Page 77 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

“What happened next?”

His eyes moved restlessly around the room, searching for anywhere but my face, until they stopped near the entrance. He stared at that spot for a long moment, his gaze distant as he forced himself back into the memory.

“I came home and found you waiting for me. You were upset that I’d missed your party. And I…” A shadow crossed his face as the memory came back to him. “Instead of sitting down and talking to you, I just threw a ‘sorry’ at you and acted like that was enough. Then I walked away and took a shower before we’d even finished talking.”

He swallowed hard, his eyes dropping to the floor. “You were standing there, waiting for me to give you something more than that, and I couldn’t even do that much. I left you with an apology that meant nothing because I was too caught up in my own problems to see what I was doing to you.”

I took a step back.

Of all the things it could have been—a dramatic fight, a discovered affair—it was this. Something so ordinary, so painfully familiar. He had come home, brushed aside my hurt, offered me a careless apology, and walked away.

That was what had broken us.

One thoughtless choice after another, each one driving us farther apart until there was nothing left between us.

It was the most believable thing I’d heard all night.

He saw my face change and rushed to fill the silence, his words tumbling out in a frantic attempt to explain himself. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to you, Alessia! I was just… so tired. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept properly. The whole ride home, all I could think about was taking a shower and collapsing into bed with you beside me. I thought I could talk to you the next morning, when I could actually be awake enough to give you my full attention.”

He took a step toward me. “I had it all planned. I knew how hard the past few months had been for you, so I decided to take the next day off, just for us. I wanted to stay with you, spend the day together, and give you the time I’d been too busy to give you. After that, I was going to take a few more days off so we could finally get away together. Go somewhere, leave everything behind, and just breathe.”

His jaw clenched, eyes tortured. “But then I came home and realized I’d missed your party, and I hated myself for it, Alessia. I hated it. But I just… couldn’t face another conflict right then. I needed sleep. One night of rest. One night to reset.

“I was going to talk to you the next day. Hell, I planned to talk to you the second I got out of the shower.” He stumbled over his next breath. “But when I came out, you were leaving. You were walking away from me, Alessia, and I panicked. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t make sense of what was happening fast enough to stop you. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what could possibly make you stay.”

His fingers closed around mine and guided my palm to his chest. His heart hammered beneath it, each beat hard and fast against my hand.

“I know how this sounds. I know what you must think of me now—that I didn’t care, that I dismissed you and walked away from what you were feeling.” His eyes held mine. “And for that moment, I failed you. I did. But that moment wasn’t our entire marriage. It wasn’t everything we were to each other. We were happy, Alessia.”

His hand tightened around mine, keeping me there with him.

“I made you happy, Alessia. I know I failed you these past few months, but those months don’t erase everything we had before them. You are my priority. You’ll always be my priority. I just lost sight of that. It won’t happen again.” His lips trembled. “I’m sorry, Alessia. I’m so sorry. I hate that I made you feel alone while I was drowning in problems I should have shared with you. I should have told you what was happening. I should have let you in instead of shutting you out and leaving you to carry the hurt alone.”

His grip loosened, his thumb brushing once across my palm. “I can’t undo those months. I can’t give you back the nights you spent wondering what happened to us. But I can spend every day after this proving that you never have to question where you stand with me again.”

He leaned in, his eyes shining, holding my gaze captive. “So please, Alessia. Stay. Let us fix this. Give me a chance to show you who I really am. Not the man drowning in stress, not the asshole you met in the hospital, not the selfish husband you’ve been hearing about. But me.” His thumb stroked the back of my hand. “Learn about me when I’m with you. Know me when I’m not fighting to keep my head above water. Please. Stay.”

I tore my hand from his and stumbled back, putting space between us. I drew in a sharp breath, forcing the tremor from my voice before looking at him again. Anger burned through me, hot enough to drown out every other thought.

“You’re doing it again. It’s still all about you, Cassian. Everything needs to be catered to you, doesn’t it? You don’t like the man you became, so you’re telling me to just… disregard it. To forget that part of you ever existed because, what, ‘you weren’t yourself’?” A harsh laugh escaped me. “If that’s who you become when a crisis hits, what happens the next time one comes? What makes you think you won’t do the exact same thing?”

He drew breath to answer, but I cut him off before he could get a word out.

“You know what I’ve realized? You don’t see me. You didn’t care about this marriage when I was the only one suffering. When I was lonely. You were perfectly fine then. But now that the tables have turned, now that you’re the one losing something, you suddenly care. Even in this apology, it’s all about your struggle, your regret, how you don’t recognize yourself.”

My voice finally broke, betraying the hurt beneath the fury. “But what about me?”

I held his gaze, refusing to let him look away from what his choices had done to me. “You think you don’t recognize the person you became? What about me? Do you have any idea what you turned me into? The exact kind of woman I swore I’d never be.”

The confession tore out of me, fueled by months of a humiliation I couldn’t even remember. “I never wanted to be in a relationship where I had to wonder if the other person wanted me. I never wanted to make excuses for someone. I never wanted to bend myself into shapes just to feel seen.”

I was breathing hard, the air sharp in my lungs.

“But I did all of them. I did all of them for you. Because of you.”

The accusation landed between us, impossible to soften or take back.

“And then,” I continued, “you lied. You looked me in the eye and made me believe I was incapable of walking away from you. You made me question myself until I couldn’t stand the person staring back at me.”