September Surprise Story Week: Vitali continued: Pagan Collection: 502 words
See the beginning of this story here ( LJ link).
See the second part of this story here ( LJ link).
“Do you think that you really can become that person?” Vitali asked. “Even if you regain your memories you will have lived for however long as Anna and that may have changed your outlook on life.”
Anna sipped her hot chocolate. “I honestly don't think it is possible to go back to who I was before, but there's a part of me that wishes I could. When I'm not with someone who knew me then I feel free and then I go home to parents who only want their daughter back, so it's as though their incapable of seeing that, no matter what I do or say, in some way I am their daughter.” She sighed. “I want people to understand that I will have changed in some way even if I get my memory back, but I don't think they want to.”
“I take it talking to them hasn't worked.”
“It's very much like talking to a brick wall some days, especially when I try to talk to the male parent. He doesn't seem to want to understand, and he's still calling me by my other name, so I've just stopped trying.”
Vitali could see the tears in Anna's eyes and all he wanted to do was give her a hug. “I hope things will get better with him.”
“So do I, Vitali, but I don't think it will. He just can't accept what has happened.”
“What's it like talking to the other parent?”
“In some ways it's better because she understands why I needed to use a different name. Then there are times, which are getting more regular, when she wants to spend hours going through old photo albums and talking about her memories as though it's going to pull my memories out from wherever it is they are. I hate it.” Anna sighed. “The only person who really is helping is Lloyd, but even he can't convince the parents to give me what I need.”
“If I was in that same situation, either as a friend or parent of a person with amnesia, I don't know how I'd react, but I hope I wouldn't act in a way that would make it harder for them. I can understand how difficult it could be though, to make sure that you didn't push your expectations onto them.”
“The problem is I understand too. I have no idea how I'd react if I was in Lloyd's shoes, or my parents', or one of my old friends', and I hate to think I might have been just like them. Pushing for memories to return or for someone to live up to a certain expectations is so hard to deal with for a person in my position, which isn't something that anyone else could really understand. They haven't wanted to remember something so much that it actually seems to push the memories further away, in part, I think, because I don't want to have to remember. I want my memory to come back naturally.”
© K A Jones 2011
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