Page 166 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

“I think she hated me. Or hated what I reminded her of. So she used to… take it out on me. Sometimes. Tell me how disgusting I was. How I shouldn’t have been born. Stuff like that.”

His voice remained carefully controlled, but I could see the cracks forming underneath.

“But then the next day, she’d change. Shower me with love. Her words would flip completely. ‘You shouldn’t have been born’ would become ‘I’m so glad to have you.’ ‘You disgust me’ would become ‘You’re so adorable.’ ‘I hate you’ would become ‘I l—’”

His throat constricted.

His jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath the skin.

“Would become ‘I l—’”

His free hand clenched into a fist on his knee, his knuckles whitening as he fought to force the words out.

“It would become ‘I l—’”

My hand moved before I thought about it.

I reached out and covered his fist with my own, my fingers curling gently around his.

“I love you?” I said softly.

His eyes snapped to mine, searching, shining with something fragile.

His hand relaxed beneath mine, the tension slowly leaving his fingers.

“Yes,” he whispered.

Then, softer, “Thank you.”

A hollow, humorless chuckle escaped him.

“It got so bad after a while that I couldn’t tell where one version stopped and the other began. I think I hated the loving one more.”

He looked down at our hands.

“Because the hating one always followed. Like clockwork. A day of kindness, and then—”

He snapped his fingers.

The sharp sound seemed to hang between us.

“The next day, I’d pay for it. For existing. For being there. For reminding her.”

His voice dropped to barely a whisper.

“I hated those three words. She always ended the good days with them. And the next day, everything changed.”

He paused, his throat working.

“As I got older, I realized I didn’t hate the words. I was scared of them. Because whenever they were spoken, something bad followed. Something bad always happened.”

His gaze remained fixed on the ground.

“Those three words haunted me my entire life.”

My thumb traced slow circles over his fingers.

He still wore his wedding ring.