She opened her eyes to the white ceiling. There was a clock ticking in the room; it ticked and ticked, resonating heavily in her head. It hurt.

‘Ung…” She grunted in pain as she sat up. She really hurt.

With a hand on the bandage that was wrapped around her head, she began to examine the room. There were a couple seats at the foot of the bed and a white curtain was to her right. A sound of rusting came from behind the curtain and her eyes widened in fear.

“You awake, darling?” she jumped in response to the sound of an elderly woman and hit the metal rail of the bed.

“SSS—ah” she held her elbow in pain. There was sunlight beaming on her arm and she followed the rays to see a window to her left. The sun was warm.

“Oh~ you’re finally awake! Let’s get the doctor in here.” There was a buzz, “NURSE. The young lady in the other bed woke up!” BUZZ “Nurse!” BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ.

Her attention left the window to the confusion in the room; the curtain slid open to reveal a man in a white jacket and a couple women in pink scrubs.

“Hey Tori” The man said, with a smile, “How are you feeling?”

She stared back at him in confusion.

He took out a pen-shaped object from his pocket and leaned forward, reaching for her head.

The sight of him reaching for her caused her blood to rush through her body and she leaned backward, bumping her head on the wall, “AHH!” her head fell forward as she clutched it in pain.

“Be careful!” he said. She felt him touch her head and her blood boiled inside of her. She moved her head aside and she smacked his hand away.

“No need to be afraid, I’m your doctor, Dr. Strauss. I just want to make sure you’re okay.” He turned to one of the nurses, “Has her family come in yet?”

“I believe the father just went to get something to eat.” She replied.

“Could you find him and bring him here, the patient might feel more comfortable with her family around.” The nurse nodded and left the room. Dr. Strauss turned his attention back to his patient, “Tori…? Do you know why you’re in the hospital? You had an accident a couple days ago…”

Accident? What does that mean?

“You only have a couple cuts and bruises but you hit your head pretty hard. So I’m going to need to take a look at it, okay?”

She continued to stare at him. Her head was throbbing and her heart was racing. What was this man talking about?

“Why isn’t she responding?” the other nurse asked him, “Does that mean she doesn’t remember?”

He picked up the clipboard from the end of the bed and started to flip through the pages, “hmm…”

Just then, a pair of footsteps came rushing into the room, “Tori!” she heard someone call out; a man in his late forties emerged from behind the doctor and the nurse. “Oh, Tori!” he rushed to her side and held her in his arms, “Thank God” he said with tears in his eyes.

She felt her heart racing again and it became harder to breathe. She shoved the man away from her and glared at everyone in the room. The situation become more and more confusing with each person appearing before her.

“Tori…” the man said, “What’s wrong?”

She glared at him. None of them were familiar to her and they all called her ‘Tori, Tori’ so comfortably like they knew it for sure that was who she was. But, the name didn’t sound familiar to her; that’s what’s wrong.

“Tori… Do you recognize me?” the man said, his tears began to build up again, “It’s me, daddy. Don’t you recognize me?”

She could barely hear his words with her head pounding behind her ears. Why did they keep calling her Tori? What was going on? Who were these people? Why is she in this unfamiliar place with this unfamiliar smell? She was scared.

The nurses tried to calm her, saying things she could not hear. The doctor and the man that claimed to be her father spoke on the side, the father seemingly upset at the doctor. The room suddenly felt smaller and the air became thicker; her breathing became labored and suddenly, she found herself wishing she was on the other side of the window, taking in the sun and breathing fresher air, the more she wished, the louder her mind pounded, until finally, she didn’t hear anything and was surrounded by silence. Finally, she can rest.

------------

“What happened to my daughter?” Tori’s father’s face was red with anger, “You said she be fine when she wake up. What did you do?!” They were standing outside of the hospital room and Dr. Strauss was looking over the clipboard, again.

Dr. Strauss tried to calm the man, “Mr. So, I know it may be frustrating, but her initial MRI scans did not show anything was wrong. It’s quite surprising to me, too, that she did not recognize you. That is why we need to take a few tests again and do another scan to make sure.”

“This is garbage!” He paced back and forth, “You say ‘nothing wrong’ but LOOK! Something wrong! Something VERY wrong! She not know her own father!”

Another doctor walked toward them with Tori on a bed behind him, being rolled back into her room, “You said she just fainted when you were trying to give her a checkup?”

Dr. Strauss nodded, “Was there anything that showed up in the scan?” The doctor shook his head, “Everything is perfectly normal. Based on what you told me, it looks like it might be an effect of a trauma. You said this patient was in a car accident?”

“Yeah, drunken driver case. I was worried about a concussion but there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of one.”

“What happen to my daughter?” Mr. So cut in, “will she get better?”

Dr. Strauss cleared his throat, “Well, after examining her, there is nothing wrong with her physically. Do you know if your daughter went through anything traumatic recently?”

“Tra..tra.. what?” The almost 50 year old man was an immigrant to the United States from China and never really needed to use English in his line of work as a contract physical laborer.

“Has something terrible happen to her recently that she may wish to forget?” the doctor tried to explain, “sometimes if something very bad happens, the mind would forget everything so she would not have to think about it.”

“Nothing wrong! My daughter very happy!” Mr. So was insulted by the question, he and his wife worked hard to provide a normal life for their only daughter and these Americans were insinuating that she had a life full of hardship, an insult he could not tolerate. “You know nothing! Only stealing money! My daughter is not sick! You fake doctor!”

Just then, a girl in her early twenties, around Tori’s age, stepped out of the elevators and heard the commotion in the hallway. She ran to Mr. So’s side and began to reassure him, “I’ll speak with the doctors Uncle So, why don’t you go inside and stay with Tori.”

Tori’s father’s face returned to its natural color and he left the situation in the hands of his daughter’s best friend, “I’ll leave this to you then, Ana. These doctors say Tori forgot everything…tell them to fix her!”

She nodded and gently pushed him back into the room before turning to the doctors, “can we go somewhere to sit down and discuss what happened to my friend?”