Amnesiac daughter
Chapter 1
When my folks finally found me at the hospital, I
was a mess. Not a single patch of skin that
wasn’t bruised or cut.
“Who… who are you? Stay away from me!”
Seeing me cowering in the corner of the room,
Mom finally broke down, tears streaming down
her face. “Honey, it’s Mom!”
I shook my head, fear clawing at my throat.
“That’s not true! The guys who kidnapped me
said my parents would rather watch their
adopted daughter dance ballet than believe I
was taken. You’re not my real parents.”
“Darling, we messed up. Can you ever forgive
us?”
No.
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posoban &
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The girl who loved her parents unconditionally
was dead. Killed by their favoritism, their
sharp–edged devotion to someone else.
- 1.
When I woke up, a lot was gone. Just… blank.
All I could clearly remember was some dude
with a nasty scar across his face slapping me
hard.
“You really are a freaking Van Derlyn, princess?
We’ve called a million times for the ransom, and
your old man just says, like, ‘Go get the money
at the damn opera house!“”
Another guy kicked me in the gut, hard, then
yanked my hair, slamming my head against the
wall. “Maybe we screwed up! Heard the Van
Derlyns adopted some girl. Could be she’s the
real deal and we got stuck with the fake.”
“Yeah! What kind of parents don’t give a crap
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about their own kid?”
874
That was the last thing I heard before passing
out again.
This time, I woke up in a hospital room, the
sterile smell of disinfectant stinging my nostrils.
The door opened.
A middle–aged guy in a suit walked in, a woman
clinging to his arm. Looked like his wife.
Trailing behind them was a girl in a frilly
princess dress. Looked like a happy little family
portrait.
Except I didn’t recognize a single one of them.
- 2.
The woman gasped when she saw my bruises,
her hand flying to her mouth.
く
“Darling, how are you feeling? How could they
do this to you?” She reached out to hug me.
Instinctively, I recoiled, backing away, my space
invaded by strangers.
“Who… who are you? Stay away!”
She looked shocked. “Honey, don’t you know
who I am? I’m your mom!”
The girl in the princess dress grabbed my arm.
“Ashley, are you confused? Maybe you just
can’t remember Mom, Dad, and me.”
My arm throbbed under her grip, a map of
purple bruises blooming beneath the pale skin. I
yanked away, without thinking.
The girl let out a little “Ouch!” and promptly fell
to the floor.
“Ashley, why would you do that?”
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Did what? Hurt her?
My arms were covered in bruises; I couldn’t
even take on a kindergartener in a fight.
Was she faking it?
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Before I could figure out her game, the man
was glaring down at me. “Ashley, how could you treat Brittany like that?”
Brittany, the girl who’d fallen, pushed herself up, looking all fragile and pained. “It’s okay, Mr. Van Derlyn. Ashley’s probably mad because you
guys came to watch my ballet recital instead
of…you know. Maybe she thinks I got
kidnapped because of me.”
She turned her big eyes on me. “But Uncle
Mark and Aunt Carol haven’t left the police
station since they heard what happened! They
haven’t even been home to sleep. You hate me
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it is fine, but don’t be angry with mom and dad”
Ugh. So loud.
My head throbbed.
Too much talking.
Finally, I buried my face in the pillow, sobbing,
gasping for breath. “I don’t even know you people! Why would I be mad at you?”
- 3.
The doctor arrived, looking harassed. The man,
Mr. Van Derlyn, turned to him, his voice tight.
“Is she faking the amnesia? She used to pretend she had a stomachache just to get out of school. She got into some fight, and now
she’s faking things so she won’t get punished.”
The young doctor raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Van
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8:13
Derlyn, your daughter has multiple soft tissue injuries, a fractured right leg, internal bleeding in the abdomen, and evidence of blunt force trauma to the back of her head.”
“Based on the scans, there’s some blood
pooling around a specific area in her brain.
Memory loss is definitely a possibility.”
Mr. Van Derlyn’s lips thinned.
The woman, Carol, started crying again. “My baby…she really doesn’t remember me?”
“Ashley, Ashley!” She kept saying my name like
if she just said it enough it would make me
remember.
She was strange, thinking she could just say my
name a few times and somehow wake up the
memories, fill in the blanks.
I looked at her, my face blank. “Don’t bother. I
<
don’t remember anything.”
“But I know one thing for sure: you’re not my
parents.”
“Before I passed out, I heard the kidnappers say my parents would rather watch their adopted daughter dance ballet than believe I was taken. You’re definitely not my real parents.”
Carol’s face crumpled.
