Life as I Know It Read Online Free Page A

Why wouldn’t I wake up? I’d never dreamed so long and so realistically before. Once, when I’d eaten a particularly hot curry when out with my girlfriends, I had dreamed strange haunting dreams on and off all night, but never anything like this. How long would it last?
    I looked into his tortured face, saw the tears not far away, and realized that while I was here I was going to have to deal with the situation as best I could.
    “I’m sorry, Grant. I didn’t want any of this to happen,” I told him quietly. “It isn’t anyone’s fault. I understand that you want things to be like they were before, but they can’t be. I don’t remember being your wife. I don’t want to be Lauren. There’s nothing I can do about it.”
    He stared at me with tear-filled eyes, then rose from the chair and came to perch on the edge of the bed. He took my hand inhis and squeezed it, and it took all my willpower to leave it where it was.
    “You’ll stay with us, though, won’t you?” he asked. “You won’t leave us?” I was still desperately contemplating my answer when the door opened and Nurse Sally shepherded the children into the room.
    “Mummy!” they shrieked, bounding toward us.
    “Careful now,” Grant admonished them, rising awkwardly and sniffing back his tears as the children climbed around us on the bed. “Don’t forget Mummy’s not well.”
    Feeling as if I were watching myself in a strange play, I let Grant introduce the children to me. The children had been told I’d lost my memory and seemed to find it amusing that I didn’t remember who they were.
    “Sophie here brought you the flowers,” he told me, smiling proudly at his elder daughter.
    “Thank you, Sophie,” I said, taking in the long chestnut hair so like her father’s, the frank green eyes.
    “Nicole made you the get-well card.”
    “It’s lovely,” I told her with a smile. “You got my hair just right.”
    “It was what it looked like when the lightning got you,” she answered. “It stuck up just like that and sort of glowed.”
    I felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach.
    “You saw it?” I asked in dismay. “You saw the lightning strike me?” Nurse Sally’s question about who I’d been with at the time of the accident echoed in my ears.
    Nicole nodded. “It was awesome!”
    “Nicole!” Grant scolded his daughter. “Don’t make it sound as if you enjoyed seeing Mummy getting hurt.”
    “I saw it, I saw it,” cried one of the twins as he jumped at theend of the bed, narrowly missing my feet and causing waves of pain to shoot across my back. “Mummy was on fire!”
    Grant looked as if he were about to chastise the boy I assumed was Toby, when a sorrowful little voice from the corner piped up. We all stopped talking as the second twin repeated sadly, “That isn’t Mummy. My mummy’s gone, and she’s here instead!”

chapter two
    A hushed silence
filled the room. We all turned to where a small redheaded boy stood eyeing us from the doorway, tightly holding a soft, brightly colored ball.
    “What did you say?” I asked softly.
    “Mummy’s gone. She caught fire, and now you’s here. I want my mummy!”
    And Teddy began to cry.
    I realized I was clenching my hands together so tightly that the beautifully manicured fingernails were digging painfully into my palms. My breath, which had left my body in a rush with Nicole’s revelation, was having trouble drawing back into my lungs. The fact that it seemed Teddy could see me, Jessica, and not his mother changed everything.
    The boy’s comment had first filled me with a sick kind of dread that this wasn’t just a ghastly dream after all—but in the next heartbeat I felt the beginnings of hope. I wasn’t alone anymore in this strange place where everyone insisted one thing while I believed another. This small child saw past the outwardappearance of his mother’s body and into the person inside. I wanted to hug him for joy.
    “Come here, er… Teddy.” I