In Her Skin

CHAPTER 1

Alma, what are you doing?

Lately, her mother’s voice circled around her with more frequency than ever. Alma even felt her presence. If her mother were alive, would she tell her why she was here? Why she sat in this hospital room, fighting the urge to flee?

Alma glanced at the door, calculating how many steps it would take to open it and run. She was half out of her seat but was pushed back by a single image. She'd been having memory flashes since she could remember. Pieces of a memory. Nothing concrete. Just herself as a child, at the bottom of the stairs, her mother pulling her away. Always the same brief memory. But three weeks ago, everything changed. The camera of her mind hadn't frozen in the usual place with her standing at the bottom of the stairs where her sister Nina died. Instead, it had continued to roll, and she'd seen herself looking down at Nina, immobile on the floor and her mother sobbing, making Alma promise she'd never speak of that day. She tried to push the memory further but couldn't. And the more she tried, the more she believed she had something to do with Nina's accident. Why else lock it from her conscious mind?

Alma hid her hands under the desk they had assigned her and pressed the end of each finger to the pad of her thumb from pinkie to index, then repeated the movement in the opposite direction. She did this over and over, but it didn't have the calming effect she hoped for. In a last attempt not to flee, she twisted the soft skin on the inside of her wrist until the pain overpowered her cowardly thoughts. With more of a grip on herself, she glanced at her surroundings. The low ceiling had long fluorescent lights which shone on the white walls, the brightness harsh and blinding. Somehow, all that whiteness did nothing to brighten the room, or were her thoughts tainting everything around her?

Another nineteen volunteers sat at their desk and Alma wondered what had brought them here. But her curiosity ended there. She didn't dare look around the room. It was too small and too crowded. It lacked oxygen. She already felt faint from the way these people were sucking it in, each breath robbing precious air from the windowless room. Her fingers went back to their rhythmic motion under the desk, but with more speed.

Feet shuffled on the tiled floor and chairs scraped impatiently. She wasn't the only restless one in the room. Then all movement ceased as the door opened, and a doctor walked in. He strode to the front of the room, looked at them, and cleared his throat.

‘Hello. My name is Doctor Alvaro Ramos and I’m the clinical trial coordinator. I know they briefed you before today, so I won’t go over the same details.’ His hands disappeared into the pockets of his lab coat as he scanned the group before him. ‘What I'm here to tell you is that your participation in this new drug is essential for all trauma patients with repressed memories.’ His dark eyes fell on Alma. Could he see her fear? Read her thoughts? She squirmed in her seat and looked away.

‘What we hope to achieve with this experimental drug is to help trigger those memories. In other words, to trigger the memory back into recollection.’

Alma leaned back against her chair and tried to relax, but her thoughts overlapped with his words. The memory, which always replayed in her mind, could very well be the key to why her mother stopped loving her. All she had to do was dig it out from its hiding place and use it to unlock what happened the day her sister died.

At the words “side effects”, her nervous fingers stilled, and she zoned in on the doctor.

‘In a day or two, or possibly even today, you may get headaches. You may feel groggy. Nauseous. Headaches are—’

She blocked him out, fingers moving again. There was no need to hear more. The only thing that mattered was for the drug to work. The moment the doctor stopped talking, the room held a collective breath. Even Alma placed her hands in her lap. It was time. A team of five nurses went around the room pushing trollies stacked with plastic cups. Alma straightened in her seat as a nurse approached. She offered Alma a cup half-filled with water, then told her to stick out her hand. Alma never felt it drop onto her palm, but there it was, a tiny, inoffensive pill the colour of a forget-me-not flower. She braved a glance around the room. Nineteen hands were held out as though begging. A few heads turned to the person next to them, but all held their arms suspended in the air, ready for instructions.

The doctor’s voice broke through the silence. ‘Don’t take it until a nurse instructs you to.’

The nurses were quick and efficient, and Alma didn't have long to wait before one of them came up to her.

‘You can take it now.’

The woman’s cropped peroxide hair was the same stark tone of white as her uniform. If she faced the wall, she'd be invisible. Exactly what Alma wanted to be right now so she could disappear from this room. She hated hospitals and always would. In fact, she'd vowed only to enter one unconscious and on a stretcher, yet here she was, risking everything she'd worked so hard to overcome. But now that she knew there was more to her sister’s death than what her parents had told her, could she run away from this? Forget that her mother had stopped loving her only living child?

The nurse encouraged her with a smile and Alma quit stalling and swallowed the little blue forget-me-not. Satisfied, the peroxide blonde moved on to the next volunteer who didn't hesitate to take the pill. A young woman caught Alma’s eye, and they shared the same look of “will this work?”

‘Once you've taken the medication, you’ll have to wait here for half an hour. A medical response team is on hand in case anyone gets a severe reaction,’ the doctor said.

Alma stiffened. At anyone’s negative reaction her fingers would be down her throat in no time.

‘Also, not all of you have received the same medication. Some got a placebo, others an existing treatment, and the rest the clinical trial one.’

The faces around her changed. Like Alma, they weren't happy to hear that.

‘While you wait, we’re going to hand out a sheet with questions. They're of a different nature than the questionnaire you filled on the first day so please answer them and write anything you want to ask.’

At the thought of another thirty minutes in this room her fingers began to move manically under the desk, and she pushed at the memories clawing their way out. The white walls closed in on her, taking her back to another hospital room, the images so clear she had to blink back tears. Her mother in a hospital bed. Her body riddled with scars. Until that moment, Alma had never known her mother’s mind was so broken.

Alma closed her eyes and breathed in, then blew the air out, each breath an attempt to block out that day. That last time in a hospital. But the image of her mother lived with her, and although she'd learned to hide it, it still haunted her if only to prove that some things could never be buried.

A clipboard appeared in front of her, and she glanced up at the nurse and gave her a nod, glad to have something to do other than torture herself. Pen in hand, she read the first question.

Age:

24

How long have you known you had a repressed memory?

Ever since I can remember.

How did you hear about this study?

By researching “how to retrieve repressed memories” on the internet.

Are you feeling any adverse effect to the drug?

She closed her eyes to listen to her body. No.

Any symptoms you've never experienced before, even mild ones?

Her heart was racing, but that happened a lot. Nerves. Fear. Anxiety. No. None.

What made you enrol in this clinical trial?

There was a footnote explaining that all information was confidential and that none of the participants were to talk about their experience with one another. Only with the doctor assigned to them. This was a relief. She'd pictured each volunteer standing up and sharing their story, like at an AA meeting, where she'd have to tell them she may have accidentally caused her sister's death, and that’s why her mother didn't love her. But that she had zero recollection of that day, so she didn't really know if any of this was true. A cold shiver ran through her at the thought of the look on their faces.

She read the question again and took her time to think about it. Not because she didn't know the answer, but because she didn't want to divulge it.

My memory loss is traumatic for me, and it’s affecting my life in a negative way.

That was all they needed to know.

If you have any symptoms, even mild ones, please stay behind.

I'd rather suffer the consequences than spend another minute in this room.

It was a though she didn't put on paper.

‘Remember to jot down any side effects in the journal we’re providing. That’s what we’re looking for in this first phase,’ the doctor said.

At that moment, the clock struck on the hour, and everyone shuffled to their feet. Three men and a woman stayed behind, probably with questions they hadn't thought to ask before because none of them looked ill.

‘Please collect a bag on your way out and remember the protocol.’

The nurse's voice was too loud in the quiet room. From the moment the group entered and sat down, nobody had spoken, and no one would, now that they knew they couldn't share their experiences with anyone but the doctors.

When Alma got to the top of the line, they asked for her name. The nurse handed her a journal and a paper bag. Please don't let this be a placebo. She didn't understand why they would give that to anyone. Just like her, these people were here because they needed help, not a sugar pill.

‘I hope this works.’

It was the young woman she'd made eye contact with earlier.

‘Yeah, me too,’ Alma said, looking around to make sure nobody was watching.

Neither of them said another word for fear of breaking the rules. The woman gave Alma an encouraging smile and walked away. Alma put the journal and paper bag into her larger one and followed her out the door but didn't join the queue for the lift. She always took the stairs. Except for this morning when she'd been ushered into the lift with the rest of the group, all the while praying for her claustrophobia not to kick in. Now, glancing down the corridor, she looked for an exit sign. But there was none. When she saw how many doors she'd have to pass in her search for the stairs, she glanced back at the lift. Everyone had gone. No way was she was getting in there on her own. She'd rather face what was behind those doors.

Surprised by the lack of movement on this floor, Alma began to make her way to what she hoped were the stairs. When she reached the first door in the corridor, she checked that it was closed and hurried by. Three more. All closed. But she wasn't so lucky with the next one.

Don’t look. Just keep walking.

But her eyes were like magnets drawn to the opposite pole. Her heart jumped at the sight of the man surrounded by machines with a tube protruding from his mouth. His dark, wavy hair was like her father’s.

Get out of here. Now.

The beeping of machines followed her. And so did the tormenting images. They crashed into her, forcing her to quicken her pace. Challenging her to outrun them. Which way to the exit? She took a left, then a right. Nothing. She scanned the next corridor as though her life depended on it. Feeling trapped, she ran, ignoring the surprised faces of two nurses. Finally, an exit sign. She took the stairs two at a time and didn't slow down until she was out in the street and down the road, stomach heaving, lungs burning. How could she do this twice a week when hospitals were still her undoing?

She hurried through the streets searching for something that could calm her. A couple kissing. A man walking his dog. A mother and young daughter hand in hand. She had few memories of herself at that age. Had her mother ever held her hand? She glanced away and crossed the road, jumping when a car honked at her for not waiting for the pedestrian light.

Her mind was still in a turmoil when she arrived at the train station. She avoided the crowd gathered to wait for the approaching train that would take them from Madrid to Alcalá de Henares and made her way to an isolated spot. Her rapid puffs faded into the chilly air, and she pressed a hand to each side of her head, wanting to squeeze out the flashing images still lingering there. She stepped forward until the toes of her boots aligned with the edge of the platform. Closing her eyes, she envisioned herself snatching the images from her mind and throwing them under the train until they shredded into tiny pieces impossible to reconstruct.

A weight on her shoulder forced her backward.

‘What—’

‘I’m sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you. It’s just…’

It took a moment to understand why the woman had pulled her back and Alma was relieved when the train whooshed by, and her hair flew onto her face covering her embarrassment. She could've told her she hadn't intended to jump, but she just nodded and moved away from the woman’s watchful eyes. The train came to a screeching halt with a sound as loud as Alma's heartbeat. As soon as the doors slid open, a crowd unloaded onto the platform and her step faltered as they shoved her out of the way.

When it was safe, she boarded the train and took a seat. Tucking the hair behind her ears, she faced the window and stared outside, waiting for her heartbeat to settle. But how could it when everything was about to change?

***

Once off the train, Alma took the bus home. It left her at the Plaza de Cervantes, a short walk from her apartment. Amid the late evening bustle came a familiar sound from the rooftops. She glanced up at the large stork clapping its bill, communicating with another one sitting in its nest on the opposite building. It was the same loud sound that rang every day in the early morning, which didn't make for an ideal awakening, but it was a price she was willing to pay for living so close to the Plaza. Alcalá de Henares was Miguel de Cervantes' birthplace, a Spanish town teeming with stork's nests, as much a part of this place as the many steeples of the Medieval city. It was also beautiful and nothing big to get lost in like Madrid. Here, whenever she walked into a shop or sat at a table at her favourite Churrería for hot chocolate and churros, they knew her by name. This city had a warm and welcoming feeling about it, not only for its residents, but for visitors as well.

At the heart of the plaza there was a bronze statue of Miguel de Cervantes. He stood on a pedestal glancing down with quill in hand. As a child, Alma had told her father that he looked pensive, no doubt planning his next masterpiece. Her father had playfully pulled at her nose. Don Quixote will always be his best. And she believed him, just as she always had.

As Alma crossed the road, the streetlights flickered, their orange hue not strong enough to light the path to her building. She quickened her step and hurried along the cobbled pedestrian zone, busy with people unwilling to give in to the cold of early May. A fog of cigarette smoke surrounded the outdoor tables and slowly dispersed into the air. At one table, a group drank beer like they would on a summer day. They broke out in laughter and Alma turned to glance at them. At the same time, she saw something fly at her and dodged, hitting her shoulder on the metal corner of the newspaper kiosk she passed each day. Bouncing off it, she let out a surprised shout and spread her arms to break the fall. Only she never hit the ground. Strong hands helped her regain her balance, and she straightened with the help of the man's support.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes,’ she said, catching her breath.

‘Are you hurt?’

His eyes moved to the shoulder she was holding, and she lowered her hand, not wanting to admit to the pain.

‘That ball just missed your face.’

As if on cue, the streetlights brightened, and she followed his gaze to the two boys running down the street, kicking a fluorescent yellow football.

‘Sure you're okay?’

The unwarranted concern in the stranger’s voice made her look at him more closely. Don't stare. It was hard because he seemed familiar. The scar did anyway - running from eyebrow to cheek - the jagged line pinching his eyelid, giving him a look of permanent surprise. Alma dropped her gaze and pushed her bag back onto her shoulder.