BETWEEN ME AND YOU

WAKE UP: NEW SELF

The sound came first.

A soft, rhythmic beeping like a distant heartbeat. Then the sterile scent of alcohol and metal filled her lungs.

Her eyelids fluttered against the blinding white light above her, a painful brightness cutting through the darkness she had been floating in for what felt like forever.

Her throat burned when she tried to swallow. Something was lodged inside, a dryness that scraped raw at the edges of her consciousness. When she finally drew in a shaky breath, it was as though she had inhaled an entire lifetime of silence.

A voices... she heard around.

Murmurs. Footsteps, then a gasp that sounded like a sob.

A soft-small hand, trembling and warmed, it clasped her right hand.

“Mom? Mom, please...Mom!”

When she hear it, her eyes flew open.

The ceiling swam into view, sterile and white, haloed by fluorescent light.

For a long moment, the world was nothing but shapes and shadows, moving too fast for her to understand. A boy stood beside her, tears streaking down his cheeks, his fingers clutching her right hand like he was afraid she’d disappear.

She tried to speak, but her voice came out broken. “Who... are you?”

The boy froze. The room suddenly felt too small. The heart monitor quickened its beeps, filling the silence between their breaths.

“Mom?” he whispered again, as though repeating the word would make it true.

But Kristine only blinked, confusion painting her pale face. Her lips trembled. “I...I don’t know you.”

The door burst open. A nurses came in, followed by a man whose footsteps faltered the moment he saw her awake. His name was the first thing someone uttered. “Mr. Gomez, she’s conscious.”

"And who is he?" Kristine asked herself.

"Where am I...? what happened to me...?" her mind now is full of questions.

The man called "Mr. Gomez" stood motionless in the doorway, his expression torn between conflict emotions, and disbelief, a more vulnerable sensation, that it seemed on the verge of shattering him. The mere sight of him is alive and breathing, but it felt like he was shattered the years of grief that had solidified around his heart.

“Kristine...” His voice cracked like dry wood. “You’re awake.”

Kristine gaze flickered toward him. As if there was something about his face... familiar but wrong. Like a picture that she seen through the glass that slightly distorted.

“Do I... know you?” Kristine whispered

The silence that followed was heavy enough to crush the air. Banjo’s hand trembled as he reached for her, stopping inches away. “I’m your husband.”

"My... my husband?" The word echoed through her mind, hollow and meaningless. It didn’t fit anywhere in her memory. No wedding. No vows. No ring. Nothing...

But behind her eyes, another image flickered, like a warm sunlight through a window, the faint smell of coffee, a man smiling at her when he called her name in a soft accent. And that man is only "Rico" Her heart clenched. She knew that name. She remembered that name.

But this man standing before her... this stranger who called himself her husband? she had no memory of him at all.

The nurses checked her vitals, voices steady and professional, but Kristine barely heard them. Her mind swam in chaos. Where every sound felt distant, muffled by the fog inside her skull.

Banjo Gomez stood silently at her bedside, eyes searching her face for any trace of recognition. The woman lying before him was his wife. The shape of her lips, the softness of her skin, all the same. But her eyes... her eyes looked at him like he was a stranger.

When the doctors finally ushered the nurses out, he remained. He pulled a chair closer to Mr. Banjo Gomez and spoke quitely. “You were in an accident, Mrs. Kristine. You’ve been in a coma for months. I thought you might never wake up.”

Kristine swallowed hard, her voice trembling. “You said... I’m your wife.”

Banjo nodded slowly.

She looked at her slender hands, pale, with a faint scar running across her wrist. Her chest tightened. The scar seemed familiar, yet wrong, as if it belonged to another story she had only heard but never lived.

“I don’t understand, why..? I don't remember anything?” she said.

“Not you. Not this place. Not even... me?" Banjo confused. Tears welled in his eyes, but he was forced to smile, as the one who broke at the corner.

“It’s okay.. The doctor said memory loss can happen. We’ll take it slow.” But his words were trembling, unsteady, like someone building hope on broken ground.

That night, after the lights dimmed and the corridor quieted, Kristine lay staring at the ceiling. The room smelled faintly of antiseptic and wilted flowers. Her son... her son slept in a chair beside her, his small fingers still wrapped around hers.

She watched him, searching for any spark of familiarity in his features. His lashes. His nose. The way his lips curled when he slept.

Nothing.

The guilt was sudden and sharp. How could she not feel a mother’s instinct? How could she not recognize the boy who wept for her?

She turned her head and found the window. The reflection staring back wasn’t the one she recognized. The woman in the glass had tired eyes and a streak of gray along her hairline. Her face was both foreign and achingly human.

When she blinked, the reflection flickered. For a split second, she saw her younger self wearing a nurse’s uniform, standing beside a hospital bed with a man’s hand in hers. The memory was so vivid it stole her breath.

“Rico...” she murmured. The name slipped from her lips before she could stop it.

The boy stirred in his chair but didn’t wake.

Tears slipped down her temples. The memories came like whispers, laughter in a foreign language, a shared umbrella in the rain, a promise broken too soon. She remembered leaving home to work abroad, the cold nights in a hospital ward, and the man who had loved her beyond reason.

But none of that matched the life she’d been told she had here.

Morning came with sunlight cutting through the blinds. Banjo returned, carrying breakfast and a hesitant smile. His son rushed to her side, cheerful, hopeful, calling her “Mom” again.

“Mom, look! Dad brought you your favorite soup!”

Kristine smiled weakly. She didn’t have the heart to tell him she didn’t even know what her favorite soup was.

Banjo set the tray down and studied her carefully. “You look stronger today.”

She nodded, forcing politeness. “I guess so.”

Then, softly: “Banjo... that’s your name, right?”

He froze, then nodded. “Yes.”

She hesitated, her eyes meeting his. “Did I... love you?”

The question hit him like a blow. His throat tightened. For a moment, he couldn’t answer. Then he said, voice breaking, “You did. Once.”

Her heart sank at the sadness in his tone... a sadness that didn’t belong to a man who’d simply been waiting for his wife to wake up. There was something deeper there. Regret. Loss. Secrets.

And somewhere in the quiet between them, she felt it.. that strange pull in her chest, like two hearts beating out of sync inside her. One belonged to the woman they called Mrs. Gomez. The other, to the ghost of Ms. Kristine Sanchez.

That night, as sleep crept over her again, Kristine heard faint voices beyond the door. Doctors murmuring. Banjo’s quiet sobs. Words she wasn’t meant to hear.

“She doesn’t remember anything,” he said brokenly. “Not me. Not our son. It’s like... she’s someone else.”

The doctor’s voice was calm, too calm. “Memory loss is unpredictable. But Mr. Gomez... you said your wife... she...”

The voices suddenly pause. Before Banjo continued, “She... she died. Six months ago. Suicide.”

Kristine’s heart stopped. Her eyes opened wide in the dark. "Suicide? Is she really did it?" talking to herself as she lay frozen, breathing shallowly, and the monitor beside her clicking steadily like a countdown.

Who was she now?

Then the whisper of two names echoed in her mind, overlapping like a cruel refrain. Mrs. Kristine Gomez. or Kristine Sanchez.

And somewhere deep inside, where the two lives collided, something began to stir.

Not just memory...