Page 21 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

His widened eyes.

The panic on his face.

That terrible hesitation when I had asked the question that had cost me everything.

And he hadn’t answered.

The memory replayed again.

Then again.

Every time, it hurt worse.

What had I been doing all this time?

My sob caught painfully.

When did I become this person?

My tears came harder.

Why did I ever walk into that cafe?

If I had decided to go home instead, none of this would have happened. I might still be living an ordinary life, carrying an ordinary loneliness that had never known his touch, never learned the warmth of his arms, never discovered how devastating it could be to lose a person who had once felt so deeply woven into every part of me.

Instead, I had met him.

I had loved him.

I had built a life around him.

I had given him years of my life, pieces of myself, memories I would carry long after everything else was gone.

And now I was driving away from all of it with a suitcase with me and enough pain inside me to drown in.

Why did I have to be the one to fall so completely?

Why couldn’t he?

I wished I had never met him. I wished I had never learned what it felt to love someone so deeply that losing them could leave me feeling hollow. I wished he were still a stranger whose name meant nothing to me, whose face I could pass on the street without feeling every wound he had left behind.

A loud honk tore through my thoughts.

I glanced into the rearview mirror and saw headlights closing the distance behind me. I wiped desperately at my tears, trying to clear my vision, then looked again.

Cassian’s car.

Of course he’s following me.

The horn sounded again, demanding that I stop.

He wanted me to pull over.

He wanted to talk.

After all the pain he had caused, he was still chasing after me, still demanding my attention when I had nothing left to give him.

My jaw tightened.