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Valeria
A throbbing headache woke me up from the slumber. My hand going to the bandage on my head and to my clothes. I was wearing my underwear. I sighed in relief, but it only lasted a few moments until I remembered what had happened to me.
I could hear the soft pattering of shower coming from the bathroom. I lightly touched my nose, nothing broken. My skin was soft like before. I lifted the ends of my hair to my face, waiting for the scent of roses to waft in my nose. But I couldn’t sense it.
No.
Patting the soft sheets around me, I knew I was on a bed. But whose bed? I couldn’t sense Khalid’s woodsy pine scent or my delicate scent.
No.
I stood up, thankful for the cane near the nightstand. I gently touched it, my view full of darkness, and lifted a glass to my nose. I sniffed and nothing happened. I dipped my finger inside it. Water, it’s water.
With the help of the cane, I walked to another table, slowly holding and lifting things to my face, trying to make sense of what it was.
But I couldn’t comprehend a single thing.
“Valeria,” Khalid gasped, a door closing shut behind him as I lifted something warm to my face. It was yanked away from me before I could do so. “What are you doing?”
I swallowed the lump in throat and faced him. I could sense it was him because of his voice, his tall height, his familiar body. Other than that,nothing. I couldn’t make out his scent, especially if he had just taken a shower.
“You could have burned yourself, my sweet,” he whispered, cupping my face. “Why were you trying to hold a candle to your face?”
I took a sharp breath. “Was it scented?”
He didn’t reply. The air around me felt heavy and damp, sticking to my skin, making me feel small.
“Khalid, tell me. Was the candle scented?”
“Yes.”
Tears burned my eyes, my throat clogging up as I pulled away from him, hugging myself. “I can’t smell anything,” I said to myself, hiding my face in my hands. Warm tears slid down my face. “I can’t even notice your scent or mine. I don’t know… I don’t know—”
Khalid gently touched my back, rubbing it as if he was afraid. “Shh, it’s okay, Valeria. We will figure something out. I promise.”
But he didn’t understand me. I had lost my sense of smell, the only thing that I cherished the most about me. I didn’t care about my body, my hair, how I looked. But I cared that I had a better sense of smell. It had brought me joy, creating new fragrances and scents. It had made me successful. It had made me rely on myself without other’s help.
And I had lost it. It was my worst fear, losing my sense of smell, and it had happened.
I felt empty without it. Like I had lost a limb.
Khalid kept murmuring sweet things in my ear with his soothing voice, picking me up from the floor and laying me down on the bed, feeding me as he talked about the doctor’s visit.
“It will come back, my sweet one. The doctor said that it might take a couple of months but it will,” Khalid said, rubbing his thumb on the inside of my wrist.
“What if it doesn’t?” I said, hating how weak my voice had turned.
I hated it. I hated what I had become. So weak and small and…useless.
“What if it never comes back?”
I broke down and he was saved from lying to me, hugging me as I buried my face in his chest, crying out my heart.