Page 20 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

I looked back at him. He stood exactly where I’d left him, his gaze lowered to the floor. The instant he realized I’d turned around, his eyes lifted to mine. Hope flickered there, fragile and desperate. He took a hurried step toward me, but froze when he heard my question.

“Do you love me?”

He stilled. “W-what?”

Every ounce of courage I had left was being spent just standing there, waiting for him to answer. I forced myself to hold his gaze, even while panic clawed through me.

“Just answer this one question.” The words trembled despite every effort to keep them from breaking. “Do you love me?”

I waited.

His eyes stayed on mine, and for one fleeting instant, I thought he might finally say it. His lips parted, but whatever words had risen there never made it past them.

The silence lingered between us, growing heavier with every second that passed. His eyes moved over my face, searching, hesitating, refusing to give me the answer I had asked for. His lips remained parted, then slowly closed, leaving me standing there with the hope I’d foolishly allowed to rise still hanging between us.

He looked away, then back at me, pain flickering across his face, but still nothing came. My eyes stung, and I blinked rapidly, fighting the wetness gathering along my lashes.

My heart felt ruined beyond repair, every fragile piece scattered somewhere I could never reach again. The pain ran through me with every breath, dragging memories behind it, forcing me to remember every time I had looked at him and believed I had finally found the place where I belonged.

Every night I’d fallen asleep beside him believing I was wanted there suddenly felt like evidence of how badly I’d misunderstood our life. Every morning I had woken beside him and felt grateful for the life we had built together now seemed painfully naive. I had trusted those moments. I had allowed myself to build a future around them.

One question had torn through all of that.

Tears gathered in my eyes and spilled down my cheeks before I could hold them back. I wiped them away with the heel of my hand, hurriedly, almost desperately, yet fresh tears followed. My vision blurred. I blinked them away and tried to breathe through the ache, tried to gather enough composure to stand there with some dignity left.

Whatever composure I had left was slipping further out of reach.

His eyes widened in panic. “Alessia—”

I turned away. Seeing his face had become unbearable, especially with that panic written across it now, when all I could think about was the hesitation that had come before it. “My lawyer will contact you.”

I walked to my car with my suitcase dragging behind me, each step taking me farther from the home I had once believed would be mine for the rest of my life. My hands shook so badly that getting the trunk open took two attempts. I shoved the suitcase inside, closed it, and climbed into the driver’s seat.

He appeared beside the window almost immediately. “Alessia!” His hands pressed against the glass, tapping frantically against the window, desperate to make me open the door.

I stared through the windshield, keeping my eyes fixed on the driveway ahead. His face appeared in my peripheral vision, frantic and desperate, but I refused to turn toward him.

He called my name again.

I pressed the accelerator.

The car jolted forward, carrying me away while tears poured down my face. I gripped the steering wheel and forced myself to keep driving, swallowing sob after sob until my whole body ached from trying to contain them.

I glanced into the rearview mirror once.

He was running after me.

Running.

The sight tore through whatever strength I had left. He kept coming until the distance became too great, until his body grew smaller and smaller in the mirror, until he was reduced to a lonely figure standing beneath the darkness.

I looked away.

By the time I reached the open road, I was sobbing so violently that every breath came broken. Tears poured down my face, gathering beneath my chin, soaking into my clothes. My whole body shook with each sob, and I had to blink repeatedly just to keep the road visible.

I drove through a blur of headlights and darkness, barely aware of where I was going.

All I could see was him.