"Yep! Well, you already know we didn't take many together, but I found some new ones from a party you apparently went to, two months before we moved in together. I had to chat with some weird guy who was a borderline creep, but anyway, I got these and printed them out for you. Look!"
I take the pictures, a bit hesitant. This is already the sixth batch of pictures Kelsi has found for me, but just like the previous five times, I don't recognize anything in them. I spread them out on my bed, and it even takes me a minute to find myself in them. It looks like some party in a big nightclub, with more people I don't recognize. In the pictures, I am wearing a white sequin top with some black leather pants, and I am dancing in heels in the middle of a wild crowd. My hair seems longer too, and straightened. Kelsi only selected the pictures I appear in, but I never seem to be the main focus. I'm always in the middle of a random group or in the background...
"Still nothing?" she asks, biting her thumb.
I shake my head. I only recognize myself, and that's because I've spent hours in front of a mirror since I woke up, trying to remember who I am. No one else in these pictures reminds me of anything. It's so infuriating. I can't put a name to any of the faces, or on the place... even what I'm wearing in those pictures doesn't remind me of anything.
"Did the guy say anything about me?" I ask.
"Not really." She sighs, shaking her head. "He had no idea who you were when I found you on his profile picture. He's never heard of Clarissa Garnett, or a girl called Mara. He said he took a lot of pictures because it was his first university party, but he didn't even seem to know half of the people there."
"Okay... Well, thank you anyway for trying, Kelsi."
"I'm sorry it didn't work again, boo."
"It can't be helped. It would be weird if my memory came back all at once."
I really don't want to make Kelsi feel bad about it. She's the only person who comes to visit me almost every day since she's been allowed to, and literally brightens up my whole day. She's been trying hard to help me fill in the gigantic hole that is my past, bringing stuff that supposedly belongs to me, or the pictures she could find. She pouts, playing with her sweater's laces, still staring at the pictures.
"I don't recognize anyone from the university either, but I can ask my friends. Maybe someone knows someone from your department who knows more about you."
"Thanks."
"Well, at least you're sexy! I always noticed you had good taste in clothes. Aren't you tired of the hospital gown?"
I nod. I hate it, but with all the bandages covering my burns, it's the only thing I can put on easily without grimacing all the time. Kelsi did bring me a bag of clothes, but trying to put on a pair of jeans was so painful I cried. She puts the pictures back in the envelope and places it on my bedside table.
"I'd definitely suck as a detective, I could only find thirty pictures of you in six weeks, and I took half of them. I officially suck."
"Don't say that, you're the best. It's not your fault I was a loner."
"I still can't believe you don’t have any freaking social media. You're an alien, or born in the wrong century!"
"You still haven't found my laptop?"
"No..." She pouts. "The last time I saw you with it was one morning before I went to uni, you were in the kitchen, typing something. I don't think I saw you with it after that, and then there was the accident..."
It's so infuriating. It's already annoying enough that I have amnesia, but now, I can't even retrieve the biggest clues about my own life. I know the smartphone I had got burnt in the fire, along with my belongings, even my clothes. The police officer that came said they only found the remains of a leather bag and a matching purse, but more could have burnt, and they weren't going to spend time analyzing ashes...
"Did your sister come by at all this week?" asks Kelsi.
"No... Too busy, they said."
"Damn, your family is weird. She is too busy to visit you, but she pays for a private room in this fancy hospital."
"I feel like the room is more of a security measure than special treatment. She probably doesn't have time to take care of her crazy younger sister..."
Kelsi frowns, and grabs my chin to lift it and have me look at her.
"Listen to me, boo. You're not crazy. You're a gorgeous piece of woman, and a bad-ass witch, okay?"
Her very serious expression immediately lifts my spirits. I nod.
"With a crazy friend who says so," I chuckle.
She smiles back at me.
"Exactly. Do you want to show your crazy friend your magic trick?"
