Five years.
It feels heavy when I think about it, like an invisible weight pressing against my chest. Five years since the accident, since I woke up in that sterile white hospital bed with no past to cling to, no family waiting for me, no memories to hold onto.
I didn't even have a name at first. The nurses had to tell me mine—Althea. Hearing it out loud felt strange, like trying on clothes that didn't quite fit. Was I really her? Who was I before the crash?
For weeks, I tried to remember. I would stare at the ceiling and force my brain to work, chasing shadows of faces I couldn't identify. Sometimes I thought I saw a pair of eyes—dark, intense—but the image slipped away before I could hold it. Other times, I felt warmth, as if someone had once held me so close that my skin remembered it even if my mind didn't.
But in the end, there was nothing solid. Nothing that stayed.
The truth hit me harder than the accident itself: I had no one. No family. No one searching. No one coming to pick me up.
Leaving the hospital was the hardest part. It felt like I was walking out into a world that already had rules, connections, lives in motion—but none of them belonged to me. I didn't have a home to go back to. I didn't even know where to start.
The doctors gave me contacts for social services, shelters, and community programs. For a while, I drifted between them, trying to figure out who I was supposed to be. But every place felt temporary, like I was just waiting for something—or someone—that never came.
So I decided to stop waiting.
I found a job first. It wasn't glamorous. Just cleaning tables at a small diner, washing dishes, wiping spills. The kind of work no one paid attention to. But for me, it was a beginning. A way to feel useful.
With that job, I scraped together enough for a room in a rundown building. The walls were cracked, and the air smelled faintly of mold, but it was mine. My space.
I remember the first night I lay on that thin mattress, staring at the ceiling, clutching the blanket around me. I told myself: This is where I start. This is where Althea begins.
The years after were… exhausting, but steady.
I worked. A lot. Different jobs, sometimes two at a time. Cashier. Server. Clerk. I didn't care what it was, as long as it paid.
Every paycheck felt like proof that I was moving forward, step by step. I bought secondhand furniture to fill my room—a chipped table, a crooked chair, a lamp that flickered. None of it matched, but it made me feel less like a ghost.
Eventually, I moved into a small apartment. Still tiny, still modest, but it was mine. I decorated it with little things I picked up along the way—curtains that didn't quite fit the window, a rug that was fraying at the edges, a bookshelf filled with novels I grabbed at thrift stores.
It wasn't much. But when I looked around, I felt proud. Because I had done it on my own.
I wasn't the girl lying helpless in a hospital bed anymore.
But if I'm being honest, sometimes it still hurt.
There were nights when I'd come home from work, exhausted, and sit in the silence of my apartment. No voices. No family. No laughter. Just me.
I'd wonder: Did I have someone once?
A mother who kissed me goodnight? A father who worried if I got home safe? Friends who made me laugh?
Or maybe… someone who loved me?
The thought hit hardest at night, when the loneliness pressed in. Sometimes I'd wake from dreams with tears in my eyes, my chest aching like I had lost something precious. I didn't know what—or who—but my body remembered even if my mind didn't.
I'd lie there, clutching my pillow, whispering into the dark:
"Who did I love? Who did I lose?"
But the silence never answered.
So, I learned to fill the void with routines.
I started working at a café two years ago, and it became more than just a job. The smell of coffee, the sound of chatter, the rhythm of serving drinks—it grounded me.
Mornings became my favorite. I'd wake early, brew my own cup, and sit by the window watching the sun rise over the city. It wasn't much, but it gave me peace.
Evenings, I took long walks. Sometimes through busy streets, other times down quieter roads where the only sound was my footsteps. Walking cleared my mind. It made me feel less trapped in the cage of my lost memories.
Books became another escape. I didn't know what I used to like, so I tried everything—romance, mystery, fantasy. I devoured stories of people falling in love, people losing everything, people fighting for more. Maybe because in their stories, I found pieces of myself.
Still, the past haunted me.
Sometimes a smell would trigger something—a whiff of cologne, smoke, or rain on asphalt. My chest would tighten, and I'd feel a flash of… something.
Other times, a song would play, and I'd get goosebumps. Like I had danced to it once, laughed to it, cried to it.
And the dreams… they were the worst.
In them, I was running. Always running after someone. A figure ahead of me, moving faster no matter how much I chased. My throat burned, my legs gave out, but I couldn't stop. I needed to reach him.
I'd wake up sobbing, clutching my chest, certain my heart had been broken before.
But I never remembered who he was.
And now, here I am. Twenty-four years old. A woman who had to build herself from the ground up.
My apartment is small, but it feels like home. My job isn't glamorous, but it keeps me afloat. I have friendly coworkers, people I chat with every day, even if they don't truly know me.
I smile. I laugh. I survive.
But deep down, I know I'm incomplete.
There's a part of me that's missing—someone I once loved, a life I once lived.
I've accepted that I may never remember. That maybe I'm not meant to.
But life has a way of surprising you.
Because even as I sit here now, sipping my coffee, I don't realize that fate is moving closer. That the past I thought I had buried is waiting just around the corner.
And soon, I'll meet someone who will change everything.
Someone who will make me feel alive again.
Five years of silence are about to shatter.