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Please, take me upstairs, just take me upstairs.
Just take me.
He slowly blinked. The white pillow before his eyes, the white wall on the background were the perfect contrast with the darkness he just came from. He still could hear the voice, begging him for something. He didn't know who that voice belonged to or, funny enough, how it sounded. The voice was slipping through his mind, out of his reach, the words were getting unrecognizable with every second. He didn't even know if it was a man or a woman, only that their voice cracked, making him want to tear his own heart out of his chest.
He didn't want to go back to the dark world, filled with pain.
Only when he tried to lift his head and turn, he found that this world was no less painful. Every part of his body hurt, the sharp sting in his arm made him whine quietly. He took a few breaths, trying to relax into a position he was more or less comfortable.
“Don't move, Mr. Fuller,” he heard a smooth, low man's voice. “My name is Dr. Wilson. You got into a car accident. You're at Washington University Hospital. Tell me, Mr. Fuller, do you understand where you are and why?”
When Mr. Fuller didn't answer, he slowly tried to turn his head, to take a look at the poor guy and his doctor. Another whine left his mouth but he stubbornly continued his exercise until he couldn't anymore. He opened his eyes and found himself facing the ceiling, not less white than his bed and walls around him.
“Mr. Fuller, I asked you not to move,” Dr. Wilson said and he realized that the doctor stood by his bed, looking at him. But why did he call him Mr. Fuller? His name…
His name. He didn't remember his name.
“Mr. Fuller?” The doctor leaned above him, looking at his face. “If it hurts to talk, blink twice if you hear me.”
“Who…” His own voice sounded strange to his ears. Hoarse, like he hasn’t talked for days. Maybe he hasn’t. He swallowed, his dry throat felt like he ate gravel. “Who is Mr. Fuller?”
Dr. Wilson’s face has become worried just for a second. “Hawkins Fuller, 34 years old. It’s you. Your fiancé brought you here 36 hours ago.”
Hawkins Fuller. The name didn’t feel familiar. It didn’t feel right or wrong. Just nothing.
“I don’t… remember.”
“You don’t remember how you got here?” The doctor frowned. “It’s okay to forget the details of the last few days, considering your head trauma.”
“I don’t remember anything. I have a fiancé?”
“Do you know what day it is today?” The doctor asked.
He tried to shake his head but moving was harder than speaking.
“No.”
“What year?”
“No.”
“Where were you born?”
“Not a clue.”
“Do you have any siblings?”
He tried to imagine his family, his mother, father, anyone, but nothing came.
“I don’t know.”
“Then your condition is worse than I imagined. It looks like you have retrograde amnesia. You don’t remember your family or your name but you seem to be able to speak perfectly and know the meaning of all the words. Fascinating.” Dr. Wilson’s eyes shone brightly.
“You said I got into a car accident.”
“You were leaving your fiancé’s house, and apparently you had too much to drink. I don’t blame you.” The doctor winked. “I would probably have got wasted too before I got courage to propose to a woman like her.”
He tried to remember any woman’s face or name but it was pointless.
“My arm hurts.” He said, then tried to listen to his body. “And my back.”
“Your left arm is broken, you have severe bruises on your ribs, and a head concussion. No visible traumas on your back, but you have an old scar under your left shoulder blade. I would ask you where you got it, but you won’t tell me. The stress could trigger fathom pain in the place of your old injury. ”
A scar on his back. Must have been the hell of an injury if it hurt so much.
“Now you should rest, Mr. Fuller. I’ll call your fiancé and tell her that you regained your consciousness. She will be able to visit you soon.”
I should have let you go. And I’m glad you didn’t. Please, take me upstairs.
I should have let you go.
Please. Take me upstairs.
“Hawk.” A woman’s voice pulled him out of his nightmare. There was someone begging him, again, and once again he couldn’t grasp the details. He only knew that the voice that tormented him was not the voice that woke him up.
He opened his eyes. On the chair beside his bed sat a pale and visibly tired—but still beautiful—woman in a green dress, standing out among all the whiteness of the room.
“Hawk!” She said again. “You were talking in your sleep. Should I get a doctor?”
“What did I say?” He croaked.
“Here, drink,” she brought a glass of water to his lips. He lifted his head just a little and made a couple of small gulps. “You said ‘I should have let you go’.”
“I don’t know what it means. Who are you?” He asked. He figured out she had to be his fiance, but he should have felt something if she was someone he wanted to spend his life with. He looked at her, and saw a conventionally attractive young woman, but otherwise… nothing.
Her eyes filled with sorrow. “The doctor said there is a possibility that you won’t remember me. I’m Lucy. Lucy Smith. We have known each other since we were kids.”
“Are we?..”
“Engaged. You asked for my hand right before it happened.”
“Right,” Hawk mumbled, “I don’t remember. Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Lucy said, smiling, and took his hand. “I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
I’m going out. Take me with you.
Please, take me upstairs.
He almost got used to seeing the same dream every time he fell asleep. The most frustrating thing was that he couldn't remember what it was about, just the feelings it caused in him. A hint of despair, a ghost of the excruciating pain in his chest. A light desire to die.
In a week he could move his body without groaning in pain and eat by himself, if the nurse held the plate. Lucy came almost every day, in different shades of green, until one day she came in black. She was crying. “My father is dead”, she said. He was sorry for her, but still didn’t feel a thing.
He was sitting on his bed, reading the book his colleague, Mary, brought him. Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe. “A gift from someone who cared about you, Hawk,” she said.
She didn’t specify who it was, and he didn’t ask. He asked her questions about his job, mostly. “Your real job, or one you did for Lucy’s father?” Mary asked him. This is how he learned the story about his scar on the back. Apparently, he was injured in the War. Mary told him Senator Smith took care of him after that. Did he decide to marry Lucy because he believed he owed it to her father?
A knock at the door brought him back to reality. A young man in glasses came in, looking at him nervously. There was something magnetic in the way the dark brown of man’s eyes was emphasized by the lighter brown of his suit, making him never want to look away. If Lucy with her cold green clothes was a ray of sunshine in the middle of pale, torturing white, then those warm brown colors blinded him like a whole sun.
“Hawk,” the young man called him softly, almost too careful, like he was afraid to scare him away.
For this past week he couldn't get used to people calling him Hawk, or Hawkins, like Mary did, felt no connection to his own name, but right now he wanted this man to say it again, and again. Perhaps, he wouldn't mind if this guy called him a tree or an asshole. As long as he used this tender, soft tone of his voice.
The young man stepped inside the hospital room, stopping at his bed.
Here, so close he could tell the man was in his early twenties, must be ten or more years younger than him. A series of emotions passed the boy’s face. He couldn't help but look at his lips, imagining how they taste. Were they as soft as they looked like?
“Hi,” he finally said. “I don't know if the doctor told you, but you have to introduce yourself.’
“I'm Timothy. Timothy Laughlin. Tim.”
“Nice to meet you, Tim.”
Lucy didn't tell him about anyone called Tim. To be fair, she didn't tell much about his family or friends. “It's funny,” she said. For the person I'm going to marry, I don't know much about you.”
“Mary told me about what happened to you. And I heard the news about Senator Smith. I'm so sorry, Hawk.”
“Don't be,” he said. “I don't remember a thing. I don't remember you, either. Are we friends?”
Tim's face darkened with sadness.
“Something like that,” Tim answered, then nodded at the book in his hands. “Are you enjoying Look Homeward, Angel?”
He did enjoy the book. He opened his mouth to admit that, but a tiny smile in a corner of Tim's mouth, the mouth he was for some reason obsessed with, put the idea in his brain. He opened the first page.
“Mr. Fuller, thank you for everything. You’re wonderful.” He read aloud. “You gave me the book.”
Tim's face lit up with something similar to hope.
“You remember that?” Tim asked and bit his lip, subtly, just for a split second, but he noticed anyway, with the way he stared at it.
He shook his head. “I just assumed. T. L. Tim Laughlin.”
“Right,” the light from Tim's face was gone again. Tim opened his mouth to say something but then closed it.
“The doctor said it could be useful if a visitor told me something about me. Just a couple of things. What were you thanking me for?”
“You recommended me for a job.”
“Was it a good job?”
“It was,” Tim said. “But I quit it a week ago. Right right before…” Tim pointed at him vaguely. “I'm due to Fort Dix in three weeks.”
“The Army?”
“I need to get over one person.”
“What person?”
Tim frowned.
“Sorry. I ask too many questions.”
“It’s not that, Hawk.” Tim said. “Maybe it’s for the best that you don’t remember me.”
He didn’t think it was for the best. The idea of Tim leaving felt uncomfortable for some reason.
“For how long?” He asked.
“What?”
“How long will you be in the Army?”
“Two years.”
Tim made a step towards him and sat on his bed. Tim's hands rested on his lap, he could touch them if he shifted just a few inches closer. The proximity made him wish to lean forward and learn what Tim smelled like. Isn’t it what he should have felt for Lucy? He never wanted to touch her, even though he knew it would be welcome. He knew the scent of her perfume—he could feel it for hours after she kissed his cheek—but it didn’t make his heart beat faster. With Tim he wanted, and wanted, and wanted.
“Hawk,” Tim sounded like he loved saying his name. Somewhere along the way he accepted it. He could be Hawk for Tim Laughlin, if he wanted him to be. “You will be alright. You’re bulletproof, don’t forget that.”
He needed to know if he always felt like this around Tim. If he knew how these lips tasted, if this hair was as soft as it looked like. He needed to know if Tim felt the same about him. He didn’t know how to ask.
“Am I going to see you again?” He needed to know.
Tim shook his head and shrugged.
“Why didn't Lucy tell me about you?” He asked.
“She doesn’t know about me,” Tim answered, bitterly.
Not thinking, he reached Tim’s hand with his fingers. Tim closed his eyes and withdrew quickly and got up.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “Was it not appropriate?”
“It wasn’t.” Tim said, going to the door. He looked scared. “You can’t do something like that in a public place, Hawk. It’s not safe.” Tim stopped by the door. “You know, it’s ironic that I should explain it to you. I shouldn’t have come.”
He hesitated before leaving. “Couple of things about you. You played tennis at school. You secretly like Christmas, even if you say otherwise. You love your mother even though you’ll never admit that to her face.”
Hawk watched him go away, confused, but for the first time for the past week he felt relief. If his memories would never come back, there was at least one person who seemed to know him.
Everything is gone, Hawk. I don’t know what to believe. Just take me upstairs.
“Hey, hey, hey.” Someone’s hand shook him carefully at the shoulder. A low man’s voice was chanting something surprisingly soothing. “It’s okay, Hawk. It’s just a bad dream.”
He opened his eyes. A black man around his age was sitting on the chair beside his bed.
“Shh,” the man said. “I've got you.”
“Are you Marcus?” Lucy told him at least that much. He knew Marcus was a journalist and they served together, back when he got his scar. It was still hurting a lot, despite Dr. Wilson's assurance that there wasn't a physical trauma in his back. Psychosomatic, he said.
“In the flesh,” Marcus answered. “They didn't want to let me in at first.”
“Why?” Hawk asked, curious.
Marcus rolled his eyes. “You really don't know, huh. If only those bastards at Post got amnesia. How are you, my friend?”
“Getting by,” Hawk said. “Lucy said we've served together.”
“We did. Two years before the Velletri.”
“What happened in Velletri?”
“A huge K-5 destroyed your team. You’ve got injured and sent back. I moved to DC a couple of years after the War and we reconnected.”
“Are we close?”
Marcus pretended to think.
“In a way, I'm the only one who understands you.”
“Who is Tim Laughlin?” Hawk asked the question he longed to ask since he woke up. “I mean, to me?”
Marcus opened his mouth in surprise.
“You remember Tim?”
“No. He came here the other day.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That we're friends. That it's for the best that I don't remember him.”
“He's right.”
“I need to know.”
“Why?”
“I can't stop thinking about him.”
“You and Tim were together for two years.”
That made a lot of sense. Hawk remembered his desire to touch him.
“Like… together-together?”
“In our world two men can't be together-together, if they want to live.” Marcus said.
“Why?” Hawk asked.
“Because our society is fucked up.”
Marcus was silent for a minute, then chuckled. “It's so refreshing to see you without the burden of your memories.”
“Isn't that what makes us who we are? The burden of our memories.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps it just suits you to be a different person.”
“So I'm marrying Lucy because…”
“Because you need to protect yourself.”
“That's not fair.”
“Welcome to the real world.”
They sat together quietly for a while, Hawk tried to process information.
“Have you and I?...” Hawk asked.
Marcus laughed. “We might have fooled around back in the Army days. Both agreed that it was a bad idea to take it somewhere further.”
“Who else knows? About me.”
“Your colleague, Mary.”
“I met her. Who else?”
“You spent your life not letting people know about you, Hawk. But I can’t blame you. I’m just the same.”
Everything is gone. Everything is gone. Everything is gone, Hawk.
Uselessly trying to hold onto memories that came to him in his sleep became Hawk’s least favorite activity in the morning. Worse was only waking up alone in a sterile white room.
This time a man he’s never seen before was in the room, reading a card wishing him to get better soon someone from his family sent him.
“Good morning,” the man said, noticing that he opened his eyes, not really looking like he wished his morning was good.
Hawk sensed a strange tension between them. This man wasn’t his friend, he could say for sure.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” the man said.
“You remind me of someone,” Hawk squinted at him.
“I’m Leonard,” the man introduced himself. “You’re marrying my sister.”
“Oh.” Lucy mentioned her brother briefly, only once. Hawk assumed they weren’t close. “Nice to meet you.”
Leonard laughed.
“This is what you said when we first met. Back in high school.”
“We came to school together?”
“We did. Then I made a mistake, introducing you to my family.”
“How come?”
“You know, I came here to look into your eyes. They released me from that awful facility you put me into due to my father’s funeral.”
“What facility?”
Leonard continued, as if he hadn't heard him. “I’m not going back there. They weren’t healing me, they were torturing me. They didn’t even let me out of my room. And you knew about it.”
Leonard found his eyes. What Hawk saw in them made him shiver in a bad way. “I came here to tell you I hate you, Fuller. But you had to lose your memories and take it away from me. I look at you, having no idea what I’m talking about, and I can’t hate you. All I’m left with is hate for myself.”
He stood up. “I wish I could blame you for his death.” His father’s death, Hawk figured. “But it was all my fault. He couldn’t live with the idea of the whole world knowing who his son was. He was ashamed of me. He would be ashamed of you if he knew who you are.”
“You know who I am?” Hawk asked cautiously.
“I always suspected. The way you looked at Kenny sometimes. I was jealous of him.”
“Who is Kenny?”
“He died.”
“Hey,” Hawk called before Leonard left. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did to you and why, but I’m truly sorry.”
Leonard didn’t say anything.
Every person Hawk met left him with more questions than answers. It was like putting a puzzle together, with most of the pieces missing. The only person who gave him at least some clarity was Tim Laughlin.
Another week passed and doctor Wilson finally allowed him to leave the hospital. Lucy drove him to his apartment and asked to call her if he needed anything. What Hawk needed was Tim’s number, but he kept this information to himself.
The apartment was cold and foreign. He looked around, trying to understand who he was. It was so clean, and almost… lacked personality.
Who was Hawkins Fuller? Was he perfect or was he just trying to look like one?
The cups were clean in the kitchen cabinets. The desk in the main room was clean, the papers and book put in order. His eyes lingered on the cherry blossom paperweight. It looked cheap, bought in a souvenir store. It didn’t belong to this place. Was it a gift from someone? Was Hawkins Fuller sentimental after all?
The closet was full of perfectly ironed clothes. Behind them in the wall he found a safe. He didn’t even try to remember the code.
The double bed was made. He looked at it for a while, trying to picture the pretty boy in glasses lying on it. Did he bring Tim here or did they meet in his place?
Hawk found the phone and a number Marcus gave him.
“Marcus Gaines,” he heard the voice of his friend.
“It’s Hawk. Do you have Tim's address? I need to see him.” He wrote down the address Marcus told him and thanked him, before he took his jacket and rushed out.
A walk to the boarding house wasn't long. Hawk would drive, but his car was apparently still in the repair. It was frustrating that he still perfectly remembered how to drive but didn't know who he was. And besides, he enjoyed walking after almost a month in hospital.
Excitement grew in him as he approached the main door. The lock was broken so he stepped inside, came up on the second floor and found the door with a paper sign with “Laughlin, Timothy” neatly written with Tim's hand on it.
He took a deep breath and knocked. A wise choice—because when Tim opened the door, all the air knocked out from his lungs. He looked even better than last time, a brown shirt and dark jeans suited him so well. Hawk's heart skipped a few beats.
Tim hesitated before letting him in. The room was tiny, full of boxes, as he obviously was in the middle of moving out. The windowsill was full of plants.
“What are you doing here?”
“Marcus told me,” Hawk answered. “That we were together.”
Tim licked his lips, probably unconsciously. God, Hawk wanted to kiss him.
“I want to know who I am. Tell me.”
Tim sighed and moved boxes from the bed on the floor. “Here, sit.”
They sat together, close, but not touching.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
“You have to be at least a little specific.”
“What do you know about my family?”
“Your father is a prick. You don't talk to him or about him ever. Except one time you turned up here in my room in the middle of the night.” Tim looked away for a second, smiling as if he was remembering the moment. What exactly have they done? Hawk closed his eyes, trying to imagine what he would do, what state he was in. He imagined Tim opening the door just in his underwear, looking all cozy and sleepy. He imagines kissing him softly, pressing to the door and pushing his hands under Tim's undershirt, or, if he's lucky, down his boxers. “You told me how your father caught you with a boy you liked. His name was Kenny. You met at the tennis class.”