I remember reading a book. In the book, the antagonist was trying to create a scale to measure pain with. He obviously faced issues as pain was subjective but somehow managed to come up with a system that could measure pain. In the book, the antagonist killed someone very close to the protagonist and the pain felt by him was off the charts on the villain's scale.
Surprising? Not really. The pain we feel on the outside hardly ever matches the pain we feel inside.
For most of us that is.
I'm sorry, do I know you?
At that point, all I wanted to do was sit there and cry. Break down. My whole body felt numb. I felt like I was going to collapse. But I couldn't, she needed me now more than ever.
"Hey Jewel, I'm your ...friend, Zavian."
I was about to tell her how we knew each other.
"Wait, my name is Jewel? Who am I ? I don't remember anything? What happened to me?"
She was about to cry at this stage. She needed my help. I sat there and explained to her what happened.
I tried to tell her just about everything I knew about her.
"How do you know so much about me?"
I was surprised at this question. I realized that maybe I shouldn't have included so many small details, but then again, I was trying to help her remember who she was. I wouldn't want her to not know anything.
"Well, for now, let's just say, there may have been something between us."
She raised an eyebrow. Her expressions were still the same as before. She was still the same person minus her memories.
"Tell me everything."
"What do you mean by everything."
"You know what I'm talking about, the something between us."
Typical Jewel. Always curious, even when she didn't remember half her life. I went on to tell her everything that happened between us. Up until our lunch together. She didn't interrupt me at all. She listened very carefully.
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay."
"Okay."
I video called her parents for her after explaining the whole memory situation to them. They spoke for quite a few hours. The doctor eventually came in to tell her she needed to rest.
I finally went home. She was breathing, she was safe, she was alive. I rushed back to the hospital as soon as dawn broke though, couldn't bring myself to do anything else.
The doctor had good news. She could be discharged within a week. However, she needed someone to bring her in for physiotherapy twice every week. She was still in a wheelchair and could barely walk.
She had hired a nurse to help her with things at home. I suppose it was nice to know she had someone taking care of her.
I was just about to leave when she called my name.
"Zavian!"
I turned around.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Umm, I was just heading out, seeing as I'm no longer needed."
"And what on earth gave you that idea?"
I was speechless. It wasn't very often I was left without words, but it seemed as if Jewel could do it every day.
"If you must go, feel free to go, but I was hoping to have someone to talk to, I'm still not used to the idea of being ...me. And no one around seems to know me better than you."
I felt sparks of joy again mixed with a bit of sadness. A bittersweet feeling.
"Umm sure, let's go then? We can take my car."
When we got to my car, Jewel said
"Why is your car so dark and gloomy? What's the point of tinting the windows so much? I feel like I'm in a hearse."
I laughed.
"Well, I have always loved the dark. And you, well you have always hated that I love the dark."
"Huh, well you definitely need to brighten up. This is MORBID."
She was just like she always was. So full of life and could always make me laugh. It barely felt like anything changed.
We got to her house and I lifted her on to her wheelchair. We both went up to her flat along with her nurse. It was a small space, but she had made it her own.
I wheeled her into her bedroom as she said she wanted to see her own place. Right next to her bed I noticed a picture. It was a very old picture of ... us. I think it was the first one in which we both were together, just us. I remembered the day that picture was taken like it was yesterday. It was La Tomatina, the festival where you threw tomatoes at each other. We both were drenched and we we're laughing. My face was bright red and my clothes were honestly just a mess.
But her, she was just as beautiful as she always was. She radiated a kind of beauty that I couldn't describe, one that no photograph could ever really capture. Even when her skin was as red as a tomato, she looked like an angel.
She must've noticed the picture too. She said
"We really did have something between us huh? I was hoping you weren't making all that up. There was always the possibility you could've been a creepy stalking murderer but well, guess that's out of the window."
How is it that even without her memories, even when she was on a wheelchair, she radiated this aura, an aura so beautiful and magical, I never know.
I laughed and went on to say
"You never know, you haven't seen me in quite a while after all."
We both laughed. It felt good, being with her here.
"So anyways, I wanted to ask you something."
"What is it?"
"What is your- I mean, what was your favorite thing about me? As in, your favorite thing about Jewel?"
There are some questions you just never get tired of answering. My closest friends had always asked me what I saw in her, and I was always glad to answer.
"Well, to understand that you'd have to be me at any given moment I spend with you. You know how they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder? It's something like that. Everything about you makes me feel like I have been blessed, to see and appreciate all this beauty. It makes me feel like the luckiest being on earth. Your smile, your eyes, your hair, I love it all. The way your eyes sparkle like twinkling stars when you laugh or smile, it's something I would die for. If your smile was the last thing I saw on this earth, God knows I would've died a happy man."
Jewel looked like she was about to cry. But Jewel being Jewel, held it back and went on to ask
"So if I stabbed you in the chest but did it while smiling you're saying you wouldn't mind."
I laughed and said
"It would be a blessing to die like that."
We both just sat there for a while, talking. She asked me a lot of questions, some about her, some about me. She seemed to be more comfortable around me now. It was nice to talk to her, as it always was.
It was around 11:30 when I finally left. We both had dinner together. I was on my way home.
I collapsed on my bed. I was very tired for some reason. I just wanted rest.
I woke up to find a small puddle of blood on my pillow.