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Now

Boxing Day, December 2016

I’ve always delighted in the free fall between sleep and wakefulness Those precious few semi-conscious seconds before you open your eyes, when you catch yourself believing that your dreaht just be your reality A moment of intense pleasure or pain, before your senses reboot and inform you who and where and what you are For now, for just a second longer, I’ine that I could be anyone, I could be anywhere, I could be loved

I sense the light behind my eyelids and er It feels heavier than it used to, as though it is weighing me down A sheet is pulled over my body, it smells unfamiliar and I consider the possibility that I’m in a hotel Any memory of what I dreamt evaporates I try to hold on, try to be someone and stay somewhere I am not, but I can’t I am only ever me and I am here, where I already know I do not wish to be My limbs ache and, I’m so tired I don’t want to open my eyes – until I remember that I can’t

Panic spreads through me like a blast of icy-cold air I can’t recall where this is or how I got here, but I knoho I am: My name is Amber Reynolds; I am thirty-five years old; I’s in ht save me, but I’m es ripped out When the e, I bury theh inside my head to allow me to think, to feel, to try toits way to the surface, but I don’t want to believe it

The sound of aexcept the unwanted knowledge that I am in a hospital The sterilised stench of the placeI hate hospitals They are the horets that missed their slots, not somewhere I would ever choose to visit, let alone stay

There were people here before, strangers, I remember that now They used a word I chose not to hear I recall lots of fuss, raised voices and fear, not just le to unearthvery bad has happened, but I cannot remember what or when

Why isn’t he here?

It can be dangerous to ask a question when you already know the answer

He does not love me

I bookht

I hear a door open Footsteps, then the silence returns but it’s spoiled, no longer pure I can s paper to hs to ers in the dark I feel colder than before and so terribly small I have never known a terror like the one that takes hold of me now

I wish so ‘Who is she?’ asks a woman’s voice

‘No idea Poor love, what a mess,’ replies another woman