Finally

Chapter 2 - Hopeless and Alone

I’d seen the beautiful pale blue dress in a shop window at Clapham Junction train station on my way home from a museum and I knew I had to have it. Being one of London’s busiest stations I rarely visit any of the shops, but this dress was worth fighting the crowds for.

The moment I tried it on I knew it was the one. It was strapless and floor length with a boned top and a slim skirt. The whole dress had tiny dark blue flowers on and the back was gathered into a small bustle at the base of my spine allowing the excess material to drape exquisitely. It was so different to anything I’d ever seen and although it was expensive, it was worth it. I bought sandals with thin blue straps in different shades of blue to match and I knew I looked good in it. It made me count the days until the ball.

Now my beautiful dress was ruined. It was torn and covered in blood for reasons I couldn’t yet understand. Did I hurt myself when I fell? Did someone hurt me?

“I... think... I think I was mugged,” I say in a strange voice that doesn’t sound like it belongs to me.

“Oh s**t! You’re injured and I gave you vodka!”

“I want my friends,” I tell him as tears begin to fall from my eyes.

“You’re friends with Alice right?”

I nod, wiping the tears but they are only replaced with new ones.

He takes out his phone and calls someone who I’m assuming is my roommate Alice who I left with. The phone keeps ringing until he gets her voicemail.

“Alice, this is Craig. I’ve got your friend ... errr... what’s your name?” He asks me.

“Zara,” I reply.

“Zara here,” he continues. “She’s been mugged and is hurt, you need to come home as soon as you get this message. I’ll keep her company until you get here. Bye,” he adds before hanging up.

He takes me back inside and gets me a fresh drink, it’s actually water this time and I gulp it thirstily trying to rid myself of the disgusting taste of vodka mixed with sick.

“What happened?” He asks nervously, running his hand through his short light brown hair.

“I’m not sure. I got separated from our group not long after we arrived and thought I’d come back here to see if anyone was still here from the party. I think I was being followed but I couldn’t see anyone then it all went dark and I woke up on the floor at the top of the path to our block.”

“No one else has been here for a while. What time did you leave the ball?” He asks.

“It was just after 10:30pm, I checked my phone as I was leaving in case anyone had called me back.”

“What did you do when you woke up?” He asks looking even more worried.

“Nothing, I came here from the party at 10:30 and then after I woke up I ran to the door and knocked, that’s when you came out. Why?”

“It’s now 11:45 Zara, you must have been unconscious for about an hour! You need to see a doctor.”

What happened during the missing hour of my memory? Was I unconscious for the whole time or have I lost part of my memories? Either way I’m pretty freaked out right now, a whole hour of my life is missing.

Alice arrives within twenty minutes and she’s pleased to hear Craig has already called a doctor. She tells me she feels so guilty because she assumed I’d hooked up with one of the guys we left with. One of them had told her he was interested and he was missing too. She was enjoying herself at the ball, unaware I was in trouble.

We go back to our room and she helps me out of my dress and into pyjamas. I lay on my bed, but she stays close watching me in case I lose consciousness again.

The doctor arrives an hour later and after checking me out, thinks I may have a concussion and says it’s likely I was hit on the head, which caused me to instantly lose consciousness.  He thinks I'd have remembered falling if that were the case. He gives me pain killers and tells Alice to keep a close watch on me and to take me straight to hospital if I don’t improve in the next day or two. He advises her to call the police since my clutch bag was stolen and it was likely a mugging.

The police don’t arrive until 7am and Alice stayed up the entire night to watch me. The police tell me it probably was a mugging, but with no physical evidence and no obvious witnesses it’s unlikely they will catch my attacker. They don’t seem to want to waste their time even trying to investigate and leave me feeling hopeless and alone.

End of flashback.

“When did you start to get sick?” Michelle asks me trying to keep any reaction or emotion from her voice.

“About two weeks after the attack, I collapsed at the library I worked at and got rushed to hospital. I was vomiting violently again and couldn’t stop even when there was only bile coming up. I couldn’t feel the right side of my body and it was terrifying. The doctor sent me for a brain scan, which revealed I had a small blood clot on my brain and I’d had a mini stroke called a TI Attack. I had two more mini strokes before the results came through and I finally got the medication to thin my blood. I was lucky though, the clot was small enough to not require surgery, medication was be enough to clear it.” I say trying to sound like this is the silver lining to this enormous black cloud.

It wasn’t enough to heal the emotional and psychological clots stuck inside me, those I’m still suffering with. They are the part of the reason I’m sat in this room, telling my story to this kind looking patient pixie.