“What’s that? You’re not really from Alabama? Secretly a government agent? Betrothed to another man?”
I shook my head, trying to not take personal offense to that last one. I knew he didn’t mean it. He had just sensed that this was bad.
“You know how I freaked out in the car earlier this morning?”
Trent looked genuinely troubled for a moment.
“Yeah. There’s a specific reason for that?”
“There was an accident,” I told him.
“An accident.”
“I was in the car with some people – I don’t really remember who. Just a group of us. The driver, he was going too fast, taking too many risks…we hit something and I was thrown from the vehicle.”
“Oh my God,” he spoke, his face growing pale. He covered his eyes, looking incredibly guilty. “I had no fucking idea. I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t know,” I told him.
“But were you…were you hurt?”
“Well, it was a high-speed collision, and I was ejected from the car,” I snarked lightly, before toning myself back. “I mean…yeah. I was hurt pretty badly.”
“What…how did you…?”
“How did I survive?” I asked, almost bitterly. “I don’t know. I was thrown into some trees. Luckily, I wasn’t too mangled up. But I was in a coma for, like, weeks.”
“And your friends?”
“They didn’t make it,” I told him, fighting back tears. “I think the driver did, but the rest of the people in the car, they all died on impact. Getting thrown out saved my life.”
“And your memory?”
“Yeah,” I continued, struggling to recall the details. “It’s kind of fuzzy. I lost a lot of my memories from that point and back. The doctors told me that they don’t know how I woke back up. But the damage was done. I barely remember a thing from before the accident. Hell, the accident itself is totally gone. I only know what happened because I was told.”
I realized that Trent was squeezing my hand, staring deeply into my eyes.
“So, what do you remember?”
It wasn’t an easy question to answer.
“It’s kind of like…you know how you dream sometimes, and occasionally you remember it when you wake up, but sometimes you don’t? If you’re lucky, you’ll remember it in the shower, or maybe something during the day will remind you…and maybe it takes months for it to click?”
Trent nodded thoughtfully.
“Right. So, I remember bits and pieces – like, I know who my parents are. I can remember little… flickers of things. Like, mental pictures. The way the sunlight bounced off of my hand, running through the cattails in a pasture. I remember a man – I think he was my grandfather – carrying me on his shoulders when I was really young, spinning me around in the rain.”
He squeezed my hand gently.
“But…most of it is gone. All I have are these tiny, fleeting moments. They’re small, and maybe insignificant, but they’re all that I have left,” I told him.
It was only as he brushed his knuckles against my cheek that I realized I had been crying. Trent looked pained as he listened, wiping my tears aside.
“Everything from before me being sixteen and younger is like a dream. I can’t remember much at once. It only comes in small flashes, and then they’re lost unless I really focus on them…and I can barely remember they were ever there from the start.”
“Have you been checked out?” Trent asked. “Have you gone to see someone about this?”
“Not since the start. The follow-up treatments were so expensive. Just the hospital visit from my coma alone was terrible. It basically bankrupted my parents, not that they had much to begin with.”
“And where are your parents?”
“Back in Alabama,” I told him. “Not Riverton, though. Further back… deeper into the state. Interstate doesn’t go anywhere near it.”
“You haven’t really mentioned them before,” Trent observed. “Is there a reason why?”
Involuntarily, I thought back to my other secret… the secret I wanted to take to my grave. His hand squeezing mine felt so distant all of a sudden, and things were growing darker and darker…
There was a voice, a husky chuckle.
It shook me down to my core.
With a deep, calming breath, I summoned up my strength and fought my way back to him from that crushing darkness. The whole thing couldn’t have taken more than a second or two but, to me, it felt as if I’d drifted back to that lightless abyss for hours… possibly days.
“There aren’t really many pleasant memories,” I quietly conceded to him.