Chapter 16
Chapter 16
The morning light crept across my room, soft and slow.
I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling for a long time, listening to the small sounds of the house waking up.
Chris shouting for his shoes.
Mom moving around in the kitchen.
The faint beep of the coffee machine.
It all sounded normal.
But inside me, something had shifted.
I felt... different.
Not completely better.
Not fully strong.
But steadier.
Like a tiny flame had been lit somewhere deep inside me, and no matter how cold the world got, it wasn't going to go out.
---
At breakfast, Mom placed a plate of toast in front of me.
I picked at it while Chris rattled on about his soccer tryouts.
Dad sat silently behind his newspaper, grumbling every few minutes about the government or the weather.
Normal.
So normal it almost hurt.
I forced myself to smile and nod at Chris’s stories.
Forced myself to sip orange juice when Mom looked at me too closely.
I could fake normal.
I could fake anything now.
---
The bus ride to school was bumpy as always.
Lena plopped into the seat beside me, her backpack sliding to the floor.
She looked tired.
Worn out.
She smiled at me, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Morning,” she said, her voice flat.
“Morning,” I replied softly.
We didn’t talk much after that.
I watched out the window, my mind already moving in a hundred different directions.
---
At school, I noticed the same things I always did now.
How the teachers’ smiles never quite reached their eyes when they looked at me.
How the students avoided my gaze like I carried some invisible curse.
How even Lena was different — not because she wanted to be, but because Mike was squeezing the life out of her day by day.
I saw it in the way she checked her phone every five minutes.
In the way she flinched every time it buzzed.
In the way she forced laughter that sounded more like a cry for help.
It hurt to watch.
But I knew now.
I couldn’t save everyone.
Not yet.
I had to save myself first.
---
During my free period, I sat in the library.
The same corner seat by the window.
I opened my Chemistry book again, pretending to study.
But inside my notebook, hidden between pages, was a plan starting to take shape.
Small notes.
Little steps.
Questions I needed answers to.
Find any traces of Alex — school records, old phone logs, anything.
Search old addresses.
Check public archives — hospitals, newspapers, online articles.
I wasn’t sure where to start yet.
But I knew I had to move carefully.
Quietly.
No one could know.
Not Lena.
Not Mom.
Not anyone.
---
The rest of the school day passed like a fog.
In Chemistry, I watched the clock tick down, counting each second until freedom.
In History, I doodled tiny stars in the margins of my notes.
In Gym, I sat on the bleachers, pretending my stomach hurt so I didn’t have to play.
By the time the final bell rang, I felt wrung out and empty.
But also clear.
Clearer than I had been in a long time.
---
When I got home, I dropped my bag at the door and went straight upstairs.
I pulled out the old storage box from under my bed — the one filled with school papers, drawings, and random junk I never threw away.
I dug through it slowly.
A report card from ninth grade.
A birthday card from Lena.
An old bracelet missing half its beads.
I smiled sadly at the tiny memories, brushing dust from the covers.
And then, buried under a stack of notebooks, I found something I didn’t remember owning.
A thick, official-looking folder.
Curious, I pulled it out and opened it.
Inside were papers.
Medical forms.
Hospital records.
Appointment receipts.
I frowned, flipping through them.
Most were boring — routine check-ups, dentist visits.
But then one sheet made me freeze.
Surgical Consent Form.
My name printed clearly at the top.
Eleanor Hayes.
Surgery date: January 3rd.
Location: Preston Memorial Hospital.
Procedure: Neural Adjustment — Phase I.
My heart skipped a beat.
Neural Adjustment?
I had no memory of any surgery.
None.
I read the sheet again and again, hoping I had misunderstood.
But the words stayed the same.
Clear.
Cold.
Real.
Signed at the bottom: Dr. Evelyn Cross.
The same name from the vague rumors I had found online.
The same doctor tied to "dream therapy" experiments.
My stomach twisted painfully.
What had they done to me?
What had they taken?
---
I sat back against the bed, the folder clutched tightly in my hands.
Questions swirled inside me, heavy and fast.
Had my parents known?
Had they agreed to this?
Had I agreed?
Or had I been forced?
The room spun slightly, and I closed my eyes, breathing slowly through my nose.
I needed to stay calm.
I needed to think.
Panic wouldn't help.
Not now.
Not when I was finally so close to real answers.
---
Later that evening, I sat at the dinner table, pushing mashed potatoes around my plate.
Chris chatted about his soccer game tomorrow.
Mom asked about my classes.
Dad mumbled something about taxes.
Normal.
So painfully normal.
I nodded and smiled in all the right places.
But inside, my mind was burning.
Neural Adjustment.
Surgery.
Memory tampering.
And somehow, Alex was tied to it all.
I could feel it.
---
After dinner, I went back to my room and locked the door behind me.
I spread the documents out across my bed, scanning them again.
Looking for patterns.
Clues.
Most of it was medical jargon I didn’t fully understand.
But one line stuck with me:
"Patient may experience fragmented memory recall. Emotional triggers may result in episodic flashes."
Fragmented memories.
Flashes.
Just like the ones I had been experiencing.
The dreams.
The feelings.
The flashes of Alex’s voice, his touch, our life together.
They weren’t dreams.
They were real.
Real pieces of a life someone had tried to rip away from me.
---
I pulled out my notebook and wrote carefully:
"Surgery confirmed. Memory tampering real. Need to find out full extent. Trust no one."
I closed the notebook and hugged it to my chest.
Outside my window, the night sky stretched wide and black, tiny stars scattered like promises I couldn’t quite touch.
I pressed my forehead against the cool glass and closed my eyes.
"I remember you," I whispered into the dark.
"I remember us."
And I would keep remembering.
I would keep fighting.
No matter how deep they buried the truth.
No matter how much they wanted me to forget.
I would find my way back.
To myself.
To Alex.
To everything they thought they could erase.