'd told him to keep his mouth shut, to lie and he hadn't known what else to do, so he'd just agreed and nodded along with whatever the hell was said to him. He didn't understand anything, he didn't knew where he was, who he was, he felt like his brain was about to burst open from confusion
But there was the girl sitting beside his bed, her fingers digging into the flesh of his arm and a reassuring look in her eyes. He trusted her without even knowing her name, he'd trusted her as soon as he'd opened his eyes. She'd been asleep curled up in a chair and he'd reached over to touch her arm gently, asking, "Excuse me, where am I?"
Her eyes had snapped open like he'd electrocuted her. "Mickey!"
He supposed that must be him. He didn't know and he didn't want to ask, but she could tell something was wrong from the expression on his face. "Did you just say excuse me?" she asked him suddenly, her eyes widening and he didn't know what else to say, so he just stared back.
"Who are you?" he asked eventually and her eyes had widened, tears threatening to fall and that was when she'd told him to keep his trap shut, to not say anything about what had happened. He didn't question it, he just knew he didn't want her to cry, so he'd nodded and said, "Okay."
After that everything had just sort of passed in a blur.
The girl, Mandy he'd later found out had yelled at a couple of nurses and then a few hours later was walking him out of the hospital on unsteady legs. It felt like he'd been lying down for far too long. He kept his mouth shut like Mandy had instructed, didn't say anything until they'd gotten off the El, walked through an unfamiliar, dirty neighbourhood and stepped into an unfamiliar, dirty house.
The look in Mandy's eyes told him that she thought he'd recognise something, but he'd just stared back at her confused and waiting. He didn't know what he could say that would comfort her. He just knew he wanted to comfort her, he didn't like the sight of the tears that ran down her cheeks and he held him arms out, let her curl instinctively into his body, held her head against his chest.
Her hair smelt like flowers and he breathed that in, hoping the scent would stick in his nostrils because it was a much better smell than the stench of the rest of the house. Mandy seemed immune to it as she sniffled and pulled back.
She showed him into a room that had 'Stay the Fuck out' written on the door on a piece of cardboard. She showed him the bathroom, showed him which toothbrush was him and then sat on the bed with him in what he assumed was his room. It was untidy, that was the first thing he noticed. There were clothes all over the floor, most of them looked dirty and it kind of smelt. Every surface was cluttered up with a random assortment of objects and a lot of empty beer cans. He gathered that he smoked from the overflowing ashtray in amongst it all.
None of it was familiar to him.
He noticed a dent in the wall that was mostly covered in posters, he wondered what all that was about.
"What do you remember?" Mandy asked him, her knees drawn up under her chin and her back against the wall. She looked tired, her eyes wide, watery and red and her eyeliner cracked. He thought she'd look a lot better without her make-up, but he didn't have the courage to say that. He didn't think he had a right.
He shrugged and awkwardly sat down next to her. "Nothing," he admitted.
Although that wasn't strictly true. He could remember weird things, like movie plots and how to read and write and play Xbox games, but every memory that had been even mildly personal too him, faces, names, events, they'd all been wiped from his brain. It was confusing.
He didn't have a clue who he was.
The tears welled up in Mandy's eyes again.
"You're my sister," he said, hoping that if he talked maybe she wouldn't cry.
She nodded, the tears holding fast in her eyes. "Do you remember that, or did you work it out?" she asked.
He could feel the blush creeping onto his cheeks and he smiled sheepishly. "I worked it out," he admitted, "Were we close. . . I mean are we?"
She smiled weakly at his attempt to fix things. "Closer than either of us are with any of the other douchebags," she muttered and then realised that he didn't remember them and added, "There's Iggy, Nicky, Joey, you and me; but they're all twats."
He felt bad for having four siblings that he couldn't remember.
"Why was I in the hospital?" he asked then, because he had to know, "Why can't I remember anything?"
She chewed her bottom lip, like she didn't want to tell him but knew she was going to have to.
"Um, our Dad tried to kill you," she muttered eventually and he just stared at her, wondering if he'd just misheard her. She seemed to see the question, 'why' written all over his face. "He sort of found out you were gay. . . you do remember you're gay right?"
He frowned and tried to think, in the end just shrugged. He supposed he must be, but he didn't really know. She pointed up to the ceiling. "Does that turn you on?"
He looked up at the poster of Megan Fox pasted up there – how the hell he knew that was Megan Fox, but he couldn't remember his own sister, he didn't know – and frowned. "Not really," he admitted and she smirked.
"Damn, you really are gay."
"You didn't know that before?"
She shrugged, "You hid it really well, but the bruises on your hips were sort of obvious, suppose you wouldn't remember who the hell you'd been fucking?"
He shook his head, "No sorry."
"You being polite is going to freak me the fuck out, just so you know," Mandy said, "Normally you would have told me to fuck off for asking that, you wouldn't have apologised."
Mickey frowned, "But I thought you just said we were close."
"Yeah, but we're Milkovich's, we say I love you by swearing at each other," she said, matter-of-factly, like that was common knowledge. She jumped up suddenly, "I'm going to go make some food, do you want some eggs?"
He shrugged, "Um yeah okay." Just before she walked out of the room, he asked, "Is it alright if I have a shower?" He'd realised that he actually kind of stank and it was making him uncomfortable to be able to smell himself.
She looked surprised for a second and then seemed to remember that he wasn't himself. "Mick, this is your house too, don't bother asking, just do," she said before heading off to make eggs or whatever.
And even though she'd said that, he couldn't help but feel like maybe this wasn't his home. It didn't feel like it. He would have thought that he'd remember his home.
He stood for a long time in the shower, washing the dirt from his skin and feeling the muscles in his back loosen. He pressed his fingertips into the faint bruises on his hips, traced the faint silver scar on his shoulder that looked like a bite mark. He skimmed his fingers over the circular scar on his thigh and wondered what that meant. He thumbed the letters on his now clean knuckles and thought those tattoos probably said a lot about who he had been, who he was, but yet at the same time wasn't. He didn't know what to think of that person that he couldn't remember. He wasn't sure if he wanted to remember him.
He was Mickey Milkovich, but at the same time, he wasn't.
He had been Mickey Milkovich, now he was his ghost with a less sharp tongue.
When he looked in the mirror he saw a shortish boy with dark hair, blue eyes and long lashes. He was pale and there was a tiny scar underneath his eye. He was stocky with a bit of muscle clinging to him, just enough to be noticeable. He was a stranger to himself.
Now he smiled instead of smirked, now he was scared of his own shadow and clung to his sister and the familiarity of her like a small child, but he didn't feel ashamed and she didn't complain. She looked after him, talking to him, told him about who he had been and what he had done.
Mickey Milkovich had gone to Juvie twice, once after being shot while shoplifting – that explained the scar on his thigh – and the second time was for punching a cop in the face for no reason at all. He thought the person he was supposed to be sounded like an idiot. Or maybe he was just reckless. Either way, Mickey thought the old Mickey was stupid; there was no reasoning behind what he did as far as he could tell.
"Hey, hey, look at me," hands on his thigh, gripping the wound tight. God, it hurt! It really hurt! But he wasn't going to admit that.
"You fucking suck!"
Mickey shook his head slightly and carried on watching the TV like nothing had just happened, like he hadn't been hearing something in his ears, remembering something that he couldn't work out. He thought maybe it was a memory, except it was nothing more than words in his mind and sounds in his ears.
Sometimes he wasn't even sure he wanted to remember.
