Prologue

Prologue
Naomi
One Week Ago

"Wake up, Naomi. Wake up."

A gentle wind from somewhere beyond the darkness caresses the soft lashes rested upon my cold, stiff cheeks. Against the sudden whisper of life, they flutter open like the tender wings of a newly transformed butterfly. Slowly - unsure.

At first, I don't register the tubes or machines that strap and strangle me. I know they're there, but somehow I can't bring myself to care. My eyes focus on the window in which my breath carried through. Blue skies and a parking lot.

It's the first sign.

Where am I?

My hands tense under the strain of wires when I try to sit up and quickly, I slide lower into a laying position. I glance down at my arms, probed with needles and tubes. Panic spreads in and under every nerve of my body. One machine beside me hums with the threat of life, beating louder and louder with each raged breath I take.

Calm. Calm down. I need to calm down.

Closing my eyes, I count slowly to ten. Deep breaths escape through my dry, split lips. Ever so gradually, the machine quiets, and I'm opening my eyes again to the window, where the morning sun shines through glass, allowing me with just enough light to make out my surroundings.

Brown, caramel walls encage me in the tiny medical room, and though lighter colors are supposed to make a room seem larger, more spacious, every piece of furniture around me tightens my lungs by its placement. A muted tv hanging upon the wall across from me flashes clear yet unfamiliar images across the screen, startling my eyes with every direct glare. It's something my eyes aren't yet used to, strangely enough, and I have to look away quickly, blinking in rapid movements. My eyes fall on the wooden closet beneath the tv. One door is cracked open just barely to make out the shadow of a sleeve. Beside the closet, a pair of car keys sits upon the granite counter adorned with candles and a vase of flowers. Syringias and purple irises - it stuns me that I even know what those look like. Narrowing my eyes at their colored florets, I try to remember how I do, but all I see is the present. All I remember is waking up.

It all happens at once.

As panic coils sharply around my heart, constricting the slowing respiration of my lungs, the heart monitor abruptly kicks up its speed again. A door flings open to my left, and, God, I feel like I can't breathe anymore. 

Nurses appear at my side almost out of nowhere, one by one. They're trying to tell me to calm down, but all I can think about is how nothing makes sense. A name keeps falling from their lips, over and over again, but I'm not sure who she is that they're asking for. Naomi. Is that my name? Why don't I know this? Why can't I remember anything? 

"Call the parents," someone says nervously, frantic. 

A desperate cry rocks my shoulders. Parents? Who are my parents?

"Naomi, sweetheart, we need you to focus," a voice orders tenderly close to my ear. She brushes back a strand of my hair - brown, long and wavy - from my face, whispering words of comfort in my ear. Tipping my chin up, she forces me to look into her blue, hopeful eyes. "It's okay," she says softly, shaking her head reassuringly. "Everything will be okay."

I just nod like I believe her, because there's no way in hell she knows that for sure. She has no idea what this is like.

I don't know how many more minutes or hours pass, but as the two nurses are preparing for exams and checking my IV fluid, the door to my room bursts open again, revealing two figures in its path. A man and woman stand in the doorway, clinging to each other as though they're afraid to move another inch by themselves. Disbelief rims the irises of their eyes. 

"Naomi," the woman whispers, and, despite her husband's demands to remain still, she breaks from his hold and flings her body towards my bed. She doesn't move any closer to me, although it's evident by the hopeful expression in her eyes that she wants to. 

Running my tongue over the flesh of my lips, I scan her from head to toe, taking in her thin frame, practically buried beneath a black sweater she wears past her knees. Maybe she needs to. I don't know what this woman has been through, but she doesn't look good, if at all healthy. Why does she look so thin, so pale against the dark hair that cascades around her shoulders? And those huge brown eyes filled with such emotion - so familiar.

And then it hits me. She's me. I'm her. This is my mother.

My gaze locks with the man she'd left in the entrance to my room. He must see the recognition in my eyes, since he takes one step forward, jointing my mom at the foot of my bed. He takes her hand in his, lacing his fingers through hers comfortingly. Letting her know it's all going to be okay. 

"Welcome back, kiddo," he says, and even though his voice is void of any dark emotion, there's something equally sad in his glistening blue eyes as I turn to face him. He doesn't look as bad as his wife, but there's an obvious stress in his features. His dark, thinning hair, highlighted only by a few, short strands of grey, is gelled back to reveal every plane of his face, from the indentions of wrinkles to the faint blemishes of his skin. Worry etches every contour of muscle in his jaw.

I hate to say it. I hate to be the one to pass judgement here, but it's a truth that's breaking my heart. My parents look like crap, even in their young state of appearance. I'm not necessarily afraid of them as much as I am afraid for them. How much can they take of me before they decide it's enough?

But that shouldn't matter. Not now. Not when they're here, standing by my side as if I'd never once gone away.

I smile weakly up at this man I'm supposed to look to for protection, holding onto that small but determined speck of faith in his gaze. "Thank you," I whisper, and I have no idea why I'm not questioning my belonging or the semblance of pain and regret in their eyes, but I'm not. 

I'm not willing to ask any questions right now, to know why I'm here or even where I've been.

And I think that scares me more than it should.