Memories of Love

The boy slowly opened his eyes. His head was pounding, and his vision was slightly blurry. The noonday sun was blotted out by a branch a few meters above where his head rested on the soft, grassy earth. The sky above him was gray and blue, streaked with clouds, but the day was still suffused with a warm glow from the spring sun. Instinctively, the boy reached up and felt his head. Slowly bringing his hand within his field of vision, he saw that it was now smeared with blood. He groaned and rolled over on to his right side. His left side ached badly, and he gingerly probed it with his free hand. It seemed bruised, and he conjectured that perhaps he had fallen out of the tree.

"James?" a voice said. He looked up, but having rolled out of the protective shade of the tree, he had to shield his eyes from the sun with his hand. "Oh my God, James! You're bleeding!"

James closed his eyes against the pain from his throbbing head. "James...?" he said meekly to himself, under his breath.

"Come on, James, get up! What's wrong? Where are you hurt?"

"Side... head... can't... remember..."

"What? Oh my God, I hope you don't have a concussion. Erm," she said unsurely, "I'm not sure if it's okay to move you or what. Just stay here, I'll go get help."

James didn't dissent. He didn't know what to do himself. "James..." he said again slowly. "Why can't I... remember?" He grimaced again. Why am I here? he wondered to himself. Where am I? Who was that girl? He lay there for a while, trying to piece things together.

He reasoned that he must have fallen out of that tree. He didn't know who the girl was, but she obviously knew him, and she was obviously near by. What were she and I doing in the same place? he wondered. Again he was brought back to the simple question, Where is here? He tried to lift his head again and look around. It was a hilly area, covered in grass, trees dotting the landscape. Over to his left he saw a bench, but it was deserted. At the moment, not another soul was in sight. He lay his head back down in a feeble attempt to ease the pain in his side and neck.

"James! James!" called the familiar voice of the girl, from somewhere beyond his range of vision.

"Woah, James," another voice said. "Man, what happened?"

James tried to look in their direction again. It was the girl again, and now she was followed by a male who was roughly their age. "Hello?" James asked, still dazed.

"I asked what happened, man. Your head is bleeding!"

"I know," James groaned. "I don't remember."

"Don't remember what?" the male asked. "Don't remember what happened? How you fell?"

"Don't remember... anything," James replied weakly.

James opened his eyes. He was in a hospital, now. White noise droned constantly on in the background, while the pieces of equipment next to his bed had their own rhythms of beeping and air being siphoned from one place to another. The pain in his side was dull now, due to the IV which was constantly dripping vicadine into his blood, and his head was wrapped in gauze.

"Is he awake?" James heard someone asking outside his door.

"Well, I'm not sure," the nurse replied, walking swiftly in to James' room. Seeing that he was awake, the nurse addressed James, "Feel like having visitors now, hun?" she asked.

James didn't feel particularly well, but the monotony of the hospital was getting to him, and he was still very confused. He nodded to the nurse.

"Come on in guys!" she called over her shoulder. Then, addressing James, "You're still in pretty bad shape, so I don't want you visiting too long. I'm gonna come back and check your vitals in about fifteen minutes, 'kay?"

"Yeah, thanks..." James trailed off as he watched three people come into the room. One of them he recognized -- the guy from yesterday -- but now he was accompanied by two girls, neither of whom James recognized.

"Chris," James said, to himself as much as anyone, trying to reinforce the name in his memory.

"Yeah, that's right," Chris replied encouragingly. One of the girls seemed overcome and buried her face into the shoulder of the girl beside her. "And this is Elli and Dominique. Do you... remember anything yet?"

James lay his head down. "Yeah, some things..."

"But not us, right?" Chris asked flatly.

"I'm sorry! I--I..." James didn't know what to say.

One of the girls came over to him. "Shhh,"she said, trying to comfort James. "It's okay, it's okay."

"...Elli?" James guessed.

She smiled. "Yeah, that's right. And this is Dominique," she said, indicating the other girl who was walking up to James' bedside. "You remember us yet?"

"No," James frowned, closing his eyes in frustration. "And... and who was that girl who found me?"

Elli looked at Chris in confusion. "Who? I thought you found him."

"Nichole Kharrl found him while she was walking in the park. She happened to find me walking back to the apartment, and she knew I was a friend of his. Both of us went in the ambulance with him, but she split pretty soon after he was admitted."

"Nichole..." muttered Dominique said quietly to herself.

"Dominique!" Elli hissed sharply into her ear.

"And... who's that to me?" James asked, ignoring the exchange between Dominique and Elli. "She seemed rather familiar with me..."

Chris looked a little confused. "I dunno... she's just this girl... I think you guys met before I moved up here."

"So are we like, good friends?"

"No... not really..."

"Sorry to burst your bubble, James, but we're about it," Elli said with a smile. "Well, no, there are a few other people who you're good friends with but, hey, we're the only ones who love you enough to come and visit you in the hospital," she said playfully.

"My friend jests," Chris assured James. "There are a few others in our group, but for one reason or another it worked out for us and not for them. I'm sure you'll be having some other callers before too long."

James kept thinking about Nichole. She was so beautiful... but he had been so stunned at the time...

"I, um... do I have, you know, like... a girlfriend or anything...?"

Chris gave a short laugh, and looked down at James in mock empathy. "Sorry my friend. No such luck. Though maybe with the pity you'll be able to milk from this injury..."

James started to roll his eyes, but his head still hurt a little too much. He groaned. "Thanks for the advice," he said sarcastically.

"See that?" Elli said. "He can't even remember the man, but already he realizes that this is not someone you'd want to take advice from."

"I'll be thanking you to leave the love counseling to me, Elli," Chris shot at her playfully.

"Alright you guys, time for this visit to be over." The nurse had walked in behind the little group.

"Any idea when he'll be getting out?" Dominique asked the nurse.

"Mmmm..." the nurse cogitated, "he's not too bad... Probably by tomorrow. But for now he needs his rest, so let's clear out."

"See ya later James," Elli said, bending down to hug him.

"Yeah, hope to see you back at school soon," Dominique said, mirroring Elli's actions.

"Until we meet again," Chris said, offering his hand. James nodded and shook, finalizing their goodbyes. With that the three turned and walked out again, Elli pausing to wave a final time.

Again alone in the gloom of his room, James rested his head back on his pillow and closed his eyes. She was... so cute, so nice... James thought to himself, once again picturing Nichole. And it seems like I remember something... about us. Between us? No...

"What I can't figure is, why was James in that tree to start out with?" Chris spoke over his shoulder to the two girls in the back of his old Mazda as he maneuvered them through the city streets.

Dominique fidgeted and looked at the stars out her window. Elli wasn't paying attention to her. "I dunno either," she said, intrigue in her voice. "It does make you wonder. Then again, James is pretty weird."

Chris laughed. "True, true," he said.

"...I could have told him that I--" Dominique began quietly to herself.

"Dominique!" Elli cried. "Don't even think things like that! You can't take advantage of James like that!"

"What are you two going on about?" Chris asked suspiciously, glancing into the rearview mirror.

"So what do we do, huh?" Dominique asked angrily, ignoring Chris. "Let him agonize over that bitch for anoth--"

"What's your problem with Nichole?" Chris demanded quickly.

Dominique glared wordlessly at the back of Chris' neck for a moment. "Nothing," she said, through gritted teeth.

"She's nice. Seriously, what is your problem? And what's going on between you and James?"

Elli inhaled as if to speak. Madly Dominique's head jerked around and her gaze pinned Elli to the door of the car. Slowly, Elli exhaled and shrunk down into her seat, away from Dominique's furious gaze. Without moving her head or shifting her gaze, Dominique addressed Chris. "Nothing's going on between me and James," she said coolly, silently mouthing to Elli, "Got it?" Elli nodded silently.

"What?" Elli exclaimed into her phone.

"I don't think he would have gone through with it..." Dominique slowly replied from the other end of the line.

"Bu-- I mean... crap..." Elli groaned weakly.

"He's had a crush on Nichole since sophomore year. Two years now! You don't think he'd've done something by now if he was actually going to?"

"He was obviously doing something! He was there. You don't think he was going to go through with asking her out?" Elli cried.

"He doesn't even know who she is any more!"

"Yeah, but... I..." Elli was stuck. "Crap," she groaned again.

"Look, I'm not going to do anything, so don't worry."

"When did he tell you all this?" Elli asked.

Dominique made a little noncommittal sound.

"But... but..." Elli wasn't sure what should be done. "I mean, do we tell him?"

"Tell him what? That he had a crush on a girl way out of his league for two years? Yeah, great idea, that'll do him a lot of good. Way to recover from the shock of loosing all your freaking memory," Dominique shot back hotly.

"Uuuugn," Elli groaned again. "This is not a good night, dangit," she whined.

"I am utterly sympathetic," Dominique said coldly. "I'm the one who likes James here, okay? I don't think you've got a monopoly on the dilemmas here, Elli. How do you think I felt, talking with him about Nichole? It wasn't the greatest feeling in the world, talking with someone I like about his crush. I can't think of only everyone else all the time."

"It... just... seems like we should tell him... something..." Elli said haltingly, fumbling for words, trying to decide what she meant as she spoke.

"Come on, Elli. What would we tell him. Really? What? I'd like to know because I certainly can't think of anything. 'Oh yes. There's this one girl you really liked but... you don't have a chance.'"

"Maybe if we don't tell him that he doesn't have a chance..."

"Do you know why... he was in the tree?" Elli asked uncertainly. "I mean, you kinda hinted that it had something to do with Nichole..."

"Yeah, kinda. I'm not sure on the specifics. I don't know if James was sure on the specifics. He seemed to have some kind of backward notion of some romantic thing he could do, like drop out of the tree and confess his true emotions or something. I don't know. He's a guy, how the hell am I supposed to understand those pathetic little watch-springs that tick away in his head?"

"Nice way to talk about your crush there, Dom."

"Yeah, whatever. I'll see you at school tomorrow, Elli," Dominique said flatly, signaling the end of the conversation. "It'll be James' first day back...," she added, "I think the principal is going to let us take him around to his classes and get reacquainted with the campus and stuff."

"Sounds great," Elli said sadly, sarcastically. "See ya tomorrow."

"...And down this corridor," Elli was saying, "is where you have a science class fourth period. Um, chemistry I think," she said, looking down at a paper she held in her hand. "Ugh, Mr. Lessley. You... don't exactly like him."

"Great," James said, rolling his eyes. "I don't seem to like a lot of this school."

Dominique smiled. "You like us," she said. "We're not the most social of groups, but co-exist peacefully with our fellow students. ...Most of the time."

"Uh hu..." James laughed. "I see..."

"And down that hall--"

"James!" a voice from behind them called.

Oh God, it's her... James thought, the image of beauty coming once again to his mind. Turning around, he saw that he was right.

"Hi Nichole," Chris said. "What's up?"

"Not much. But I heard James was back. Welcome back!" she said cheerfully.

"Thanks..." James said smiling, looking down at his shoes. "I'm glad I'm back..." he trailed off.

"You... still don't remember anything, then?" Nichole asked sadly, sensing James' melancholy.

"No... not yet. Not really anyway. I have, a little..." he added. "It's like... like blurry images. Like the memory of a dream, after it's started to fade away."

"Well, I really hope you can remember more. I have to get to class though... talk to you later," she said, moving away from the group, giving a little wave to James as she went.

"Uh, yeah," James said, fumbling with his words. "See-- see you later!" he called after her.

The little grouped walked a little farther down the hallway, but once he was sure Nichole was out of earshot, he stopped and turned to his friends.

"I... I have odd memories of that girl," James began weakly. "They're... I don't know what. Do... um, do any of you guys know of anything between us? Or like, I dunno, like do I, um--"

Dominique shot a quick glance at Elli. "No, there's nothing between you two... why do you ask?"

"Oh, um... n-- no reason. Just curious..."

What a cute guy, Nichole thought, walking to class. I might even consider trying to hook up with him, if I didn't have a boyfriend already...