Chapter 10: Chapter 9 - Nat

Wednesday 2 December

~*Nat’s POV*~

My eyes flew open, my breathing laboured and my heart pounding like I’d been on a hard run.

For a moment, I had no idea where I was. My eyes darted around the room I was in, my brain panicked and trying desperately to convince the rest of me I was in danger.

As my thumping heart slowed, the fogginess began to clear. Even though I was on top of a very comfortable mattress, a thick, dark-brown blanket had wrapped me in a cocoon. My hair stuck to my forehead as I took in the room, a thin sheen of sweat still lingering on my skin.

Ah. This was the room my rescuers had put me in last night. Auden and Cody. That was their names. I was staying in their apartment.

Right.

The door to the bedroom flew open, startling me. I jumped instinctively, trying desperately to get out of the tangle of the blanket I was in, but it had knotted itself around my legs. All I ended up achieving was dumping myself on the floor on the other side of the bed.

“Ow.”

Still on the floor, I popped my head up over the edge of the bed to see who my visitor was. Cody stood in the doorway, her hand still on the door handle, her eyes looking at me with concern.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “You were screaming again.”

I wrinkled my forehead. Was I? I took a moment to consider. The tangled blanket, the sweat, the panic when I first woke up; it all suggested that I had had a nightmare, but I couldn’t remember anything other than going to bed the night prior.

Oh, wait. I had done this before. Not the tripping out of bed thing, but the waking up with my heart racing thing. During the night. Multiple times. But it was Auden that had come to my door then, not Cody.

I groaned. “Sorry Cody. I’m fine. I remember your Mum coming in a few times last night, but I don’t recall what was causing me to yell. Please tell me I didn’t wake you up.”

She leaned against the doorframe and waved a hand to dismiss my concerns before crossing her arms. “I took over night duty from Mum a couple of hours ago. She said that this was to be expected. Apparently, it’s a sign that ‘your memory is trying to re-establish itself’, or something. To be totally honest, I wasn’t really paying attention.” She moved forward and sat on the edge of the bed, peering over the other edge of the bed to where I awkwardly sat. “Are you going to get up off the floor? I can’t imagine it’d be very comfortable down there.”

I looked down. The blanket was still firmly bound around my legs. Yeah, she had a point. Even though the thick blanket was incredibly soft, I could still feel the hardwood floor underneath me.

“Yeah, yeah. Give me a second.” I laid down on the floor and lifted my legs, trying to give them enough room so I could loosen the blanket a bit. “What’s the time?” I wondered as I manoeuvred my way out of the mess I had found myself in.

“A little after seven AM. Dad’s already headed off to work, and Mum is in bed asleep. You can go back to sleep if you want?”

“Nah, if I get up now, chances are I might sleep better tonight.” Finally freed, I threw the blanket back on the bed and pulled myself upright.

“How’s your memory? Do you know your name yet?” Cody asked.

I shook my head. “Still no clue. I do remember yesterday though, so there’s been some progress at least.”

She grinned at me. “Eh, you could never forget your new best friend. I’m too adorable for you to forget.” She placed her palms on either side of her chin, fluttering her eyelids at me.

I laughed. Wait. Was that the first time I’d laughed? I thought back over the events of yesterday and what I could recall from the times I’d woken up last night. Huh. I think it was. Maybe I hadn’t been joking about progress being made.

Cody beamed at me. “Come on, let’s get you fed!” She got up off the bed, came around to where I was still standing, grabbed my hand and tugged me towards the door. “We’ve got a ton of different cereals. And I can cook toast.” She paused. “Well… I hope you don’t mind burnt toast. Our toaster hates me.” She shrugged, then resumed dragging me to the kitchen. “Let’s figure out what you like.”

Cody made me sit at the kitchen bench again whilst she rummaged in the pantry. “Mum said that she wanted to talk to you when she gets up,” she called out to me. “As far as I’m aware, we don’t have to be anywhere or do anything today. I think she wants you to rest your feet a bit to give them the best chance to heal.” She emerged from the pantry, arms laden with about six different boxes of cereal and a loaf of bread lying on top.

“God Cody, really? How hungry do you think I am?”

“Hey! This isn’t all for you, I’ll have you know.” She dumped everything on the kitchen island bench, right in front of me. “Half of it’s for me.” She paused to look at all the boxes now strewn in front of us both. “Take your pick. What calls you the most? What’s screaming ‘Eat me, Nat! Eat me!!’ to you?” Cody shuffled the cereal boxes around so I could see what each one was.

I looked through them to the muffled sounds of ‘Pick me, Nat! No, pick me!!’ coming from Cody. I couldn’t stop the grin from spreading. How could anyone be this bubbly so early in the morning? This kind of enthusiasm should be illegal at this hour of the day.

Grabbing a random box, I opened the carton and sniffed the contents. It smelled okay, so I held it up.

“Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!!” Cody cried, raising her hands to the ceiling. “Ooh! Good choice too. That’s one of my favourites.” She swept all the other cartons to one side, grabbed a couple of bowls from the cabinets behind her and some spoons from the cutlery drawer. She took the box from me and poured the contents into each bowl until they were almost overflowing.

“Is there going to be milk as well?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. “You haven’t left much room…”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” she smirked. She turned to the fridge to get the milk. “It’ll be fine! Don’t worry about it.”

One corner of my mouth tipped up in the beginnings of an amused grin. “Okay…” I wasn’t convinced Cody knew what she was doing, but I felt sure that there would be a cloth nearby that we could use to clean up any spills. And judging by how high she had piled the cereal in each bowl, those spills were definitely inevitable.

“Oh, I meant to thank you for the clothes and shoes you left in the room yesterday,” I said. As Auden had requested, Cody had restrained herself from going too far overboard with her shopping spree, only buying a couple of outfits. None of it was particularly fancy or fitted exactly to my body, but as she was shopping without knowing my size, I thought she’d done a marvellous job in getting what she had. The slightly too-big pyjamas I had on currently were a perfect example, but they didn’t need to fit to do much more than keep me warm and covered.

“Not necessary,” Cody replied. “If you’re still with us tomorrow, we’re definitely going to need to go shopping for more, though. Plus, you need a pair of shoes that fit you, rather than the Ugg boots I got for you yesterday. I don’t know what your shoe size is, so you need to do that yourself.”

I nodded. As much as I wanted to spend more time with Cody, with any luck, my memory would return sometime today, and I wouldn’t need to spend any more of Auden’s money on clothes. Surely someone somewhere was looking for me by now, and they’d come and get me and help pay Auden back for what she’d already spent on me.

I watched as Cody poured the milk into each bowl, bringing the level up to the very edge. She carefully nudged a bowl across to me and handed me a spoon triumphantly. Much to my surprise, she hadn’t spilled a single drop.

“I told you it’d be fine. You need to have more faith in me,” Cody told me with a sly grin. “But you’ve only known me for a day, so I’ll let it slide just this once.” She passed me a spoon. “Dig in and tell me what you think. If you don’t like this one, we can move onto the next one.”

Regardless of what she said, I was determined that I would eat everything in this bowl, even if I hated it. I was not going to waste food that I didn’t have to. And I was also determined that I wouldn’t be trying any other cereal this morning. One heaped bowl was going to be plenty.

I dug in, lifting a spoonful to my mouth, and started chewing slowly. It actually didn’t taste that bad. The flakes were crunchy enough to be pleasant, and the sultanas perfectly offset the malted taste of the cereal itself.

“You know Cody, this is the second meal you’ve prepared for me that has been delicious,” I told her, downing another spoonful.

“What about dinner last night? You liked that too.”

“That was takeaway. That doesn’t count.”

“I called the order in. That counts as me ‘preparing’ a meal.”

“How?!”

“You know. I had to go to the effort to pick up the phone, dial the number, and speak to another human being. Definitely ‘preparing’ in my book.”

I rolled my eyes. The pizza she had ordered was delicious, but on what planet was calling an order into a store deemed as ‘preparing the meal’? She was delusional. “Pfft, whatever.”

Again, a wicked grin appeared on her face. I think she was discovering that she could win any argument against me. Maybe she was training to be a lawyer?

“Mum tells me you might join me at the camp on Monday?” she asked, bouncing in place somewhat eagerly.

“Maybe. Only if my memory doesn’t come back before then,” I replied, shoving another spoonful of cereal into my mouth. “It’s still another few days away. Chances are I’ll have my memory back before then, so don’t get your hopes up too much.”

“Do you know anything about it?” she asked. My warning had obviously gone in one ear and out the other. I really hope that my fickle memory wasn’t setting her up for disappointment. I shook my head. Auden had only spoken about a camp, but she hadn’t gone into much detail. I assumed it was because she expected me to get my memory back and be out of here before the camp began.

“Once we’re done here, I’ll bring my laptop to your room, and I’ll show you their website. It’s so cool! There’s all these different activities and things, and it goes for a month. Everyone who has done it in the past has said it’s brilliant. If you come, we could share an apartment. They usually put people in single rooms, but siblings and best friends can ask to be put in two-bedroom apartments. Think of how much fun we could have!” I could tell that Cody was getting incredibly over-excited. I really needed to bring her back down to earth.

“Cody, you know that the chances of me going to the camp are really, really tiny, yeah? My memory could come back at any time, and when it does, we’ll be able to find out where my family is. Or they could find me before then. I’m sure they’ve started looking for me by now. It’s already been over a day.”

She looked at me, shoulders deflating. “You could still come to the camp if you have your memory back. I’m sure they’d let you in.” Her eyes narrowed playfully. “The hottie you met yesterday will be there…” She waggled her eyebrows at me.

I blushed furiously but did my best at ignoring her. “They might, but they might not, too. Let’s just take it one day at a time, okay?” I reasoned.

She needed to understand that there were a lot of things that I couldn’t control. I was presently at the mercy of destiny itself. Wherever destiny wanted to take me, I had no choice but to follow.