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?