Forgetting August (Lost & Found) by J. L. Berg Page A

left behind since that moment I’d realized I’d been replaced in August’s gilded world.
    Blinking back into reality, I quickly looked down the street. The man with the fancy shoes was gone, a ghost of the past, much like the memory I’d allowed to take over just now.
    Turning back to the gentle man before me I smiled, snaking my arm through his as we stepped onto the street to continue our lazy stroll down the wharf.
    “Ready,” I answered, resting my head on his shoulder.
    Ready for what, I wasn’t certain. But I had a feeling that our idea of keeping the status quo was about to be obliterated.

Chapter Six
    August
    T he next couple of weeks in the hospital became a whirlwind of activity as the doctors and nurses prepared for my release. Everything revolved around making sure I was healthy enough, both mentally and physically, to assimilate back into the real world.
    No one knew when or even if my memories would ever resurface, but everyone agreed—there was no point in waiting.
    Life had to go on—with or without them.
    I was placed in physical therapy, counseling and psychotherapy. The toll my body had taken from being practically listless for two years was staggering and although my caregivers had done everything in their power to prevent as much atrophy and deterioration as possible, it had occurred anyway.
    From the few pictures I’d found of myself scattered among my personal belongings, I knew I barely resembled the man I once was. Where broad shoulders had given way to tight lean muscles now only pale skin remained. My hair had grown out, unruly and disorderly, as if each little hair was rebelling against the well-manicured man who used to occupy this body.
    In between sessions intended to help me re-learn how to move my weary limbs, I was shoved into counseling sessions where I spent hours having my mental health assessed.
    I silently wondered if my hatred for psychiatrists was new or old.
    I was given homework by the crazy loon the hospital assigned to me. Like a damned child. After each session, I was sent back to my room with a loaner laptop to research the time I’d spent away from the world, as he called it. Dr. Schneider—or as I liked to call him, Dr. HappyFeelGood—wanted me to adjust, first to the outside world, and then when I was released we could work on reacquainting me with, well…me.
    So after another brutal session with Dr. HappyFeelGood, I lay back in my hospital bed, my eyes searching out the city below, wondering what life outside might be like now.
    It’d only been two years. Two fucking years.
    It seemed insignificant and insurmountable at the same time.
    It wasn’t like I was one of those coma patients who awoke after decades and found the entire world completely altered—family and friends dead or aged beyond recognition—with an entire lifetime of history behind them.
    Two years really wasn’t that long—a couple of iPhone upgrades. Maybe a few missed holidays. But for someone who’d been asleep for those twenty-four months, I wondered just how much I’d missed. My fingers itched to turn on the television, to binge watch the news and late night TV. But I had been instructed not to do so.
    “Only research the time you lost for now,” the doctor had instructed.
    Why? I had no idea. Probably to keep my weak, fragile brain from overloading. The way everyone tiptoed around me in here, that seemed a real possibility. Like I was a recently found nuclear bomb no one knew how to diffuse. The nurses and doctors all spoke in hushed tones when they entered my room, as if anything louder than a whisper might set me off into some deranged fit. Hell, even the woman who brought in my food looked fearful of me.
    Was I that much of a freak?
    Didn’t people wake up from comas all the time?
    I guess not.
    I knew I was a rarity. I understood the situation was unique and they were treading in uncharted territory when it came to treating me, but it still hurt.
    The loneliness. My solitary