Page 86 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

Some memories did not need to be recalled. They waited in the places where they had been born.

I crossed the threshold.

The bed was still there. Her side was still hers, even with nothing left on it. The sight punched the air from my lungs, and for one stupid second, every part of me expected her to walk through the door and ask what was wrong.

The nightstand drawer opened with a faint scrape. My fingers searched through its contents until they found a pen.

The pen shook between my fingers.

All these years, I had signed contracts worth millions without giving the ink a second thought.

Now one signature felt impossible.

A tear rolled down my cheek and struck the paper, smearing the ink beside her name. My fingers clenched around the pen, knuckles aching beneath the strain.

Then my name went onto the line. The final stroke left my hand, and I stared at it.

Two signatures that had once belonged to the same future.

Now they were proof that it was over.

The last scraps of fight, hope, denial—all the things that had kept me standing when everything else was falling apart—shattered inside my chest. There was nothing left to cling to, nothing left to tell myself, no lie I could keep believing.

My knees buckled, and I sank onto the edge of the bed. Every ounce of strength had drained out of me, leaving my body heavy and hollow. For so long, I had convinced myself there was still something I could fix, some way to turn this around. Now even that lie was gone. There was nothing left to fight for.

The signed papers were only a few sheets, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at them anymore. My fingers curled around the edges before I forced them into the drawer. I shoved them beneath a stack of old documents, burying the proof of our ending where I wouldn’t have to see it.

Then, just as the drawer began to close, something caught my eye.

The ring box.

My hand stopped.

Several seconds passed before my fingers finally closed around the little velvet box. Its softness beneath my palm only made the ache in my chest worse. The lid lifted, and there it was.

Her ring.

The hospital came rushing back in a blur of blood, white sheets, rushing footsteps, and doctors crowding around her. Her hand had lain limp beneath mine, frighteningly still, that ring glinting against her finger.

I had taken it from her before they wheeled her away. I remembered how the blood had dried across the platinum, how my fingers had trembled while handing it over to be cleaned. Every trace had been removed until the ring looked untouched.

Except I hadn’t been able to erase it from my mind.

The ring had been here ever since.

I lifted it from its bed. The platinum was cool against my skin, impossibly delicate. Small green diamonds were scattered across it, catching what little light reached the room.

I’d chosen them because of her eyes.

When she was truly, deeply happy, flecks of green would appear in her hazel eyes, tiny sparks that made them glow from within. Flashes of color I’d learned to look for without even thinking. Secret little emeralds that only revealed themselves when she was completely, unguardedly herself.

I told the jeweler I wanted a ring that captured that—that hidden, brilliant joy.

The box fell away, forgotten.

I could almost feel her hand in mine again, just as it had been that night in bed. Her ring finger had fit perfectly beneath my pinky. I’d circled her ring finger with my pinky, a silent promise of what was to come. It had felt like the most intimate secret in the world.

I slid the ring onto my little finger.