“Do you know where you are?”
“The hospital.”
“Do you know what year it is?”
“It’s 2006.”
“That’s good. Now, tell me your whole name please.”
“Beverly Anne Remorsey.”

The doctor took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, sighing into his palm as he marked something on his notepad. The girl watched him apathetically with her hands twitching on the table. Every so often she would swallow or clear her throat and blink her eyes.

“I’m sorry. There isn’t anyone in this room by the name Beverly Anne Remorsey.” The doctor spoke into the little microphone in front of him, nodding to urge her to reply into hers. With belligerent patients they weren’t allowed to go to the one on one room that the other patients were admitted to. Normally she wasn’t a problem, but after she almost killed her last doctor, the hospital was wise to take precautions. “Do you know your name? Your real name.”

“I was born with the name Beverly Anne Remorsey.” Her face grew red, but other than that, she remained perfectly calm, completely contradicting the emotions that she felt in her heart. “My mother’s name was Shirley Hae Remorsey. I have a younger sister: Mary Kay Rosher. She got married to Bill Rosher. I don’t know his middle name. They don’t have any kids yet. I don’t have kids either. I’ve never been married. My father is dead. He died from a heart attack when he was seventy-two. His name was Harvey William Remorsey.”

“Stop. Listen. Until you can come to terms that you are not Beverly Anne Remorsey, you will never get better. Your name is Katelynn Ray Tinman. Your family was killed in a car accident. You have no siblings and both your parents died from old age last year. Do you remember any of this?” The girl shook her head and sighed, slamming her fists on the table. Her eyes were steely gray, regarding the doctor with an animosity that made him fidget uncomfortably in his chair and strain to remember whether the guards had assured him that the glass was bullet proof. He could see the navy blue colored shoulder of one of them outside the frosted glass window. Still, he didn’t feel safe.

“That never happened. My name is Beverly Anne Remorsey and I am a happy woman. My mother is still alive. You and everyone else are lying to me and want to be sad and stay in this hellhole you call an institution. I won’t stay here and have you feed me lies. Let me out!” She stood, punching the glass until her knuckles bled and smeared on the glass, punched it until the guards came in and held her back. He listened to her screams, her accusations of how he was a liar, how the institution was just one big conspiracy, how she was Beverly, how her mother was Shirley. How her sister was married and trying for kids. He rubbed at his eyes again, the screams dying down as they dragged her from the room and sedated her.

She was getting closer and closer to her breaking point. Eventually she wouldn’t have any hope of recovery at all. She would fall into that story she had fabricated about Beverly Anne Remorsey and her happy life and deny any past connection to her former self. Deny any connection to Katelynn. He remembered Katelynn. He remembered her well. He remembered the day she showed up on his doorstep, drenched in rain and blood dripping from her forehead onto her white blouse. He remembered the wild look in her eyes, the emptiness in them like she was gone, like her soul had left her body and abandoned her on his doorstep, flew right out of her body the instant he had opened the door.

The moment she walked into the hospital she had forgotten about him. Forgotten about him and their affair together and convinced herself she was someone completely different. She convinced herself she was his wife.