A/N: A little longer than usual. But this time it’s interesting. She meets some of her friends and her brother, Matt! Go on, read and review please!

I stared at my lap making sure my face was blank. I didn’t remember any of these people. Why couldn’t I remember them? They were there, somewhere in the back of my mind. Faceless black shadows of familiarity.

“In August Melody finally moved back after four years, but she’s become a jerk so we haven’t talked to her much. Then in September, we started our junior year. Your schedule is attached along with copies of our schedules. And nothing has happened since then. So now you are mostly caught up.”

I looked up at him as he handed me a few schedules. I flipped through the names. Amanda, Jessi, Zak, Josh, and April. Then there was mine on the front. I only recognized Jessi’s name. The others were merely vaguely familiar. Like when you looked at a picture once, then looked at it months later.

I was torn out of when I heard a few loud people race toward my door.

“Shush!” someone hissed through her giggles. “This is a hospital.” There was a pause as the group tried to settle down. “Now be quiet. You don’t want to wake her up.”

“Not funny!” a male voice hissed.

“I’m not opening this door until you all shut up,” the first voice commanded. I folded my arms across my chest and raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“Only your friends…” I heard dad mutter after a sigh. I was about to retaliate with a sarcastic comment, but was cut off when the door opened.

Frowning, I tried to cross my legs, but only my right leg bent toward me. I tried hard to ignore the rush of people gawking at me. I just glared at my leg, trying to make it move. Letting out a grunt, I sighed in frustration and ran a hand through my black hair. It was shorter than I remembered; it was shoulder length. Wasn’t it longer just yesterday at the village…?

“Maddie!” one of the girls screamed. She attempted to run at me, but one of the males held her.

“Are you mentally challenged today, April?” he asked.

She brushed a stray strand of bleach blond hair out of her pale blue eyes before she could answer. “I wasn’t going to eat her! Gosh, Matt!”

So the blond-haired blue-eyed girl’s name was April. Some things started to piece together in my mind like a puzzle. The girl with dark brown hair and chocolate eyes—I recognized her as Jessi. I remembered her.

This guy, Matt—I hadn’t heard anything about him. He had gorgeous green eyes that were shaded by his straight black hair that hung down over his ears and eyes. I looked him over, top to bottom. Familiarity swept through me like a tidal wave. I couldn’t help but think of how cute he was. I bit my lip when I noticed he was looking at me funny.

Jessi burst out laughing; it was a second before she could explain herself. “Why are you checking out your brother?”

I blushed madly.

“Are you okay, Madison?” Matt asked. He tried to take an inconspicuous step backward, but I saw it.

“Give her a break,” dad said, coming to my defense, crossing his arms. “She has a bit of amnesia.” I saw jaws drop.

Jessi pulled up a chair and I manually pulled my other leg towards me. I felt a sting underneath my kneecap and didn’t know whether to take it as good or bad, so I made a mental note to ask the doctor when he came back in to check on me.

“I’m going to get something to eat, I’ll be back.” He got up and walked out of the room, leaving me with Matt, Jessi, and April.

“So, let’s see, what do you remember?” Jessi asked. She had a goofy grin on her face, a hopeful glint to her eye.

I was almost hesitant in answering. “I don’t remember a lot.” I averted my eyes to the pink and orange fishes on the wall.

“Out of the three of us, who do you remember?” Matt asked skeptically.

“Jessi. I remember Jessi. She’s a hard one to forget,” I grinned. However, it fell the same time Matt’s did. I looked up at the ceiling. “Let’s see, the last thing I can remember is…I don’t even know.” I realized then how much I truly remembered.

“Do you remember Valentine’s Day?” April giggled.

“No, what happened then?” I asked, truly curious.

“Christopher scared you to tears. He had told us to help drop hints that he was going to break up with you, but Zak took it a little too far,” April full out laughed.

“It was pretty funny.” Matt even chuckled. I couldn’t get past the name. Christopher—could it be the same Christopher? “What’s wrong?”

I felt the lone tear roll down my cheek and I quickly wiped it away. “It’s nothing; just a headache that flared up.” I picked up my spoon and began to drink my now-cold soup.

“Maybe you should get some rest,” Jessi suggested. That may be what I needed but not what I wanted. I wanted to talk—learn more about myself.

“Why is it,” I hesitated, looking at Matt. “Why is it, do you think, that I remember Jessi and that woman, but I don’t remember you?” Matt’s face didn’t change. It was smooth and unemotional. I was hoping that I hadn’t hurt him in any way by asking what I did.

“It’s probably got something to do with where you bumped your head. Don’t worry about it though,” he grinned. “You’ll remember me on your own time!”

I smiled shyly. He was so sure of me—but what if I couldn’t live up to the expectations? I chuckled. “If at first you don’t succeed, lower your expectations.” I was confused by the blank stares that had spread around the room. It only got worse when Matt smiled.

“See? You’re already remembering me!” he exclaimed triumphantly.

Dad came back into the room and returned to his chair next to me. Amused, I watched matt fall onto his back at the foot of my bed and hang his head over the side.

“She doesn’t remember me,” he grinned.

“That’s a good thing,” dad responded with a small laugh.

“Why?” I was intrigued now. There was so much I still had to learn about myself. I started to wonder if it was possible to remember at all.

“He annoys you to no end.”

“Why’s older?” I glanced at Matt when he burst out laughing and then fell off the bed with a loud thunk!

“He is by like, a minute and a half,” Jessi told me. It was obvious she was trying not to laugh; her face was bright red.

A small oh escaped my lips as I thought. I didn’t realize how tired I was until my eye lids dropped, but I immediately opened them back up. I couldn’t sleep, not yet. I needed a few more answers.

“Where is Christopher?” I inquired. He would have to see me one day, why not make it now?

April answered before anyone else could. “He’s in Colorado for winter break.”

I smacked my forehead. “That’s right, I missed an entire semester. Crap!”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jessi said. “You had Latin III, which isn’t necessary to graduate and it was self-study this year anyways. Then you had AP Art Studio but don’t worry, you can take it next year. I already asked. You had Science Visuals for third block and Drama II for last block.”

“We made sure to make your core classes second semester in case you woke up, but you’ll still need to make up the lost semester,” dad checked his watch again, and I began to wonder what it was he was waiting for.

I sighed in frustration.

“What?” April asked, dropping the tiny silver charm she was playing with on her matching bracelet.

“Nothing. I don’t see how I can make it all up besides summer school,” I said slowly, weighing each word too see how I really felt about the idea. It was the only possibility I could thing of. Though I was starting to get a headache, I pushed my brain harder to dust away the cobwebs and really think about it.

“Maybe that’s all you can do,” Matt mumbled, clearly thinking just as hard as I was trying to. He reminded me so much of mom; the way he laughed, the way he moved, the way he laughed—everything. “Unless you were to spend Saturday’s at school…”

“Then she wouldn’t have to spend all summer there!” Jessi said, overly exited by the thought. I grimaced. Staying after school was one thing, but staying at school on the weekends was a wholly other thing. What strange, twisted person would want to stay at school when they could be out with friends?

I started to think much more than I probably should. I only remembered Jessi, dad, my mom, and that’s it? What about Christopher? They had mentioned him before. As soon as I thought his name, my ‘dream’ popped back into my head.

I was in a parallel world where magic was rejected by a society in which divine right was preferred—a land called Asila. Christopher had been there. I know it. I was with him for years. What a minute, years? They said I was only in a coma for months.

“You okay?” dad’s voice pulled me out of my deep though.

I snapped my head up to meet his worried gaze. “Er, yeah,” I mumbled.

“You look pale,” Matt commented.

“Just a little tired. I’m fine.” I really wasn’t very tired, but I yawned unwillingly. Okay, maybe I was more tired than I thought. I shifted in the bed—manually straightening my left leg—so that I was lying down.

“I wonder when Christopher will get here. He really wanted to come today, he wouldn’t tell me why though,” Jessi pondered.

I opened my mouth to ask a question that had been rolling around in my mind ever since his name was first brought up, but April whacked Jessi in the back of the head and spoke. “It’s his seventeenth birthday today!”

“What a gift,” Matt murmured seemingly to himself. “His girlfriend wakes up.” He chuckled blackly.

The silence in the room after that was suffocating. However, I waited patiently for someone, or something, to break the silence, but no one did. The minutes ticked by slowly, and my eyes shifted to my disabled leg.

I started to wonder if I’d ever be able to move it again. The idea of being crippled scared me and I tried not to think about it. I capture the glint of light on Jessi’s face and I took the opportunity to take my mind off my leg and break the seemingly deadly silence that hung in the air.

“Are you crying?” I asked flatly. To me, showing tears was showing someone that you cared too much. I hated it when someone cries. She looked surprised, but quickly whipped the stray tear away with the sleeve of her gray hoodie and stood up, avoiding eye contact.

“I have to go,” she whispered, her shaking voice audible even in a whisper. “Come on, guys.”

“I’m going to stay,” Matt said, his eyes locked with mine. Why would he want to stay with someone who didn’t even remember him? I studied his features, which surprisingly matched my own a lot.

“Go get some rest, Matt,” dad spoke. I had almost forgotten he was there. “You can come back tomorrow.”

Matt grunted. “Fine, whatever.” Standing up, he shoved his hands into his pants pockets and stormed out the door, Jessi and April close behind.

I found the entire visit a little weird. Two strangers and my best friend come to visit. Jessi starts crying, and Matt nearly throws a fit. It was all so tiring.

“You should get some rest, too; you’ll probably be able to leave in a few days,” Dad assured me

I crossed the worn metal frame of the door that Matt held open for me into the house that I had supposedly lived in since I was born. I looked around the foyer, trying to catch a glimpse of some memory that was attached to these walls.

It was a bright house. The cream color of the entryway matched the shiny vase that held colorful bouquets to my left, while the dark wood of the small table and matching mirror went along with the dark wood floors.

“Go ahead and look around,” Matt mumbled, placing the car keys on a hook next to the mirror.

I dropped my small black duffle bag on the floor next to the door and entered the room to my right. There was no door, so the dark, bruise colored walls were visible from the front door. On the west wall sat a dark gray sectional sofa. The east wall was covered by a clean white wall unit, which housed a small television and sound system. But what caught my attention was the north wall.

I slowly walked up to the brick fireplace, my eyes locked with the large collection of pictures. One in particular—it was of mom and me. I could recognize that lying face anywhere. She looked so pretty back then. I had to have been only six or seven when the picture had been taken. My short black hair was pulled back into two low pigtails. She had the same black hair, but hers was wavy and she always kept it down so that it gently brushed her collarbones. But what I loved about her the most, back then, was her snowy blue eyes.

The more I thought about her, the more I felt sick. I shook my head and looked at the picture next to it. There he stood, my knight in shining armor. The person I had run away from in Asila.

“I always hated that picture,” Matt whispered from next to me, causing me to jump and my hand flashed to my chest in reaction.

“Why’s that?” I asked once I had caught my breath. I had added some unintended hostility to my tone in the simple question, but I looked on as if I hadn’t noticed.

He looked at the picture before answering. “Simple, I’ve always hated Christopher.”

“No you haven’t,” I blurted out. I looked around the room quickly as if I hadn’t said that and someone else did.