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Side stories may reveal events, characters, or developments that appear later in the story. Viewing content this way can present information out of the intended reading order and may affect the original narrative experience.
Recommended Context
Recommended to be read after reaching this point of the main story:
Part 3 Chapter 20: Mount Ordeals
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Buried Memory
Matt rolled into the therapy office and parked at his usual spot.
“I’ve been thinking about the fall,” he said.
“Okay,” Kyle said.
“I don’t remember a damn thing. Not the call. Not the site. Nothing.”
“What’s the last thing you’ve got?”
“My brother’s birthday. Two weeks before. Cake, candles, Lucy making him open his cards in order. He bitched the whole time—then nothing. Next thing I’ve got is a trach tube and a room full of strangers explaining what’s left of me.”
“That’s a hell of a gap.”
“It’s not a gap. It’s a hole. Danny blowing out candles to waking up in a hospital weeks later, and the day that wrecked everything is somewhere in the middle.”
“And you’ve got no way in.”
“I read the incident report. Ben filled in what he could. But no one was with me in the shaft. And neither was I.”
“And you’re supposed to just trust the paperwork.”
“Hard to trust a file with a page ripped out of it.”
“But you’ve got everyone else’s notes.”
“Everyone else gets a version, Kyle. I’ve got nothing. I’m sitting in the aftermath of something I can’t even verify happened the way they say it did. I’m just the guy living with the bill.”
“And that pisses you off.”
“Yeah, Kyle. It pisses me off.”
“Good. Because you got robbed. And no amount of reports is going to fill that in.”
He hadn’t expected that.
“So what’s worse? The fall, or the fact that it’s not yours?”
“The not-knowing. Not even close.”
“And if the memory doesn’t come back?”
“Then I live with theirs. Even if it reads like someone else’s.”
“You don’t want it to have happened without you.”
“It did happen without me. That’s the whole problem. Something tore my life in half and I wasn’t even conscious for it.”
“But the guy it happened to was you.”
“Was.” His thumb stalled on the rim. “Past tense.”
“You think he disappeared?”
“You’re the one who told me he died on the mountain. Sounds about right.”
“Maybe he did. But someone else came down the other side. And that’s the guy grinding through PT every day and sitting here giving me a hard time. He wasn’t defined by the moment. He’s defined by what he does after.”
“Yeah. Like needing a system to get dressed in the morning.”
“He’s changed. That doesn’t mean he stopped being you.”
“Feels like it some days.”
“Let me ask you something. If you had the whole thing back. Every second. What would you actually be holding onto?”
“…The fall. Just the fall. On repeat.”
“You sure about that?”
“That’s what the nightmares are. Same freefall. Same nothing underneath me. Just the part where it all goes.”
“So maybe forgetting was the one thing that wasn’t punishment. Your brain ate the hit and buried it somewhere you can’t reach.”
“Did a hell of a job on the waking hours. Rest of me’s still running the replay.”
“Welcome to recovery. We don’t do trophies here.”
“Wouldn’t know where to put it. Can’t reach the shelf.”
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Notes from the Hospital