Life is a game of chance.

Every moment is a gamble: unsure but hopeful. You could walk outside your front door and get shot down by a bullet; cross the street and end up run over from a sudden, drunk speeder; break your ankle running around familiar trails; catch a disease while vacationing somewhere stunning. There are no guarantees. None.

But you forget that sometimes.

Humans tend to think we're invincible. Being top of the food chain has probably made us a bit egotistical. Some of us go about our daily lives and take for granted the things we don't ever stop to think about. Ungrateful, arrogant creatures.

I wonder if I was one of them.

But I wonder about a lot of things.

I wonder if I've always hated hospitals. If the whiteness of the walls have always bothered me, or if the constant scent of disinfectant has always sort of hurt. I wonder if it's just the fact that I'm laying down all the time, that it's all I've really been able to do for the past couple days because everything I do hurts like a raging bitch and I think the entire thing might just be driving me insane because—god I want to get out.

My stupid Retrograde Amnesia, my painful broken ribs, my butt hanging out of this ugly, uncomfortable gown, the car crash I was apparently in, the people I don't know but know me. All of it sucks. Every single fucking thing.

I wonder if I've always cursed this much.

I turn over in my bed, facing away from the bedside table that holds a blue teddy bear and a simple 'Get Better Soon' card, because I hate everything about it and I'm not even entirely sure why. My eyes find the form of my mother, hunched over and asleep in the corner of the room. She's older than I remember, gray hairs more abundant in her brown tresses, wrinkles in the corner of her mouth and eyes, pressed into her forehead.

I wonder if I've caused any of them since I was a child.

She stirs, as if my gazing has summoned her maternal instincts, and hurries to blink away the haze of sleepiness, like she might miss something very important if she wastes just another single millisecond. "Mattie?" She mutters, and I can tell that she's searching for my voice to respond because her eyes are still shadowed in sleep. She was never much of a morning person when I was younger, and I can only imagine the toll it takes on her now that she's barely slept, too busy worrying over me.

"Here," I say, like it's school role call, and her head jerks, pinpointing me. She visibly relaxes when she spots me, a long breath escaping her, and the image of curtains blowing in the wind flashes through me.

"Are you okay?" She asks me, and even though I want to agonize over the fact that I feel like I've been slammed against a concrete wall by the Hulk himself, I smile at her and say softly, "I'm fine."

She opens her mouth to say something else, some other question, I assume. But she pauses, considering something she doesn't show, and then she closes her mouth—slowly, as if she's giving herself time to reconsider. "That's good," she decides, and I wonder if I've grown up to be as cautious and a little unsure as she is.

"What time is it?" I ask, because I can't see the clock well (I might need glasses now), and I know she has a smart watch because my mother has always been a business person, and she's always had top technology because of it.

"It's almost two in the afternoon, Mattie," she says, voice soft and cushioning. When she first called me Mattie yesterday, she'd looked surprised, searching for my reaction, for confirmation. I guess, as I'd gotten older, that I must've stopped asking them to call me that. But with the knowledge that my memories were lost after some point at age ten, Mom understood when I'd asked her why she didn't call me the childhood monicker. Because I was apparently seventeen now, almost eighteen soon.

And I hadn't even known it.

"You should go home and sleep in your own bed, Mom," I tell her, because she truly does look miserable in the hospital chair, but also because she's a painful reminder of something I must have lost. And every time she tries to hide her worry, I can see through the facade. My mother has always been transparent to her family.

"No, I can—"

"Mom," I reprimand, as if I've become the parent. "Go home, go sleep in a real bed. I'll be fine here, I've got nurses on call and a tv and my phone for company."

Go home, I repeat in my head, because I can't keep seeing you and being reminded that I've lost seven years of my life.

"I'll call Dad and he—"

"Mom, no," I say, laughing slightly, because even though it's been years and I'm almost grown up now, it seems like she's always had the tendency to over-worry. I'm sure it still drives everyone crazy. "Both you and Dad should stay home and relax. I'll be fine."

She looks at me warily, like I might've lost my mind for suggesting such an outrageous thing, but gets up all the same, gathering her coat and purse. "Are you sure?" She asks, head tilting forward a little, eyebrows raising a tiny bit.

"Positive," I say, picking up the tv remote so she sees that I'm fine, turning it on and pressing in a channel so she can think that I'm unbothered, that I'm alright.

"Okay," she says, walking toward me so she can bend down and press a kiss on my forehead. "See you soon, okay?" She confirms, ruffling the top of my hair.

Not too soon, please. "Okay."

"Okay," she repeats, making me chuckle. She looks like she's unraveling just the tiniest bit, a spool of yarn that isn't tucked away correctly. She looks at me from head to toe, as if checking for newly acquired injuries in the last few days despite my ordered bedrest, and then mutters that word again—as if it's the most important thing in the world now—and then leaves.

So I settle into my bed and ignore the pain in my side and the cast on my arm and the stitches that itch all over my body and simply sit, watching the tv and the show I think is called Greys Anatomy because my parents used to watch it all the time. I stay that way for hours, except maybe it's only four, and there have been a couple nurses checking in and even one doctor who asks about any progress but mostly just me, alone in that room watching Meredith Grey and infinitely glad I'm not a patient at Seattle Grace hospital.

Some part of me knows I should pick up my phone, should look through the pictures I might have and all the other things that are pieces of me, because I know that the goal is to remember, to get better, and then get back on track. But I am also terrified at the prospect, terrified I will never retain what was been lost. So I don't pick it up, don't even touch it.

It sits under my pillow, an opportunity waiting to be taken.

When it starts to edge towards seven, I know that my dinner is supposed to come soon, that someone from my family will probably be arriving to take their shift, and then I'll have human company again, and another reminder that I have lost invaluable time I may never get back.

Except the person who steps into my doorway isn't a nurse or a doctor or even anyone from my family.

It's someone new.