39
39.) My muse has amnesia about only your muse’s existence — yours must find a way to remind them.
She can’t stand the look he’s giving her. She is not mad at him—far from anything like that. There’s a question in his eyes, his familiar eyes, and it hurts to look. Everything about him is familiar; his auburn eyes, his tousled hair, his posture and the way he’s folded his hands. Yet she is a stranger to him, everything about her a foreign entity, an alien claiming to know him.This is worse, she thinks, than never seeing him again.They are at the coffee shop they always used to go to, but Sion says its his first time being here. She tries to tell him that they’d come here on Sundays when they had no school, that they’d sit at the booth by the window and take time to catch up. He says he doesn’t recall anything of the sort.It wouldn’t be so bad if it was an ordinary sort of amnesia. It would hurt less to see him rebuild and regain his memories with his mother, too—wouldn’t it? She isn’t sure. Maybe she can find a link in his memories of others, of times they were all together.
"Do you remember when we’d help your mom with the dishes?" she asks. "Karan would have me dry them as you’d wash. Has she said anything about that?" She’d been there countless times. Karan must’ve mentioned her in his memories over and over.
Still, it’s fruitless. He shakes his head, and she can tell that it’s not only bothering her but him as well. He wants to remember, to give this girl who claims to be his friend a chance. But his memory is malaise, and all her prodding doesn’t prove to be beneficial.
But she will not give up.
"How about your twelfth birthday, then?" she urges, hoping for a better reaction. He might still have the shirt. He might still remember her grandmother.
A light of recognition sparks in his eyes. She is hopeful, too hopeful; she is falling off the edge of her stool, stumbling for something to cling to.
"I remember the party," he starts, and her heart has soared through the ceiling and up into space. It’s better progress than they’ve had in days, at least. "I remember your grandmother too. And someone handed me a sweater…was it you?"
She nods eagerly and clasps his hand, but the closeness still startles him, and she remembers that she is still a stranger. “Yes! Yes, that was me. Let’s keep going. What else do you remember?”They go like this for another hour, until Sion is exhausted and her questions start to run out. It’s very dim, but there’s a light of hope. Maybe with the doctors help they can recover his lost memories. Maybe the situation isn’t so hopeless as she first thought.
Maybe, with enough patience, things will return to normal.
