The Substitute Bride To His Lost Love

Chapter One Mia’s POV “Swerve the car. Swerve!” I shouted, gripping the seat. Rain covered the windshield so bad that I couldn’t see. A bright light flashed and I heard someone shout my name then there was a loud crash, my body jerked forward and everything went blank. When I opened my eyes, everything was white. For a while, I thought I was in heaven. The ceiling above me was completely white, the walls too. I stared at everything around me, confused. Beep. Beep. I frowned, Where was I? I tried to move my hand, but my body felt heavy, my throat was dry, and my head felt like it had been hit by something. “Where am I?” My voice came out weak. A few seconds later, a woman in blue scrubs rushed into the room. “She’s awake.” More footsteps followed and a doctor appeared beside my bed and shone a small light into my eyes. “Can you hear me?” I nodded “Yes”” “Do you know where you are?” I looked around the unfamiliar room. “No.” “Do you know your name?” “Mia.” “Mia what?” “Wolfe.” The doctor nodded. “Good.” He asked me several more questions, my age, my father’s name, where I lived. I answered all of them “Do you remember what happened?” I stared at him. My mind was blank, I remembered leaving somewhere, rain, headlights but nothing after that. “I don’t know.” The doctor and the nurse exchanged a glance. “What is the last thing you remember?” I closed my eyes, trying to search my mind for something. Anything, a face,a place, a conversation , anything. “Swerve the car. Swerve!” “Swerve,” I said, opening my eyes. “What?” the doctor asked. “I told someone to swerve.” He nodded slowly. “Anything else?” I shook my head. “No.” He pulled a chair closer to my bed. “You were involved in a serious car accident.” I stared at him. “An accident?” “Yes” “When?” He paused. “Five years ago” My heart stopped. “Five years?” I looked around the room again, that couldn’t be possible. “How could five years have passed?” I thought to myself. I tried to think about what I had done yesterday, last week but I couldn’t remember anything. My head suddenly started hurting and I cradled my head. “What happened to me?” “You suffered a traumatic brain injury, and you’ve experienced memory loss.” I froze. “How much?” “We can’t say yet.” I stared at my hands. Five years. Five years of my life were missing. It felt like someone had taken a part of me , I couldn’t remember anything. “Was anyone else in the car?” The doctor didn’t answer immediately and my heart began beating faster. “What happened to them?” Before he could respond, the door opened and my father walked into the room. The moment I saw him, relief washed over me. “Dad.” He walked toward me quickly and pulled me into a hug. “Thank God,” he said, his voice breaking. I held onto him but when he pulled away, I noticed something strange in his expression then it disappeared. “What happened to me dad?” I asked He glanced at the doctor. The doctor stood and said “I’ll give you both some time.” When the door closed behind him, I turned back to my father. “Dad.” He squeezed my hand. “You don’t have to think about anything right now.” “I can’t remember” “I know.” “The doctor said it happened five years ago.” He nodded. “What happened to me?” “You were in an accident.” “I know that.” I hesitated. “There was someone else in the car.” My father’s expression changed. “Who?” “I don’t know.” I searched my memory again but I couldn’t remember anything. My father looked down at our hands then he took a slow breath. “ You were pregnant.” I froze. “I was?” He nodded. I stared at him. Pregnant? How? By who? “Where is my baby?” My father’s eyes moved away from mine. “Dad?” He was silent. “Where is my baby?” “You lost the baby.” I couldn’t breathe. “What?” “The accident made you lose your child” he said his voice breaking. I stared at him. “No.” I shook my head “That can’t be true I couldn’t remember being pregnant, I couldn’t remember having a baby, I couldn’t even remember the father of my child and yet my father’s words made something inside my chest hurt. “I don’t remember my baby.” My father closed his eyes. “The doctors said the memory loss affected more than just the accident.” “Was it a boy or a girl?” He hesitated. “A boy.” I looked down at my stomach. My hands began to shake, I had a son. I had probably imagined what he would look like , maybe I had chosen his name. My chest tightened. “I don’t even remember him.” Tears filled my eyes. My father pulled me into his arms “It’s okay.” “No, it isn’t.” I pushed against his chest. “How can I miss someone I don’t even remember?” He didn’t answer. There was nothing he could say. I cried until my head hurt, Eventually, exhaustion took over and I slept. The months that followed were difficult, I had to relearn parts of my own life, I went through therapy. I had appointments with doctors. I spent hours trying to force memories back into my mind. Sometimes I remembered small things, a song, a smell of a particular perfume but nothing about the accident or my pregnancy. Whenever I asked my father about the years before the accident, he gave me the same answer. “There isn’t anything you need to worry about.” He handled my finances, my mother’s trust, the doctors, everything, he drove me to therapy and made sure I took my medication on time. He was always there and I was grateful but sometimes, when I looked at him, I felt like there was something he wasn’t telling me, I could never explain why. Maybe it was just the part of me that knew five years of my life were missing. Still, I tried to move forward. Three years passed, I slowly rebuilt a new life. It wasn’t the life I had before the accident. I didn’t even know what that life looked like anymore but it was mine and for the first time since waking up in that hospital, I thought I might finally be okay.