DISSOCIATIVE AMNESIA

IMANI

My eyes peeled open slowly, groggily taking in my surroundings. The sound of a beeping machine rings beside my head; sterile white walls surround me, and a faint smell of disinfectant fills my nostrils.

I am in the hospital that much, I can tell, but why was I here again? A sharp pain tore through my back and abdomen as I tried sitting up, and I fell back on the pillow with a groan.

"You're awake; I wouldn't do anything strenuous if I were you." I turned at the sound of the voice, not realizing I wasn't alone in the room. Huh, how did I not see her when I looked around the room?

"What happened? Why am I here?"

"I'll tell you in a minute, but first I need to ask you some questions. Here, let me you up." She stopped writing down whatever she was recording from the machine and moved to the side of the hospital bed to raise the lever.

"I'm Nurse Emily Johnson. Do you recall your name?" She asks and I nod.

Of course, I remember my name, of all things. "Imani Knightley-Benoit," I reply.

She smiles. "Good, that's a great start. It states in your medical record that you have Dissociative-Amnesia," I nodded at her words and she continued. "Can you tell me the last thing you remember?"

"I was…" I paused, closing my eyes to focus on the scattered fragments of memories that began floating through my mind at her question. The sound of familiar classical music filled my head—the voices of people and faces floated around as I tried to piece the scene together. "I was at a party. There was a party." I eventually answered.

The nurse nodded. "That's good. Anything else? Do you remember why you were brought here?"

I tried to filter through my memories to figure out what I was missing. "I left the party and went up the elevator. I remember coming out of the elevator and walking towards my bedroom—" I shook my head at the presence of a headache as I tried to push more at the fragments of my memories. "I... everything after that is a blur."

She smiled at me with compassion in her eyes. "That's good. You did good," she replied.

"How did I end up here? Who brought me here?" I asked, accepting the glass of water she passed me.

"Your husband, I believe. He was with you all night and only left a few hours earlier to take care of business and also to get a change of clothes. He said he'd be back."

I frowned. That seemed unorthodox. Louis isn't the type to stay with me overnight in the hospital or even miss out on going to the office to play his role as the big bad boss. But I didn't have much to go by. My memory of whatever event led me here was still hazy.

"Hmm. And the reason?" I asked because I needed to know why I was admitted in the first place.

"I'm sorry to inform you, Mrs. Benoit. According to your husband, you experienced a traumatic event that might have caused you to start bleeding. By the time he brought you in, we discovered that you had a miscarriage," she announced with an apologetic smile.

"I... was pregnant?" A sharp pain shot up my spine into the back of my head and I closed my eyes with a groan as I was flooded with memories.

The test I took a few weeks ago. I remember buying a pregnancy test kit; I had taken the test at home. Then I had written in my diary that I would wait for a week or three before going to the doctors to confirm and see how far along I was. Tears welled in my eyes as I glanced down at my stomach. I lost my baby. Again.

This was the third miscarriage this year alone, not counting the ones that came before. I had been so careful these past weeks, not doing anything strenuous that would jeopardize the safety of my baby. I thought if I was careful enough from its early stage, I wouldn't have to go through another one of these. I guess I was wrong.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Mrs. Benoit. We tried our best to save the foetus but it was too late."

I wiped at the tear stains on my cheek. "Thank you. It's not my first rodeo. When can I go home?" At least I hadn't bought baby items this time or started planning the nursery before I miscarried.

"The doctor will have to do one last roundup checkup on you. And once your husband gets here to sign you out, you're free to leave."

"Alright. Thank you."

"Do you need anything, food from the cafeteria?" The sound of the door opening filled the room as she asked and a firm frown etched on my face at the sight of who just walked in.

"Oh, you're back." The nurse turned to Dominique with a broad smile. What the hell is he doing here? "Your wife woke up a few minutes ago, and I was telling her what happened and when she can be discharged."

My eyebrows rose to the forehead. Wife? What the actual fuck? She thinks I'm Dominique's wife? What the hell?

"Thank you for looking after her. I should've gotten back early but there was a little bit of delay at work. When can she be discharged?" Dominique asked.

I couldn't stop the way my eyes kept traveling between him and the nurse. Is this seriously happening? In what universe did I wake up?

"As soon as the doctor does a last checkup on her. She'd be prescribed some drugs. Would probably need to get a good rest for the remainder of the month, and she'll need extra care." The nurse informed him.

"Thank you; I'll make sure she gets enough rest." The nurse exited the room and my attention snapped to Dominique.

"What are you doing here, and why the fuck does she think you're my husband?" I snapped at him.

"I was the one who brought you in," he replied.

"That doesn't answer why she thinks you're my fucking husband, Dominique."

He made a move to speak, only to stop abruptly. "Wow, that's the first time you've said my name in years."

"I don't have time for your bullshit. Why are you here?"

Walking over the bed, he placed a palm over my forehead and I slapped his hand away. "Like I said, I was the one who checked you and the nurses just assumed. I didn't bother to correct them because they probably wouldn't have let me stay the night to make sure you were doing okay."

I glared at him. "Why would you want to stay the night or make sure I was okay? We do not have that type of relationship. And how come you were the one who checked me in; where was Loius?"

Dominique's face morphed into a pinched frown at my question. "That bastard who doesn't deserve you. Don't you remember how I found you last night? You were…"

The rest of his words fade into the background as I am hit with a sleuth of memories from last night. Images of me going up the stairs to escape the party, then riding the elevator to the penthouse. The sounds from the bedroom: Louis fucking his cousin/personal assistant on our matrimonial bed. The fall I had when I first heard their voices.

Pain pinched my heart at the memories. The ache in my stomach before I fell on my ass and how it had worsened afterward. That must've been why I lost my baby. I remember Dominique finding me, and then I blacked out from the pain.

"Imani…" A tender touch on my cheek and a concerned voice dragged me out of the grasp of the punishing memory. I blinked away tears to find Dominique staring at me with a concerned look.

"Louis, he cheated on me."

Dominique nodded. "I know."

"How long? How long have you known that your nephew has been cheating on me?"

"It's been a while, Imani. But I don't think talking about that right now would do you any good. Remember, the nurse said you needed to take things easy?"

It's been a while. How long, is awhile?

If Dominique knew, how many people in the company were aware of Loius cheating? Did his family know? Our business friends? The guests at the party? How many people knew that my husband was cheating on me for how long and none of them bothered to tell me about it?

"Was he here?" I asked, wiping harshly at the tears on my cheek. Dominique had no business seeing me this vulnerable, not when I knew he was going to find a way to use it against me. He is a cunny man who uses people's weakness against them.

"No, according to my findings. He flew out of the country earlier today."

"He flew out, did he not..." The sound of my ringtone cuts through the rest of my words and I turned in the direction it came from.

"Here, I noticed the battery was flat when we left the party last night and I had plugged it in to charge." Dominque hands me my phone after unplugging it.

A little bit of hope sparked up in me as I checked the caller ID. Louis, was he calling to check on me? Maybe he was worried. I swiped on the screen to answer the call. "Louis…" I began to say but the sound of his yelling from the other end of the phone cut me off.

"Where the fuck are you, Imani? You left the party last night without seeing the guests out. This morning you were nowhere to be found. Where the fuck were you when I left the house this morning?"

"Louis I'm…" I can barely get a word in when he starts yelling again.

"Save your goddamned excuses. I am tired of dealing with your crazy ass and your crazy episodes where you just waltz out of the house and then come back spouting nonsense about not knowing what happened or why you left."

"Louis I'm in a hospital. I…"

"Stop fucking lying to me, Imani," he snarled. "Are you not tired of your fucking lies? You know what? I don't care where the fuck you are or what you're doing. Get your useless self back home; mom has the thing with her friends today and she needs you to supervise the catering."

"You won't even let me say..."

"I don't care, Imani. I know whatever comes out of your lips would be nothing but lies. I am tired of listening to your made-up issues and lies. I know you do it for attention and I am tired of feeding into your psychotic tendencies. Come back home and make yourself fucking useful," he snapped before hanging up.

I pulled the phone away from my ear. Staring at the device with pure horror. He wasn't even ready to listen to whatever I had to say. Made up lies? Why would I lie? The events from yesterday weren't lies. I saw him. I heard their voices; I saw them with my eyes.

I…

A heavy weight settled in my stomach as I tried to bring up the memories of what I had seen last night. What I saw in the bedroom, Louis was... I could've sworn I heard his voice and someone else's. There was someone…

There was nothing. My memory was blank. Nothing. But I…

"What's wrong? You looked like someone just died," Dominique asked.

I heaved a breath as I scrambled through the haze in my head. My eyes bulged as I stared at him. "I don't…" I almost said the words. I don't remember. I don't remember what happened last night at the party.