This Is Your Life!

Oh God. What happened? My head feels fuzzy, full in some way, and it's all I can think about. I lie in my bed and try to stretch my legs. They feel like bricks, like I haven't moved them in days or maybe like that time I overdid it on the treadmill trying to impress a cute guy and toppled to the ground when I got off. I grope to my side, hoping to find my cell phone on the bedside table, but there is no bedside table. What the hell did I get myself into last night? How did I manage to move my furniture? I mean, I know it was Lucy's bachelorette party and I was probably nursing my pathetic love life over a margarita (or eight), but I feel like I got run over by a truck! A big one, like the kind on the highway that have those 'oversize load' signs attached to the back.

I can't bear to open my eyes because I can already sense the bright light coming from the window. That won't feel good. Any maybe I don't want to see my bedroom because I haven't bothered to clean it for awhile. The floor is the biggest shelf in the house, I remind myself. Everyone should know that! My head pounds and I grimace. I think again, like many times before, that I'll never drink again. Ever. Of course, I already dismiss this thought. The next time I decide to feel sorry for myself, I'll end up right back here, feeling exactly like this, and I'll make the same promise to myself.

I pop open my eyes, and even that takes effort, as if they were sealed shut. I think I'm dreaming, because what I see is not my small (but rent-controlled!) New York aparment. I'm in the hospital. The freaking hospital! Lucy is going to pay for this, for not cutting me off. I probably have alcohol poisoning, and they probably had to pump my stomach while my friends waited nervously!

There's an IV in my arm and I suddenly become nauseous at the sight. Maybe I'm in the wrong profession, then, because fixing up animals I've certainly seen worse. I mean, I'm not really a vet, just a tech, but I will be soon. Really soon, actually! Once I get rid of this hangover and get out of the hospital, that is.

Just then a nurse walks in, closing the door behind her. Finally, a saving grace! She's a bit scraggly looking and has a frown on her face that looks like it's been permanently plastered there, but she'll do. "Oh, hello," she says before I can speak, but I don't miss the initial wideness of her eyes. "Lovely day to wake up, isn't it?" She laughs lightly, but I just feel uncomfortable.

I try to talk but my voice won't come out. I croak and my throat hurts, and I must sound like I'm dying, if I'm not already dead. "I feel horrible," I finally spit out. Take that, throat. She pours water from a pitcher into an ugly pink cup and rolls a table over to set it on. Ugh. Hospital colors.

"There, have some water. It'll help. I'm Kelly. I've been taking care of you for the past week or so."

"What?" I sputter out. "No, just last night I was at my friend Lucy's bachelorette party, and I know I was drunk and all, but it was last night. As in yesterday," I argue with her. This lady is crazy, but instead she looks at me as if I am. "I have the invitation, it's in my purse. I'll show you." I smirk outwardly and do a victory lap in my mind, because really, they're the only type of laps I do these days.

"Kate, your bags are being stored somewhere else for safekeeping. Let me sort out where they are and I'll bring them to you." She leaves and I play with the controls on my bed, sitting up in one way or another, even if my body won't let me. What could have happened that I've been in the hospital for a week and can't remember any of it? Did I get drugged? I saw a story about that on Dateline one night! I feel like I've been drugged, or what I think it would feel like, anyway.

'Kelly' returns a few minutes later, smiling widely and holding two bags up for show. Uh, lady, those are not mine.

"Here you are," she tells me, setting the bags on the table with the water cup.

"I think you're confused. Those aren't mine." I point to them, and want to get sarcastic with her.

"Of course they are," Kelly says happily. "Your wallet is just inside."

I take her advice and dig through the bag, eventually pulling out an unfamiliar, large, wallet. I flip it open, and sure enough, there's my driver's license. The picture staring back at me is me, but I look different. Older, I don't know. I never thought I was photogenic, but that cannot be me! This looked completely different last night...

Then I look at the name. Katherine Shephard. WHAT? I pull all of the cards out of the wallet and they all have the same name printed on them.

"No, no, no," I mumble, rubbing my hands over my face. I must be going crazy, or I've forgotten how to read. Maybe that's it. Maybe once I'm out of here, I'll look at that license, and that wallet, and those bags and they'll look the same as they did last night. "These aren't mine, I already told you!"

Kelly looks surprised. "Dear, what do you mean they're not yours? See right here?" She points to a tape label on the larger, clear bag she'd pulled the other two from. "Katherine Shephard. That's you." Her calmness is unnerving and she's driving me crazy.

"No, my last name is Austen. Kate Austen. This is all some horrible mistake."

"Kate," she asks me slowly, standing by my bed. "What do you remember?"

I roll my eyes at her. She's terribly slow and redundant- how did she ever become a nurse? "I already told you- I went to my best friend Lucy's bachelorette party last night- she's getting married to Ted, who I don't really like, but she won't listen, and I must have gotten too drunk, and I ended up here." I let out a long breath.

Kelly looks at me, but hey-what's the worst that could've happened?

She eyes me again, and it looks like she's deliberating whether or not to tell me the truth. "You weren't at a bachelorette party last night, Kate. Eight days ago you were brought in after getting in a bad car accident. You've been in a coma until this morning."

Kelly has floored me. This can't be real. None of it. "No..." I start, but slow nurse Kelly cuts me off again. She's annoying. I don't like her.

She looks at me skeptically. "Forgive me if this is an obvious question, but could you tell me what year it is?"

If I didn't like her before, now I really don't. There she goes, insulting my intelligence again. "2004."

Her eyebrows raise. "And how old are you?"

"Twenty-five. Anything else?" This time my sarcasm comes through.

"Kate, I'm not sure exactly what's going on with you, but I'm going to page your doctor in so he can do some more tests." Kelly moves for the door, but I yell out, as best as I can with my still scratchy voice, stopping her.

"Wait! Just tell me what's wrong. You look like you know," I point out.

"I can't tell you anything for sure, Kate. And I know this is going to sound crazy, and I'm not trying to overwhelm you, but-"

"But what?"

"But it's 2008, not 2004, and you're twenty-nine, not twenty-five." Again, she floors me, but this time I believe her. No one would play this cruel of a trick.

"How could this happen? I don't understand what's going on..."

Kelly suddenly turns sympathetic. "From what I can put together, you remember all of your life, until your friend's bachelorette party four years ago."

"I can't remember that space in between? How can I forget four years of my life?"

"I'm not sure, dear."

"I'm twenty-nine," I say out loud. "I'm kind of... old."

Kelly throws me a quizzical glance. She must have at least twenty years on me.

"Err, you know what I mean."

I can't wrap my head around this. I got into a car accident, and now I have amnesia? How cliché is that?

"I'm going to page your doctor but before I go do you have any more questions?"

I have too many. Questions that Kelly couldn't possibly know the answers to. So I've finished vet school by now? I'm an actual, practicing, vet? Do I still live in my tiny apartment? Of course I don't, not if I'm making the big bucks! Am I even in New York City anymore? But then I remember pulling those credits cards out of the wallet that is apparently mine and seeing the name on all of them. Kate Shephard. Holy hell, I have a husband? I have a husband! It's the only question I can possibly ask her.

"So I'm Kate Shephard? As in I'm married to 'Blank' Shephard?"

"Yes," Kelly smiles back at me. "Your husband has visited you a lot. Kind of comes with his job."

I don't know what the hell she's talking about, and it must show. "I'm sorry, dear, I know I'm confusing you. Your husband, Dr. Shephard- works here. So he's been around a lot, waiting for you to wake up. He'll be extremely happy to hear about this."

I married myself a doctor? I have some secret life that I know nothing about waiting for me. It's hardly a relief. I'm twenty-five, no wait, twenty-nine. I can't be married! I never thought I would take the plunge... Kelly can see the panic in my eyes. This man, who is apparently my husband, is going to walk into this room, probably any minute, and I don't even know how we met, how long we've been together, and oh God, what does he look like? Hell, I don't even know his name.

"What's he like?" I find myself asking her. Kelly has now become my ally.

"Jack? He's... I can see why you married him."

Yeah, Kelly, maybe you can, but I have no idea why I married him! Jack. I married Jack Shephard. Whoever that is.

Well, shit. I'm more confused than I thought I was.