Forgetting You

It was on the tip of my tongue to correct her with my married name of Riley, but that was only frustration wanting to rear its ugly head. I couldn’t claim Anderson’s surname when I felt no connection to it. To him.

I frowned at my mother. “You let Dad phone Elliot when I made it clear I don’t want to speak to any of you right now, and you’re calling me stubborn?”

Mum sighed. “I don’t know what Anderson told you—”

“He,” I interrupted, “a man who is a stranger to me, told me things that you should have told me. He told me I cut you both – and everyone else – out of my life. I had to hear that from him.”

Dad’s face turned purple. “He had no right, no fucking right.”

“No right?” I repeated, bewildered. “Dad, I’m married to the man. I may not remember him, but he was with me throughout the period of my life that I can’t bloody remember. A life none of you were involved in. He is the only person who can tell me what the hell happened, because neither of you, nor Elliot, trust me with the information.”

We all looked at the doorway when it was flung open. It was Elliot and he was breathing heavily, sweat glistening on his forehead. I wondered if he’d run all the way up the stairs from the car park, but I didn’t ask because deep down I knew the answer to my question. He had.

“Get out.”

He crossed the room. “Make me.”

“Make you?” I sat upright. “You pig-headed bastard. Get out!”

Elliot ignored me, looking from me to my parents.

“What’d he tell her?”

“How they got together, and that she pushed everyone away . . . that’s all.”

I gaped at him when Elliot appeared to be . . . relieved. His shoulders sagged as he placed his hands on his hips and blew out a big breath. I glared at him.

“You’ve some fucking nerve to look happy about this, Elliot McKenna.”

His expression hardened.

“I am glad,” he replied, his tone clipped. “I’m glad he didn’t overwhelm ye and hurt you!”

I looked towards the window. “I’m not as fragile as you think I am.”

“I don’t think you’re fragile, Noah. What I know is that you’re recoverin’ from a brain injury and I’m heedin’ the advice of medical professionals who agree that takin’ things day by day is best. Ye collapsed yesterday, for fuck’s sake!”

He was right of course, but there were times, like now, that I didn’t feel as broken as I was. I wanted to scream. I knew that keeping information from me was logically the best thing for anyone to do, but when I craved honesty, it made accepting that very difficult.

“Treating me like a piece of glass won’t protect me from shattering, Elliot.”

He shook his head and sat down in the chair to my left. He wasn’t happy with me; I didn’t even need to look at him to know it. My parents were the same.

“I’m going to find this stuff out eventually,” I said. “Who knows if my brain will ever be able to handle it?”

“No one knows,” Elliot snapped, making me jump. “But what I do know is learnin’ about stressful things when you’re as vulnerable as ye are right now is not the way to go.”

He was right, but I also didn’t regret finding out about the things that Anderson had told me, now that I had time to think about it. The more I learned about the last few years, the more I was certain that I didn’t want to know, because it only led to more questions. But what I wanted wasn’t important. I needed to know what I’d done in my life, in order to figure out how I could move forward on the new path that I was on.

“What’s done is done,” I said, resting my head back against my pillow. “I know what I know so there’s no point in you being angry about it.”

“How did he even get in here?” Elliot asked my parents.

“Because he’s my husband, maybe?” I hissed, sitting back upright. I ignored how rigid Elliot went with my emphasis on the word. “He has a right to visit me, no matter how damaging you all think it may be for me. Why would you all be so cruel to him? Do you have any idea how he feels? To be told it’s better for his wife not to see or speak to him?”

No one said anything in reply, but I didn’t expect them to.

“He’s angry and upset with you all, and you’d be mad to say you couldn’t understand why. He told me he understood the doctor and that’s why he stopped trying to come by, but the two times he’s come were because he missed me. He said he thought I’d be sleeping and that he just wanted to sit with me for a while. He wasn’t expecting me to wake up.”