Page 116 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

“The last room at the end of the hall,” I said, not looking up from wiping down the counter. “Go. Dump yourself there.”

A radiant, victorious smile broke across her face. “I knew there was a heart in there somewhere.” She spun around and practically sprinted down the hallway with her suitcases.

My hands dropped to my sides. I leaned against the counter and stared up at the ceiling, listening to the distant sound of a door opening and the unmistakable thump of her suitcase being set down.

A deep, certain feeling took root in my gut.

I was going to regret this.

I was right.

I regretted it deeply.

In just one week, she had managed to be more disruptive than my most high-maintenance client. She operated on a frequency of pure, restless interference. She couldn’t just be; she had to do.

Constantly.

She moved my bookshelves three inches to the left for “better energy flow.”

She reorganized my kitchen pantry by color and existential mood.

I came home one evening, worn down by a brutal day, and froze.

In the center of my living room, where my clean-lined, charcoal grey sofa had been, sat a monstrosity. It was oversized, upholstered in a violent floral print, and adorned with a pile of garish velvet cushions.

She was perched in the center of it, beaming. “You’re welcome!” she announced, spreading her arms as if presenting a conquered kingdom.

I didn’t yell. I didn’t even speak. I just stared at the foreign object in my space, at her proud smile, and felt a fuse blow somewhere behind my eyes.

That was two days ago. My current strategy was a campaign of sheer, silent negation. I moved through the apartment as if the new furniture, the repositioned shelves, the inexplicable bowl of potpourri on the coffee table, and she were simply ghosts. Phantom data. I did not acknowledge, react, or engage.

I was pretending my own home was a hotel haunted by a particularly invasive poltergeist.

“Didn’t Felicity say she was joining us?” Naija asked as we shuffled forward in the cafe line.

I checked my phone, finding a waiting text. I typed out a quick reply before tucking my phone away and looked back at Naija. “She can’t make it. Someone just brought in an injured bird.”

We reached the counter and placed our orders. My gaze drifted absently across the café, scanning the usual crowd, and then snapped back to a familiar silhouette tucked in a corner booth.

I blinked. The figure ducked, the quick movement confirming my suspicion.

I crossed the room in a few quick strides and stopped at the edge of his table. Cassian was bent low, his head under the table, intently studying the floor as if he’d dropped a diamond.

I cleared my throat.

He jolted, looking up with a convincingly wide-eyed expression of surprise. “Alessia!” He scrambled upright too quickly, catching his knee against the table leg in the process. A sharp wince crossed his face. “What a coincidence. What are you doing here?”

I just stared at him, my expression flat. “My office,” I said slowly, “is directly across the street.”

He glanced out the window, feigning a distracted squint. “Is it? God, it’s been so long, I must have forgotten.”

I waited for him to drop the act and tell me what he was actually doing there.

He didn’t.

“What are you doing here, Cassian?” I finally asked.

He blinked, as if the question were bizarre. “Getting coffee.”