Page 75 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

“No,” he said, his grip tightening around the handle. “You’re not leaving.”

I snapped. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t walk out that door right now.”

The words tore out of him, carrying the full weight of the fear he had been fighting to contain. “Because the last time I let you leave like this, I almost lost you forever!”

I recoiled, stumbling back a step.

His eyes widened, horror sweeping across his face. His lips parted, the color draining from his face as he stared at me, stricken by what he had just said.

The last time I left like this?

My voice trembled with dawning understanding. “What did you just say?”

Chapter 13

He sputtered, stumbling over his words as he searched for an answer. His mouth worked soundlessly for a beat, nothing coming out.

“What. Did. You. Just. Say?” I repeated.

He gulped, his eyes darting away before snapping back to mine, caught between shame and the truth he had spent so long hiding. He hesitated, struggling to force the confession past his lips.

“You were leaving me the night of the accident,” he said at last.

The world vanished around me.

I stopped breathing. My body refused to move, every muscle locked beneath the weight of those words.

I could only stare at the man standing in front of me.

No.

I stared at the liar standing in front of me.

“So,” I said, forcing the words through clenched teeth, “you lied to me.”

He met my eyes, misery written all over him, his face heavy with guilt. A ragged breath escaped him before he forced out a single answer. “Yes.”

I was leaving him.

A grim, vindictive relief washed through me. I hadn’t fallen so far that I’d decided to stay forever.

I took a step back, my grip instinctively tightening on the sword. His eyes flickered down to it, and he took a tentative half-step forward. “Do you… do you want me to hold onto that for you?”

My glare was sharp enough to make his mouth snap shut.

I sucked in a sharp breath. “At the hospital, I asked you point-blank if I was leaving you,” I said, anger tightening every word. “You looked me straight in the eyes and lied to me. Tell me, what else have you been lying about? What else are you hiding?”

“Nothing!” The word burst from him. “There’s nothing else. I don’t have any other secrets. I swear to you, I’m telling you everything.”

I nodded slowly. “Right. Of course. Except for the lying. And the withholding of critical information. Except for that, you’re an open book, aren’t you?”

His expression crumpled, but he had no answer. There was nothing he could say that would make any of this better.

I straightened. “Why did you lie to me?”

He blinked rapidly, refusing to let his tears fall as he kept his eyes locked on mine. “You were lying in a hospital bed, injured. I had just watched you come so close to dying, and when you woke up, you looked at me like I was a stranger. I thought you were lying. I thought you were angry with me, that you were punishing me for everything that had happened. Do you have any idea how badly I wanted that to be true? How badly I needed to believe you were pretending because the alternative was believing you had truly forgotten me?”

His mouth twisted bitterly. “So, part of me wanted to test you. I lied and told you that you weren’t leaving, hoping you’d correct me. I was praying you’d snap and tell me this whole amnesia nightmare wasn’t real.”