I Woke Up From a Coma and Couldn’t Escape the Guy Pretending to Be My Boyfriend

I fell 20 feet out of a redwood tree and when I came to, my memory was shattered and a man I’d broken things off with was telling everyone we were together. Then I found out why.

Illustrations by Jackie Ferrentino | Edited by Farah Mohammed

The first thing I can recall clearly was sitting in a hospital room in the dark.

I knew something was wrong — that there was something wrong with me — and yet, I couldn’t tell exactly what. I realized the left side of my face was numb. Hanging on the wall in front of me was a television, but there was something wrong with it too. A ghostly copy was superimposed over the standard set; it was rotated at roughly a 15-degree angle and faded away into the burnt cream walls. Is the TV the problem, or is it me?

My mother and a nurse wearing scrubs entered from the left, a disorienting place outside of my field of vision.

“That’s our girl,” my mom said, approaching my bed. “How are you doing today?”

Why was she so nonchalant? Why wasn’t she worried? Considering the haphazard inventory I had just taken, I probably should have demanded answers or cursed a bit. Raised some hell. Instead, I replied with an uncertain “… good,” slightly alarm…