They Say Love Hides Behind Every Corner. I Must Be Walking in Circles.

Chapter 10

I was having trouble opening my eyes. It might have been because I didn’t want to. Two hangovers in one month is total bullshit. But someone kept prodding me in the back, and it was getting on my nerves. Finally, I muttered, “Maddie, gosh darn it, quit it.”

They stopped, except the voice that spoke a second later didn’t belong to Maddie. It was a man’s voice. “Maddie?” they asked, confusion sounding clear in their voice. I still didn’t want to open my eyes. Now it was because I was scared of who was sitting there with me. So, with my eyes still shut tight, I replied, “Yes, Maddie, that’s my best friend.”

“I thought Beth was your best friend.”

Beth? Did I even know a Beth?

I know the saying: curiosity killed the cat. But because I didn’t hear any meowing, I forgot all about the saying. I warily opened my eyes, and sure enough, a guy was sitting besides me. He had curly, dark hair, olive skin, and a goofy grin. “Thank God, you’re awake; I thought we were going to have to spend Christmas Eve with an unconscious family member sitting at the table.”

I sat up, electric running through my spine. What on earth was he talking about? I looked around, and didn’t recognize a single part of my surroundings. I was in a girl’s room. That much was clear. The walls were painted a lilac color, with a white rug in the middle, a white desk, a flat screen in the middle of the room, a white leather couch, and a white with purple flowers bedspread, that I was currently sitting on. I fumbled around, trying to disentangle myself from the covers.

“Whoa, whoa, what are you doing?” he asked.

“Leaving,” I muttered.

“Not in that condition,” he said, stopping me.

“What condition?” I asked angrily.

“You’re still hungover, and whatever it is you came down with, it requires rest,” he said, “the doctor’s orders, not mine.”

“Well screw the doctor then!” I snapped. “I’m going home.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked incredulously. “What, you’re emancipating yourself now, too?”

“Oh, gosh, is this a nightmare?” I asked myself out loud.

The guy thumped me on the head, and I groaned, “Ow! What the hell’d you do that for?”

He shrugged. “Just making sure you were awake.”

I narrowed my eyes, and thumped him back. I then looked up to the ceiling, and said out loud, “God, I’m sorry I got drunk last night, but it was a Girl’s Night Out. And I was weak! And whatever else I did to deserve this, I am thoroughly sorry! Just please let me go home!”

 The guy looked at me oddly. “You know, you’re really starting to scare me.”

He backed up quietly, and left the room. I quickly ran to the window at the side of the room, and opened it. Cool morning air whipped my hair around. I pulled my hair back, and was about to tie it with my Scrunchie, when I realized something. “What the heck?” I muttered. My hair wasn’t this long. I let go of it, and brought a strand forward so that I could see it. It was blond. “Omigod,” I breathed. And then I screamed out loud.

Two people came rushing in. “Serena, what’s wrong?” I turned around, and came face-to-face with a kind-looking middle-aged lady. If it had been under different circumstances, I would’ve felt bad about what I did next, but I didn’t, “Serena?” I asked incredulously. “I’m not Serena! Are you on crack?”

The lady winced slightly, and said, “Honey, it’s alright, just go lay down.”

“No!” I shouted. “It’s not alright! I’m not Serena! My name is not Serena! My name is Shay, not Serena. Shh-ay.”

The guy and the lady shared confused glances. “Do you think it’s amnesia?” he whispered.

“I don’t know,” she whispered back, “maybe.”

“I’m standing right here!” I snapped. “Well, not for long.”

I pushed past them, and ran for it. But the guy was athletic, it seemed, and he very easily outran me. He grabbed my waist, and said, “Mom, I got her.”

I kicked and squirmed around, but I finally gave up. There was no way I was winning this battle. He brought me back to the room, and set me down on the bed, where I started frowning. “Dudes. I’m serious. I’m not Serena.”

“I’m going to go call the doctor,” the lady whispered to the guy.

I sighed angrily, and flopped back down. The guy left the room shortly after, but I heard him bolt the window shut and lock the door. Damn him.

I sat up, and looked around. It still didn’t look familiar. And I knew I wasn’t crazy. This was just way off. This had to be a bad dream. It had to. I wouldn’t have gotten up if I hadn’t realized I really had to go to the bathroom, so I groaned and got out of bed. I figured the other door in the room, that the guy hadn’t locked, was the bathroom, and I was right. It looked a lot like the actual room; it had a purple rug, purple and white shower curtains, purple and white towels, and a purple seat cover. I did my business, refusing to look in the mirror. Because then, it would make all of this seem more realistic. But the sink was in front of the mirror, and as I washed my hands, I found it was impossible to avoid doing so. What I saw made me want to scream. It wasn’t that what I saw was horrendously ugly. It just wasn’t me. What I saw in the mirror was the reflection of Serena Magnus.

Of course. Of all the people God could have forced me to live in temporarily, it had to be a Ridgeway girl? I now had long blond hair that I would never be able to keep neat, smooth skin that I would forget to use cream to keep that way, and I looked like someone a lot of girls might envy. But I didn’t want to be in this body. I wanted to look in the mirror, and see a brown bird’s nest sitting on my head. I wanted to look in the mirror and groan, because I had a huge honking zit in the middle of my forehead. I wanted to look in the mirror, and poke at the bit of baby fat that refused to leave because of my Snickers and Nesquik obsession. I wanted to be me again.

This had to be a nightmare. It was the only explanation. I mean, really, who wakes up one morning as one person, and the next morning as another? It just wasn’t probable. I was, I’ll admit, probably still a little drunk, or something, because next thing I knew, I was punching the mirror. I did this for two reasons. Firstly, I was trying to make sure this was a nightmare, and punching the mirror seemed like a good way to find out. But now I’m thinking pinching myself would have worked just fine. And secondly, I was pissed.

I heard the door’s lock jingle, and the door to the bathroom opened as well. I looked down, and my knuckles were bleeding. “Omigod!” I screeched. “I’m bleeding! What’ve I done? Fix me!”

The guy gave me an odd look, and said, “I’ll leave that to the doctor. He’s downstairs right now.”

I heard footsteps approaching, and the guy spoke my thoughts. “I guess he’s upstairs now.”

Sure enough, a young man in a white coat showed up. Of course. When I’m Shay, I get an old geezer who touches you inappropriately when he’s drunk as a doctor, and now, when I’m Serena, I get a cute and young stud.

But I was a little too upset to be excited about that, though.

“Serena, what did you do?” he asked.

“I punched a mirror,” I said quietly, feeling really stupid. “And my name isn’t Serena.”

“This is what I was talking about,” the lady whispered to the doctor, “I think it’s amnesia.”

“I think it might be,” the doctor said in his normal voice. Thank God. Listening to them whisper was making me feel like a mental person. “Come on, let’s go fix that up.”

I nodded and followed him back to the bed. I sat down, and he kneeled down. He grabbed some tweezers out of his briefcase, some disinfectant, and some bandages. He used the tweezers to remove the bits of glass stuck in my knuckles. He sprayed disinfectant on the cuts, and I felt bad for making fun of Forrest when he screamed when I sprayed HIS cuts, because this stuff hurt like hell. I shrieked. “Holy shit, that hurts!”

They all just gave me amused glances. He wrapped my hand with bandages, and stood up. “Alright, that part is done with. Now we’ll have to go to the clinic for the other part.”

They knew I’d put up a fight, so I was tied up and then stuffed in a car. The ride there, they kept playing country music, and I thought I was going to barf. I liked things like rock, not country. But they wouldn’t listen to my suggestions.

When we got to the hospital, I was sat on a wheelchair. I have to say, this part I didn’t really mind. I always loved riding on those things. Especially because I didn’t even have to move a finger to move myself forward. The guy pushed me. We got to a room, and I was put on anesthetic, so that was all I remembered of that.

I don’t know how long I was out, but when I woke up, I was surrounded by the same three people. “She’s awake,” the guy said.

“No shit, Sherlock,” I snapped, “my dead dog could figure that out.”

When I was six years old, my parents got me a Chihuahua, Pepe, for my birthday. But the next year, they told me he ran away. I believed them then. But three years ago, I went to the park with Maddie, and this little Chihuahua, that looked a lot like I remembered Pepe looked like. When I walked by him and his owner, he started jumping all over in an excited way, and he ran up to me so I could pet him, like I used to. He licked my face and was so happy to see me; I knew that it was Pepe. I was mad at my parents for a whole year after that little incident. But I found out last year that Pepe died of old age. I still miss that crazy little fur-ball.

“I told you she was grumpy,” he muttered to the lady.

“Serena, what you’re feeling right now is completely normal. I’m sure you don’t recognize any of us.” The doctor motioned to the three of them.

“Ding ding ding!” I said, “We have a winner.”

He cracked a smile, and continued. “You have amnesia. It’s not curable with medicine, but time. It happens slowly, but with the help of your family, it’s fairly easy to remember.”

“I’m Matt, your older brother,” the guy said. “So you still don’t know who you are?”

I realized something at that moment. I couldn’t win. No matter how often I insisted that the truth was, I just wasn’t Serena, they wouldn’t believe me. They would never believe me. They were Serena’s family. They wouldn’t want to believe or find out that their daughter wasn’t with them, and they didn’t know where she was. Even if they started to believe me, they would be in denial. They weren’t my ticket out.  So I figured I had to embrace my alter-ego now, and maybe, just maybe, God would let me off the hook for whichever of the things I had done I was being punished for.

“The dude just said it happens slowly,” I said, “SLOWLY. You call two seconds SLOWLY?”

He glared, but then grinned at me. “See?” he asked, “She’s slowly coming back.”

“Your name is Serena Magnus,” he began. “You’re a sophomore at RidgewayHigh School.”

Damn.

“You’re on the varsity volleyball team. Despite the way you look, you’re not a cheerleader. Your best friend is Bethany Rodgers. She’s not a cheerleader, either. You just broke up with your boyfriend, Jared, so don’t believe a word he says to you, after the whole amnesia thing gets out. Um… well, if you need to know anything more to start off with, just ask.”

I nodded slowly. “Uh-huh.”

“So, honey, my name is Liv, and I am your mother,” the lady said, “do you think you would be up for the family dinner? It’s just us this year.”

I nodded. “I guess so.”

Liv beamed at me.

 Sigh.

 ()*()

Serena’s family was actually really nice, but I’ll admit, I was still grouchy towards them. I couldn’t help it. But thankfully, I don’t know if it was just hormonal instinct on behalf of Serena’s body, but it was mostly Matt I insulted. The dinner was actually just Dominos pizza, because Liv burned the ham, and Matt ate what she didn’t burn. So we decided to just order some pizza. We were lucky there were some losers who actually worked on Christmas Eve.

“This is the best Christmas dinner ever,” Matt said as he stuffed a pepperoni pizza into his mouth. I just looked on in disgust. “That’s disgusting,” I told him. He grinned with his mouth full, and I covered my mouth. It was gross.

“Damn it, Matt, cut it out!” I snapped.

He shrugged and continued scarfing down the pizza. I shook my head at him. Although this was sort of fun, I still wanted desperately to be home. What was my family doing right now? Was Aunt Rita stuffing the mashed potatoes in her face faster than a speeding bullet? Was my Uncle Jerry strangely turned on by it, as he was every year? Was Damien lecturing my favorite fifteen-year-old cousin, Janna, and boring her to tears?

I assumed Serena was in my body. Was she being as bitchy as I had been to them? Have they even noticed something is off?

Would they even miss me if they knew I was gone?

()*()

“Rise and shine, Amnesia Serena!” Matt sang as he hit me with a pillow. I glanced over at the digital clock by the bed. It was eight in the morning. “It’s Christmas!”

I have to say, I wasn’t all that excited about opening up a bunch of presents that weren’t even mine, especially when I knew that at that moment, the real Serena was opening up mine. But in the spirit of Christmas, I got up anyways.

The Christmas tree was upstairs, thankfully for me, so I didn’t have to risk falling down some stairs again, like last Christmas. There were a lot of presents there. I opened the first one, and it was a new phone: One of those touch-screen ones, with the slide out keyboard. Okay, I’ll admit, I liked that one. It sure beat my old lame phone. The rest was a bunch of clothes, that was a lot more fashionable than I usually wore, I can tell you that much.

I was thankful school wouldn’t start until January. That gave me plenty of time to get used to this thing so Ridgeway wouldn’t completely freak me out.

This reminded me of something. I would be going to Ridgeway. And I distinctly remembered one little fact.

Forrest and Westley went to Ridgeway. I would be going to school with them, trying to cover who I really was. And because of my personality, that wasn’t going to be an easy job. That thing isn’t easy to cover up.

Westley, Forrest and I, all in the same building.

Holy shit.