Kelsey Hartwell - 11 Paper Hearts

I dont keep many secrets, but the ones I do have are hidden underneath a loose floorboard next to my bed.

There are over-the-top diary entries and poems about my deepest crushesthe ones only Carmen knew about. A valentine Adam Gurner gave me in the third grade that Ive looked at so many times, I could practically forge his signature. A wrapper from the field trip where Adam offered me a piece of gum. When I got to high school, my secret stash became a little more interesting. Theres a birthday card from my first and only boyfriend for my sixteenth birthday signed Love, Pete. Every time I look at it, I remember how Carmen squealed because that was the closest thing either of us had heard to I love you.

These are just a few of the mementos I keep in my secret hiding place. No one even knows about the loose floorboard in my room, including my parents, because I hide it under a big fuzzy rug. Whenever I look inside the pocket in my floor, its a little bit like looking inside my heart. Each item by itself may seem insignificantbut thats the point.

You see, I believe that everyone gets a love storybut you never know when its going to happen. Like maybe youll randomly bump into someone at a concert when the band is playing your favorite song. Or maybe youll lock eyes with some cute stranger across a crowded room. Im not sure about love at first sightmy mom says true love takes time. But what I do imagine is that you can look back to the moment you met someone you love and think, yeah, I shouldve known then. Because all of your favorite things about them were true then too, staring at you right in the faceand you remember how your heart was beating out of your chest. So you decide that it was lovethe beginning of itand you just didnt know that yet. Sometimes I think I keep things as simple as a gum wrapper in case these small moments are just the start of something real. Then I can look back and remember everything.

Thats what I thought anywaysuntil I had no recollection. There are three things stashed in my hiding place that I dont remember saving:

1. A dried rose

2. A Polaroid of me next to a lamppost, looking at the photographer with the biggest smile Ive ever seen on my face.

3. A bronze key

When I look at these three things, I think maybe I do have more secrets than I thoughteven from myself.

Last year I was in an accident coming home from the Valentines Day Dance at school. It was late at night and snowing the kind of snow that sticks immediately but not bad enough that people say to stay off the streets. I slid off the road on black ice into a tree. But I dont remember this. All I know is what my friends and family have told me and the details that pop up when you google Ella Fitzpatrick.

When I used to search my name to see what college admissions might find, only articles of me volunteering would appear. Now the first thing that comes up in the search engine before I even finish typing is Ella Fitzpatrick accident.

I cringe every time.

Because the thing is, when people see the articles, they must see a tragedy. But it wasnt. Not really.

Whenever I feel sorry for myself, I remember Im lucky for so many reasons. This isnt one of those stories where there was a drunk driver involved or someone with me in the passenger seat died; Im lucky that Carmen was able to raise money on a GoFundMe account so my family could pay the overwhelming medical bills. Most of all, Im lucky that my brain bleed stopped when it did.

I even consider myself incredibly lucky for the little things. Im lucky that I was sixteen and a minor so my picture wasnt plastered on the news. Im lucky that the accident happened in February, and after my recovery six months later, I was able to make up missed work during summer school so I didnt fall behind. Im lucky that when I asked to see Pete at the hospital, he came without question even though I had broken up with him three weeks before the accident.

Why couldnt I remember breaking up with him? Well, there were a lot of things I couldnt remember after the accident, like those three items I stored underneath the floorboard.

But Im also lucky when it comes to my memory loss. Doctors have told me that amnesia is really rare, but when it happens people lose large amounts of time. Years. But I only lost a mere two and a half months. Seventy-seven days. Eleven short weeks of my life.

Still, I want to remember. Only whenever I think back to Valentines Day, my brain feels like it has been bitten into like the end of a lollipop.

But this isnt a tragic story about the eleven weeks I lost.

Its about the eleven paper hearts I discover a year later.