Ever since that night, Samantha stopped talking. She was constantly staring at her window while she sat on an armchair. Hannah came to visit her but Samantha never talked to her no matter how Hannah tried. She stayed like this for a couple of days, very silent and whenever she sleeps, she would constantly dream about the same dream from that night. On the third day, while Samantha was looking through her window, she caught a glimpse of a girl who looked like Mia. She suddenly stood up and whispered, "Mia.".With pajamas on and no shoes, Samantha was able to escape from their house undetected. She followed the path where she saw the girl pa.s.sed by but she didn"t see anyone. She kept on walking forward, searching from left to right while people started looking at her; wondering why a little girl was walking barefoot on the street.
She walked and walked some more until she reached the main road. She began to feel tired, thus she decided to rest at a waiting shed. She sat there for several minutes until she fell asleep. Pa.s.sersby continued to stare at her because of her poor state, her feet were all dirty from walking around the neighborhood.
When she woke up, she was already back in her bedroom. As if she woke up from a deep sleep, Samantha stretched her arms and legs and walked out of her room.
"Mom? Dad?", Samantha called out but no one answered.
Her brother came out of his room and saw Samantha out of bed. She slept for more than 15 hours, and since she hasn"t had enough sleep ever since she had nightmares, they just let her sleep as much as she wanted.
"Joon.", she smiled. "Did I hit my head or something?"
Seo Joon furrowed his brows, confused by his sister"s question. "What do you mean?", it was the first time that he saw Samantha smile for weeks.
Samantha stretched her arms once again, "Yeah, I feel like my body is in pain and my neck is a little sore too. Did I fall? Also... I"m very hungry, can you make me some food?"
Seo Joon didn"t understand what was happening. His sister was acting very weird. After he prepared some food for his sister, he called their parents right away while Samantha was eating. Mr. & Mrs. Kim came home as soon as they received their son"s call and a doctor arrived together with them.
After a thorough check-up, the doctor left Samantha"s bedroom and told her parents and Seo Joon about her condition. Samantha has no recollection of what happened in the past few weeks and possibly even forgot Mia or Nancy.
Samantha was diagnosed with dissociative amnesia, a type of dissociative disorder caused by trauma or stress. Upon hearing the explanation from the doctor, Mr. & Mrs. Kim"s heart felt heavy. When the doctor left, the three of them talked about what they should do regarding Samantha"s illness. No one spoke, the three of them didn"t know what to do.
Seo Joon was the first one to break the silence. "How about we don"t let her remember?"
"What?", Chairman Kim asked.
"Why should we force her to remember something tragic? She had a car accident and her friend died. What"s more, she"s too afraid to go out in fear of the media getting to her."
Mrs. Kim listened to her son"s explanation and she was convinced by him. "That"s right, Sun Ho. Seo Joon is right. Also, she"s been having nightmares and couldn"t sleep for days constantly saying that she killed her friend. It hurts so much whenever I hear her scream in the middle of the night. If only I can take away her pain. This must be a blessing in disguise, now she doesn"t remember anything. She can live normally again."
After much thought, Chairman Kim nodded. "Okay. We"ll do that. I will take care of the media in case Samantha sees something somewhere. At least I can do that much.", he paused for a minute before adding, "Let"s go on a holiday, all of us. And when we get back, we"ll enroll Samantha in high school the one in the suburbs. You have to transfer with her, son."
Seo Joon didn"t hesitate, "Yes, I understand."
----
After listening to Hannah"s explanation, Daniel kept silent. He did remember that there was news back then about a 13-year-old who died in a car accident. What was strange was, it became the talk of the town but after a couple of weeks, the news died down. He didn"t pay much attention to it. And like other people, they started to forget about such news.
Who would"ve known, Samantha was one of those girls from the car accident. Daniel thought that she must"ve really suffered a lot during that time. Now he understood the way she looked and cried when he found her sitting on the curb. She blamed herself for what happened. She lost a friend in the car accident in which she survived.
"The memories that she lost must"ve been triggered when she saw the news of her brother"s accident.", Daniel spoke after a long time of being silent.
Hannah nodded, "Yeah, we figured as much. She was already stressed because her brother is in the ICU. And then she saw the news, she must"ve been very scared."
"Thanks, Hannah. You should go home, I"ll stay with her tonight."
"Okay, call us if you need anything.", she said before she left the room.
Daniel walked towards her bed and looked at her face. He couldn"t help but feel bad for her. He tried to stay awake and watch over her but after a couple of hours, he fell asleep.
At 4 in the morning, mumbles and groans were heard. Daniel"s brows scrunched up and his eyes opened. His immediate reaction was to look at Samantha and when he did, there were beads of sweat forming on her face.
"What"s wrong? Are you in you in pain?"
Samantha didn"t respond, she just continued to mumble until she screamed; her voice filled up the room that it startled Daniel.
"Samantha! Wake up!", he gently patted her shoulder, afraid that he would hurt her. "Wake up, please Sam-", Samantha"s eyes suddenly opened, she had a horrified expression.
"Baby... look at me... I"m right here.", Daniel spoke with his low voice which instantly calmed Samantha down. "You had a bad dream.", he said as he stroke her head.
Samantha panted and closed her eyes as she leaned into Daniel"s embrace. She fell asleep once again.
When Daniel noticed her steady breathing, he tucked her in before he got up and went out of the room. It was very early in the morning when he called his a.s.sistant.
"H-h.e.l.lo...", a.s.sistant Ahn answered groggily.
"Ahn."
Recognizing his boss"s voice, Ahn immediately sat up in the bed that his vision went black. He composed himself before he answered, "Yes, boss?"
"Bring me a change of clothes and some spare...", Daniel spoke on the phone giving his a.s.sistant some instructions.
After he hung up the call, he went back to Samantha"s room.
Daniel stayed the whole day watching over her. His a.s.sistant brought him his work laptop and some doc.u.ments and Daniel worked on the sofa while Samantha was asleep.
At 10 in the morning, Nathan Yun arrived in the hospital when he heard about Seo Joon"s car accident. He wondered where Samantha was and when he asked Mr. & Mrs. Kim, they told them that she was also admitted in the hospital so after visiting his friend, he went to see her.
When he arrived, Samantha was still sleeping and Daniel was on the phone as he tapped on his laptop; he made his voice really low to avoid disturbing Samantha. When he saw Nathan by the door, he hung up his call and nodded at him.
"How is she?"
"She"s... recovering.", Daniel really didn"t know how to explain what"s going on with Samantha at the moment. Hannah had told him about the people who knew what happened and Nathan Yun wasn"t aware of it so when he asked, he could only be vague.
"What happened to her?"
"I"m not sure if I"m in the position to give details. It"s her family"s matter, but if you"re worried about her state, all I can say is that she"s been sleeping a lot. She"s probably really exhausted due to stress."
Although Nathan was hurt that he couldn"t know about the exact reason why she"s there, he understood that Daniel couldn"t tell him. After all, he and Samantha are no longer together. "I understand. I hope she recovers well.", despite feeling down, he"s glad that Samantha has someone watching over her.
Nathan didn"t stay too long and left right after checking Samantha"s condition.
Right after Nathan left, Samantha woke up.
She lost her voice due to excessive crying so she had a hard time talking. She felt her body was all sore, "Nggnnnhn", she groaned.
Daniel raised his head and rushed to her side, "Hey... you"re awake... Do you want some water?".
Her body felt very heavy as if she lifted weights the night before but she managed to nod. After Samantha drank some water, she pulled Daniel towards her and snuggled into his embrace. She just needed some warmth, she just needed to feel safe.