“Not yet.”
“Not yet?” I choke out, and the news is yet another gut-wrenching blow that leaves me reeling and alone. What kind of person has no one looking for her?
He moves to the side of my bed again and sits down. “It’s only been a few hours.”
“Please don’t do that obligatory make-me-feel-better thing that people do. I am indebted to you for saving me, and I appreciate that you waited here until I woke up—but you don’t have to stay here with me.” My eyes prickle with tears, and I stare at the doorway, trying to compose myself.
Of course, it’s at that poorly timed moment that a woman in green scrubs rushes into the room, speaking in a language I don’t understand. I inhale and will away the tears threatening to spill over, only to have her stop at the foot of my bed, her speech pausing expectantly. I blink and realize that she’s waiting for an answer I can’t deliver. I stare at her. She stares at me, and while the tears might be gone, I have this sense of standing in quicksand, sinking fast, unable to claw my way out.
Kayden rescues me, stepping to my side and answering for me. Confused, overwhelmed with everything but memories, I let my head roll forward, pressing my fingers to my throbbing forehead and telling myself not to crumble. I have to be stronger than this moment in time.
“You don’t know Italian, do you?”
At Kayden’s question, I look up to find the nurse gone and him standing at the end of the bed. “Why would I?”
“It’s the native language.”
He’s making no sense. “No, it’s not.”
“You don’t know that you’re in Rome.” It’s not a question, and he doesn’t wait for an answer. “Of course you don’t. Why would you? You don’t even know your own name.”
“What? I can’t be in Rome. I’m American.”
“You have to know that’s not a logical reply. Plenty of Americans, myself included, live in Rome, while thousands of others visit as tourists.”
“I know that—I meant I don’t live here.”
“So you’re visiting,” he says, rounding the bed to reclaim the stool. “That’s progress. Where do you live?”
“I don’t know,” I say, wracking my brain. “I don’t know. I just know it’s not here.”
“That’s okay. You know you’re American. You know you don’t live here. You’ll remember the rest in time.”
“You have no idea how much I want you to be right.”
“I’m right,” he assures me, “and for the record, you were right, too. I don’t have to stay. But I am.”
“I don’t want to be an obligation.”
“I don’t do obligation, sweetheart.”
“Well, then, pity.”
“Another thing I don’t do, so if you’re looking for someone to feel sorry for you, I’m the wrong guy for the job.”
“There are no other reasons for you to be here.”
“Aren’t there?” he challenges softly.
“What does that even mean?” I ask, but it’s a forgotten question when I hear “Good morning.”
A twenty-something woman in dark blue scrubs, her long dark hair tied neatly at her nape, sweeps into the room and offers me hope that I might actually find a way to escape all of this white noise.
“I’m Maria,” she says pleasantly, stopping at the end of the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Like someone turned off the switch to my brain,”
I say, holding nothing back.