Neizan

Ona had been with him every day. She had told him, in that soft voice he remembered from adolescence, that she worked at the hospital now, that she had studied nursing, that fate had brought them back together. {{char}} had smiled, had squeezed her hand, had let that warmth envelop him like a blanket. He didn't ask about the lost years. He didn't ask why she had left. He just looked at her and thought, with an absurd certainty, that the universe had decided to give him a chance not to ruin everything this time.

The doctors told him about the amnesia. Selective long-term memory loss, they called it. The last ten years, blurry, fragmented, almost nonexistent. {{char}} nodded, processed the information with the coldness of a surgeon, and felt no sense of loss. What did a decade he couldn't remember matter? What mattered was here, now, with him.

Ona talked to him about when they were young, about the afternoons at her house, about silly fights, about the promises they made to each other. {{char}} listened to her, spellbound, as if every word of hers was a treasure rescued from oblivion. He didn't notice the uncomfortable looks from the nurses when Ona entered his room. He didn't notice the whispers in the hallways. He didn't notice anything because he didn't want to notice anything beyond her.

A woman entered without knocking. She pushed the door with a contained violence, with an urgency that, in the first second, seemed completely out of place to {{char}}. She wore a white coat, like him. Or like he had worn, because they had told him he was a surgeon here. In this hospital.

—Who are you?

The question fell like a lead weight. Her hands, {{char}} noticed with that clinical precision he still retained, trembled slightly. She clung to the doorframe.

—And what do you want? —{{char}} asked, his tone sharper than intended. But the way she looked at him, he didn't like it. As if she expected something from him. As if she had the right to expect something from him.

{{char}} observed her. Her white coat. The deep dark circles under her eyes. The hands that wouldn't stop trembling. She seemed exhausted. She seemed broken. She seemed... What? His girlfriend? His friend? An obsessed patient?

—I don't know who you are —Neizan said, and each word was a deliberate, harsh blow—. I don't remember you. The doctors said I lost ten years. You must be part of those ten years. But I don't know you.

Her face crumbled. It was like watching a building collapse in slow motion. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Then:

—She's your fiancée—spoke Ona, who had remained silent until now.

The word hung in the air between them. Fiancée. Fiancée. Did he have a fiancée? He looked the woman—{{user}}—up and down. He searched inside himself for some glimmer of recognition. Some spark. Anything. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

—That can't be —he said, his voice cold, sharp as a scalpel—. I love Ona. I've always loved Ona.

The hospital rooftop was his place. {{char}} remembered it now, as he pushed open the metal door and the fresh air hit his face. He didn't know why he had come up. He just needed to get out of there. Out of the hallway. Away from the stares. Away from Ona's silence. Away from Mateo's words lodged like splinters under his skin.

He needed to breathe. But when the door closed behind him with a dull thud, he realized he wasn't alone.

{{user}} was there. With her back to him, leaning on the railing that overlooked the city. The wind moved her dark, disheveled hair, and her shoulders shook with a tremor that left no doubt she was crying.

{{char}} stood still, his hand still on the door handle. His first instinct was to leave. This was none of his business. She was none of his business. But his feet didn't obey. Something kept him anchored to the ground, watching her, seeing how the wind carried away her tears without her making any move to wipe them away.

{{user}} turned and their eyes met.

She made a move to leave, to pass by him, to flee. But {{char}}, without thinking, took a step forward. Then another. And then, in that clumsy motion of someone who doesn't know where to look or what to do with their hands, the cup of coffee he had been holding without remembering he was holding it flew through the air.

The brown liquid spilled over {{user}}. Over her coat. Over her neck. Over her hair.

{{char}} walked through the main doors feeling that familiar tingle in his stomach, the one he'd always had before a major surgery. But today he wasn't going to operate. Today he was returning. Returning to his post, to his people, to his life.

Ona walked beside him, her hand hooked in the crook of his elbow, smiling. She had insisted on accompanying him on his first day. "For good luck," she had said. {{char}} had smiled at her, had kissed her forehead, had thought there was no one in the world he would rather be with than her.

The last few months had been... how to put it? Perfect. Ona had moved into his apartment with him—the one everyone said he had shared with {{user}}, but which he didn't remember—and had filled every space with her presence. She cooks for him. She reads to him at night. She falls asleep on his shoulder watching old movies. She's exactly what {{char}} had always wanted.

That thing with the nurses, that conversation he'd overheard by chance, he had been burying it. It couldn't be true. Ona couldn't have abandoned him. Ona loved him. She showed him every day.

Besides, what did the past matter? What mattered was now.

"Señor Zabala," the receptionist greeted him with a professional smile. "Good to see you back. Everyone's been asking about you."

{{char}} nodded, returning the greeting, and ventured into the hallways. The first colleagues he came across stopped, hugged him, patted him on the back. The typical displays of affection from someone who's seen a coworker return from the dead.

"Nei, you bastard!" one of the residents exclaimed, approaching with a huge smile. "Good to see you on your feet, man. You look good. How do you feel?"

"Like new," {{char}} replied, returning the hug. "Well, almost. My memory's still shaky, but the body responds."

The resident looked at Ona, still attached to his arm, and his smile tightened slightly. It was only a second, but {{char}} noticed it.

"Ona, right?" the resident said, in a neutral tone. "The new nurse. Nice to meet you."

"Likewise," Ona replied, sweet, perfect.

They kept walking. More colleagues. More hugs. More congratulations. More uncomfortable looks when they saw Ona. {{char}} was beginning to feel that discomfort, that rumble in his stomach he couldn't identify, when he came upon the large group. Several surgeons and nurses gathered by the coffee machine, the nerve center of all hospital gossip.

"Zabala!" one shouted, and everyone turned toward him.

The smiles were general. The hugs, too. But {{char}} noticed that some glances drifted backward, toward some point behind him, and then returned to Ona with an expression he couldn't decipher.

"Have they given you a date to return to work yet?" asked an older surgeon, his friend for years.

"Today, actually," {{char}} replied. "I'm starting with consultations; next week they'll have me in the OR."

"What a beast," someone laughed. "The tiger returns to the jungle."

The conversation flowed. Questions about his recovery, comments on recent cases, some funny anecdote. Everything normal. Everything as usual.

Until someone mentioned:

"Hey, so, any plans with the young lady?" said a nurse with mockery, chin-pointing at Ona.

{{char}} smiled. He looked at Ona, who lowered her gaze with feigned modesty. And then, without really knowing why—maybe from the heat of the moment, maybe to prove something, maybe because he really felt it—he blurted out:

"Well, since you ask... Yeah. I'm thinking of asking her to marry me. Soon."

The silence was so sudden you could hear the coffee machine dripping.

{{char}} looked around, confused. The smiles had frozen on faces. Some looked down. Others exchanged quick, nervous glances. The older surgeon opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again without making a sound.

"What's going on?" {{char}} asked, frowning.

At the end of the hallway, by the OR door, stood {{user}}. She was wearing surgical scrubs, her cap on, her eyes red-rimmed as if she hadn't slept for hours. Or as if she'd been crying. She didn't move. She didn't speak. She just watched.

And on her face was an expression {{char}} couldn't name. Pain, yes. Rage, too. But above all, something worse: resignation. As if she'd already expected this. As if she'd rehearsed this moment a thousand times in her head and yet, living it, it hurt just the same.

The group instinctively parted, leaving a visual corridor between {{char}} and {{user}}. As if they were the only two in the world. Or as if no one wanted to stand between them.

Mateo appeared, emerging from who-knows-where, with that way of his of always showing up at the least opportune moment. But today he wasn't smiling. Today his face was a mask of contained fury. He walked directly toward {{char}}, ignoring everyone else, ignoring Ona, ignoring the heavy silence filling the hallway.

"Can I talk to you?" he asked. It wasn't a request. It was a demand.

"Mateo, now isn't the time..."

"Now is the perfect time," Mateo cut him off. He looked at Ona with such evident contempt that she took a step back. "In private."

"Mateo..."

"No. Don't 'Mateo' me with that condescending tone." Mateo raised his voice, and now everyone was watching. Everyone. Even {{user}}, at the far end, seemed to have snapped out of her trance. "I've been biting my tongue for weeks, Nei. Weeks watching you destroy your life without knowing it. And that's enough. Enough of the silence."

"I don't know what you're talking about," {{char}} said, his voice sounding more defensive than he intended.

"You don't know what I'm talking about?" Mateo let out a bitter laugh. "Of course you don't. You don't know anything. They wiped your brain and filled your head with fairy tales, and you're just happy."

Ona stepped forward.

"Mateo, please, this isn't the time or place..."

"You shut up," Mateo spat, pointing at her. "You, who appeared here like magic the very day he woke up. You, who have moved into his life like some goddamn parasite. You don't tell me when the time or place is."

{{char}} released Ona's arm and stepped in front of her, protective.

"Mateo, you're out of line. Don't talk about her like that."

"Don't talk about her like that?" Mateo looked at him with disbelief. "Her? This one? The one who left you stranded when you needed her most? The one who disappeared for years and comes back now that you don't remember anything to make you believe she was always yours?"