Elina's POV
The first thing I remembered was the ceiling, it was white, cracked in the corner, buzzing with a flickering light that seemed too loud for its own silence, then the smell, antiseptic and cold just like winter wrapped in bleach, and then the pain, it wasn't sharp, nore violent, just… everywhere, in my chest, my ribs and my mind.
I blinked slowly. My eyelashes felt like they had weights on them.
'Where… am I?'
As the nurse noticed me awaking, her face softened, she moved quickly but gently, calling someone outside the room, I heard the shuffle of footsteps, the sound of pages flipping, and a voice on the intercom, at first I didn't recognize any of it, but then she turned to me, smiling carefully.
"Welcome back, sweetheart."
Sweetheart. That felt too familiar, just like something I used to be.
I opened my mouth, yet nothing came out at first, then, finally "Where…?"
"You're in the hospital," she said gently.
"You were in an accident. A car hit you. for a few days, you've been asleep but now, you're okay, you're safe."
Safe, I swallowed, that word didn't land right. As I looked around the room, there were flowers on the table, a sketchbook on the chair, and a jacket on the edge of the bed, it didn't look like mine, but there were no faces, no names, or even memories.
Just then the door opened, And ..."ELINA!"
Liv's voice shattered the air like sunlight through fog, as she rushed to my side and collapsed into me, crying with so much relief it made my own eyes sting. Her arms were warm, familiar, trembling.
"You scared the hell out of me," she whispered into my hair. "You absolute idiot. You beautiful, impossible idiot."
I blinked at her, confused. "I… know you?"
Her breath caught. I saw it in her eyes before she even said it.
"You don't remember me?"
"I don't know," I whispered. "Maybe I do. Maybe I just… can't find it."
Behind her, two more shadows came forward…my parents, my mother was already crying, and my father, silent and pale, just stood there like a wall that had finally cracked.
"Hi, baby," my mom said, voice shaking. "You're safe. We're here. We're here now."
They hugged me gently, cautiously and I let them, because there was a strange comfort in the weight of their arms that knew how to hold me, even if I didn't remember why they did, yet something buried deep told me I belonged in their embrace, and still, something was missing.
I smiled at them weakly, apologized for not remembering, even though I wasn't sure what I was sorry for, they all cried, but I didn't, not yet. Later on, when everyone stepped out to speak to the doctors, the nurse returned, just then she held an envelope in her hand.
"This was in your grip when the medics found you," she said. "We thought it might help."
It was creased at the corners, smudged by dried blood.
For Elina
Be safe, my little star. – M.
I didn't know who M was, I didn't know why my hands began to tremble meither why my heart suddenly ached, like it had been ripped from its place but tears came, not loud, not violent, but just slow, and endless, like rain after a long drought, and for reasons I couldn't name, I clutched the letter to my chest like it was the last piece of a puzzle I didn't know I was trying to solve. Something in me remembered love, even if my mind had forgotten the name that carried it.
They said I was lucky, since surviving a car accident with no permanent damage was something to be thankful for, and I was.
Physically, I was healing, the bruises had faded, and the headaches were manageable, I could walk again, talk again, laugh even. Thre were visitors, flowers and people who loved me, my life was getting back to its usual rythm, yet something in it was missing and no one could name it, not even me.
The hospital released me four days after I woke up, my friend Liv decorated my room before I got home with fairy lights, all of my favorite books stacked neatly on the windowsill, on the other hand, my mom made lentil soup that she used to make for me whenever I'm sick, as for my dad, he insisted on carrying me up the stairs, even though the doctors said I was strong enough to walk.
They all looked at me like I was glass, still somehow I didn't feel fragile, but I felt hollow. I remembered things now, not all at once, more like puzzle pieces returning out of order, I remembered my teenage, fuzzy images of my first day in Florence, the freckles on Liv's face in high school, the sound of my dad's laugh before he got tired all the time. I remembered my university schedule, my favorite coffee shop, my email password, but nothing past a certain point, there was a wall in my memory, tall, gray, impenetrable, all I could remember was walking home one rainy night, until then… nothing. Just silence, til the hospital bed.
It was like waking up halfway through a film and having everyone around you insist you were in the first half too, but I didn't feel like I had been, because something had changed, in the mirror, I looked the same, but different, my eyes were softer, my smile slower, I noticed things more, the way the sun moved through the curtains, the smell of certain spices, the rustle of paper, and sometimes… I'd look at a sketch, or a chair, or the jacket I didn't recognize, and my chest would ache, deep, quiet, familiar, like I was mourning someone whose face I couldn't remember. Liv stayed with me almost every night that first week, she tried to make me laugh, she filled in blanks I didn't ask for.
"You were obsessed with this bakery on the corner of Via Nazionale," she said one afternoon, curled beside me on my bed. "You said their almond croissants healed generational trauma."
I smiled. "That… sounds like me."
"You were happier," she said, softer now. "Before the accident, a little sadder too, sometimes but you were glowing. I don't know how to explain it."
"Maybe I just started using highlighter."
"No," she said. "It wasn't on your face, it was inside you."
I turned away at that, because I didn't know how to respond to something I couldn't feel, one week after getting back to my appartement, I found the envelope again, it was tucked in the side pocket of my bag. Creased, worn, tear-stained. I'd read it at least fifty times already.
Be safe, my little star.
– M.
That name, that letter, M. I had no idea who he was, no face came with the words, no memory, but when I touched the paper, my fingertips tingled, and when I whispered "little star" under my breath, my eyes stung.
Was it love? Was it danger? Or was it both?
Why couldn't I remember him, when I remembered the brand of tea I liked and the embarrassing nickname I gave my cat? I wanted to ask Liv, I almost did, a hundreds of times, but something inside always stopped me.
What if he left me? What if I left him? What if knowing hurts more than forgetting?
So I stayed silent.
Instead, I folded the letter back into its envelope and placed it under my pillow like a charm, a secret, a wound with no name.
Life went on, my parents returned to work, Liv started making plans again, the world resumed its rhythm like it didn't notice the gap between my heartbeats, as for me, I smiled when I was supposed to, I said I was fine, I went outside, sat at the café on the corner and let the sun touch my skin, but nothing tasted quite right.
Not the coffee. Not the wind. Not the quiet.
It was like someone had taken one specific color out of the world, and even though the painting was still beautiful, I couldn't stop staring at where the color used to be.