Chapter 2

• I gave a heavy sigh as I knew that something horrible had happened.
• “What happened?” I asked. “How did I get here? What is the cause of the coma?”
• “Whoa,” my father called for calm as I flailed my arms around helplessly.
• “Dad, I just woke up to find out that a huge chunk of my life is missing, don’t tell me to calm down.”
• “I apologize if I’m not giving you the chance to kill your mother for answers but you’ll need to give her some time to breathe before answering you. Can’t you see that she is broken? Three years of her life was taken away from her.
• “Three years of not knowing if you were going to be awake or if you were going to die. Seriously Charlotte, your mother is just…”
• “You two should stop going at it for one damn minute,” the woman sniffed as she tried to stop the incoming fight between her daughter and her husband. “I’m fine dear, I can take care of myself.
• “Our daughter only asked harmless questions as she deserves to know the truth no more than anyone who is stuck in her position deserves to know as well.”
• The man breathed easily as he sighed, “I’m sorry dear. Forgive me Charlotte. Your state has been rough on all of us. We all are happy to have you back and I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you.”
• I did not know whether to believe the man who had been in a fight with me a few minutes ago or to throw everything into the wind and believe my father who had been one of the first people I had seen that day.
• I was still confused about how I had been in a coma. What had happened and how had I ended up in that state?
• “It was an accident,” my mother finally said, clearing some questions. “You were involved in a fatal accident that day. I remembered when you left the house for the supermarket with the car.
• “You were to get what we would need for thanksgiving and that was the last we heard from you. We got a call from the hospital saying you got involved in an accident that claimed a few lives.
• “The usual stories which involved a drunk driver who was driving a truck at the time. From the footage they showed us, the man smashed into your car which killed three people on the sidewalk but somehow you survived.
• “We were told that you were going to be in a coma for a few days but we never knew a few days would lead to three… years.”
• This was certainly news to me as I fell back in bed, my mind running through different thoughts.
• Three years. Three whole years was a lot of time to waste in bed. My life had been on hold while I had been in the coma. Everything about me must have been kept aside while I was asleep.
• Even my… I suddenly remembered my fiancé and immediately knew that my marriage had also been kept on hold too.
• “What about Marcus?!” I yelled out after remembering his name. “What about Marcus, mum?”
• “Marcus?” My father asked as he scratched his head.
• “Marcus Coover, dear,” her mother reminded him of his full name.
• “I know who she was talking about but I pretended to not know. I don’t think we should say anything yet.”
• “Say what?” I asked, knowing that my parents were hiding something. “What is going on? What about Marcus?”
• My parents avoided my gaze as this only seemed to raise my anxiety even more.
• I started to have a feeling that he had moved on and he was with another woman. Maybe that was the reason why they were not telling me anything.
• Maybe they were trying to protect me but I did not need their protection, I needed the truth and nothing more.
• “Please, tell me,” I begged almost to the point of tearing up. “I need to know.”
• There was no need to hide anything from me any longer.
• “Fine,” my mother started. “I’ll tell you the truth.”
• “You need to be careful because whatever you say could be very dangerous,” my father warned my mother with a stern glare.
• “If I don’t tell her now, sooner or later, she’ll know and we won’t be in the position to be sorry for not telling her now. We might as well be the first to let her know what is going on.”
• I started to get impatient as I drummed my fingers noisily on the bed before mother looked at me with a sympathetic smile.
• “Sorry for that little banter, love,” the woman smiled. “Well, you see Marcus…”
• Immediately she had spoken his name, the door burst open as he stepped into the hospital room in a hurry.
• “Speak of the devil,” My father muttered as Marcus rushed to my side to hug me.
• I hugged him tightly, feeling his body within the clothes he wore as his familiar scent hit me.
• “I am so glad you’re awake,” he said, sobbing with relief that I was out of the danger zone. “I missed you.”
• “I just woke up but I missed you too,” I said as I held onto him even tighter, happy that he was back.
• I could feel that I had not missed much. For him to be in the hospital with me meant that he had not moved on. He had waited for me.
• “Thank you so much,” I whispered as I caught a glimpse of a woman who looked exactly like me walk into the room.
• “Cheryl?” I called out to my twin sister with a smile as I noticed that she was carrying a toddler in her arms.
• Marcus pulled away from me as he stood awkwardly beside me.
• I could tell that there was something going on for the atmosphere of the room immediately got intense. This was really strange.