Chapter 3 - Meet Blaine Anderson

It was about a week after the kid regained conscious that he greeted the doc with a sullen expression that bespoke of poorly hidden anguish and quietly spoke the name, "Blaine Anderson."

It was the right name. But the kid's sudden emotional shift from cautious but friendly to broken and closed off brought the doctor up short. He didn't know what was going on but the young man before him was not the same one that he had been speaking with for the past week. He knew from the boy's case file he hadn't had things easy, but the intensity of the pain that greeted him seemed out of line with what the doctor knew.

With a slight nod in acknowledgment, he calmly pulled up his usual chair, crossed his legs, propped his clipboard on his knee, folded his hands in his lap and as calmly as possible inquired, "You remembered?"

Blaine had been watching him carefully since he walked in and held his gaze for another moment before looking down and away with a scowl, saying, "Yeah."

"So what brought it back?" the doctor probed, when the boy didn't elaborate. He watched the kid glance around the room as he tried to cross his arms, only to huff out a hiss in irritation at the pain and laid them back at his sides. Blaine struggled with his composure for a moment, uncertainty, sorrow and shame flickering across his face. His eyes teared up before he got himself under control and settled on a pained resignation and gave his version of a shrug while being virtually immobilized in a bed and avoided making eye contact.

"Was it your visitor yesterday that brought it back?" the doctor asked, sensing that this at least could address some of the enigma before him.

"Uh, yeah," Blaine answered, with little conviction.

"I stopped by yesterday to speak with you but was told you had a visitor so decided not to interrupt. I hope the visit went well," the doctor offered up to see where the boy would take it.

When he just received a dark glance and clenched jaw in response, he tried again, "So? Who was it that stopped by?"

"Attorney," was the kid's curt reply.

"Attorney? Oh. Well. Did you know him well? Was seeing him what caused you to remember?"

"Yeah," the young man breathed out sadly, looking down again at his hands and then back toward the window.

"So what else have you remembered? Usually other memories come back when things like names start falling into place," the doctor pushed.

Blaine continued to stare out the window with his head tilted as far away from the doctor as possible while in his neck brace, obviously uncomfortable with the questions. They sat there in silence for a while, the doctor not ready to push further, hoping the young man would continue in his own time.

"My parents are dead," Blaine said, finally, looking back down at his lap and glancing quickly up and then away from the doctor. His voice cracking as he added, "Car accident."

The doctor resisted the urge to offer some form of verbal comfort per societal norms, not wanting to distract from what the boy needed to say.

After a moment Blaine looked back out the window and continued, "My great-uncle is in a nursing home in FL. That's why there hasn't been anyone here. He's the only family."

"I see," the doctor said slowly, trying to get a gauge on the boy's emotional distress.

"Did you remember all of this on your own or did your attorney tell you," the doctor asked, watching Blaine fidget in his bed, only succeeding in getting his casts caught up in his sheets and blanket.

"I - I remembered some," Blaine stammered, as if to protest.

"He told me about the nursing home. I guess once he heard from you guys that I was finally awake he decided to clue me in on a few things," Blaine said, with a touch of scorn.

It wasn't just the tone of Blaine's voice that set the doctor on edge. He didn't like the implication that the attorney had conveyed more unwelcome news then of what the doctor was aware. But, the level of emotional distress the young man was displaying over his sudden recognition of his parents deaths did fit with memories returning and could explain his apparent turmoil.

"Well... You now know a bit more about yourself," the doctor began. "Did anything else come back to you, memories of school or of your childhood or your parents?

It was with a sad, pinched face the young man tried again to shift away from the doctor, forgetting again he was almost completely immobilized in his bed. Blaine's fidgeting inevitably led him to freeze again in pain and cause his eyes to tear up. He took a couple of long slow breaths to get himself back under control before saying with a resigned sigh, "Uh. Yeah. I think just about everything has come back."

"Like what?"

Blaine shot him a sharp, annoyed glare clearly not happy with the doctor's insistent questions but calmed a bit as he looked down at his splintered fingers and casts. He made eye contact for just a moment before saying, "My mother taught me how to play the piano - when I was 4. I've been taking lessons since."

"Are you worried you won't be able to play again?"

"Yeah...I - Yeah. I guess. I mean - I know I've a had a few surgeries and physical therapy will help. But..." Blaine said, lifting one of his hands slightly to emphasis his incapacity.

"What else? Did you remember anything about your school or your father?" the doctor asked, knowing they still hadn't reached whatever it was that had caused such a radical change within the young man.

Still struggling but more willing to answer some questions now that he had begun, Blaine answered, "Yeah. I remember --- uh, friends, classes, teachers - all that stuff. It seems like that's all there."

And... My dad," he added after moment. He swallowed thickly before saying, "he..he had just gotten this old beat up '59 Chevy. We had just started to work on it.. you know, before..."

As much as the the doctor wanted to wrap up their session, the kid's fluctuating emotions made him push for more. Certain some of the behavior he was witnessing stemmed from the young man's attack he carefully said, "You haven't mentioned it, but with everything you've remembered, has anything surrounding your attack come back to you?"

The doctor was disturbed by the fear and resignation that swiftly crossed Blaine's face as he nervously looked around the room and then down and away. Again he tried to fidget, only to give up and lay there looking out the window dejectedly. While the young man had been resistant through much of their interview, this new intensity of emotion was surprising.

"What is it?" he asked quietly and then waited, hoping the kid trusted him enough to tell him the truth.

It took some time, but eventually Blaine, shifted just a little, back in the doctor's direction and with a cautious glance up to him. He began, "I don't remember - not really. I mean, I know it was night and my cou.... there were some guys....and...they didn't like that I was - am."

"It was because I'm gay," he breathed out in a quiet rush. He glanced back at the doctor, taking in his composed expression and then snorted quietly, "But you knew that."

"Yes," the doctor confirmed with a nod. "Given the history your school files provided it seems to be the logical conclusion."

Blaine didn't respond but seemed to somehow shrink further into himself at the mention of his school files.

"Blaine, being gay is nothing to be ashamed of. Neither is being bullied. You need to understand that. It's ignorance and prejudice and ridiculous school policies that caused this. You were not at fault here - in anyway," the doctor said insistently, watching to see how Blaine would respond.

"Yeah. I...I know. But...they were fam.... friends? I knew they didn't like...me...but I never thought they'd...do this. You know?" Blaine said in quiet disbelief before quickly glancing up, making eye contact and then relaxing minutely, as he saw the doctor's understanding.

They sat in silence for a short time. The doctor trying to get a handle on what was going on with the kid in front of him. As much as he wanted to wrap things up he couldn't shake the feeling that the pieces of the puzzle before him were not fitting together. On their face, they did. It was the physical cues that manifested throughout their interview that bothered him.

It took the doctor a moment to process that, once he realized it. He mentally reviewed their session and wished he had thought to videotape it. He had taken note of how Blaine tried to avoid his questions by looking away and initially chalked them up to painful memories he didn't want to face. But traumatized as he was by his memories and injuries, one would expect all of Blaine's answers to be truthful. Yet, throughout the interview his physical ques said otherwise. Factoring in Blaine's comment about his attorney cluing him in, the doctor was very uncomfortable with what he was piecing together.

He mentally revisited the beginning of their session and it struck him, that for someone stating their name, or in essence introducing themselves, Blaine had lacked conviction that he knew his name. Nor had there been any of the enthusiasm the doctor had come to expect of patients who recovered their identity. A person's name was an essential part of them that inevitably was celebrated when it was recovered. The doctor glanced up sharply at this thought to look at the young man laying before him.

Blaine was again looking out the window but this time with an unguarded grief filled expression. He was clearly exhausted. He was small for his age and appeared all the smaller with the neck brace and the casts on his hands. But the doctor also noted how the young man almost seemed to have shrank into himself since they had last spoken. Something had happened during the attorney's visit that had taken a beat up young man with a good nature and twisted him into the destroyed child laying before him.

As the doctor thought about the young man's medical treatment over the previous two months, his sense of disquiet began to build. Blaine was an unusual client, even for their facility. But, considering the severity of his injuries and lack of family, it made sense that he had been placed in a facility that specialized in providing the extra attention the very wealthy could afford when seeking medical treatment. That they also had an exceptional treatment center for trauma survivors only reinforced his placement.

But, the doctor kept circling back the utter desolation that gripped the boy now that hadn't been there during their past sessions. Previously, he had been cautious perhaps, but there had been some life, some spark in him still.

It was this, coupled with the boy's apathy at the beginning of their meeting, that brought the doctor to a disturbing conclusion. Either the kid still didn't have his memory back and was faking it, or he was well aware Blaine Anderson was not his name, but was still trying to reconcile himself with accepting it.

Instinctively the doctor knew Blaine Anderson was not the boy's name. The memories the boy shared about his parents rang true. As did his mourning for them. He clearly believed they were gone and his pain was fresh and raw, as if he had only just learned of, or remembered, their passing. It was the kid's claiming his name that didn't feel real.

But if this were the case, the medical staff had been using the wrong name since the boy had arrived. Suddenly, all the kid's confusion and distress earlier in his treatment was much more understandable. Blaine's incoherent protests had been interpreted as confusion and distress due to his extensive facial injuries and wired jaw. When he had become more aggressive in his protests and tried to physically resist, they had strapped him down and knocked him out. It hadn't occurred to anyone that he had been trying to communicate that something was wrong - like they were using the incorrect name.

It was no wonder they had needed to drug the kid to keep him under control. He couldn't imagine the confusion the boy must have felt every time he regained consciousness. Nor could the doctor figure out why the kid hadn't said something during the last week when he finally had the opportunity. He couldn't imagine the boy faking his amnesia for an entire week, nor did it fit with sudden obvious distress he showed over the loss of his family. But what possible reason could there be for a fourteen year old to need a new identity?