Page 88 of One of Those Amnesia Stories

She gave me a look that said the answer was obvious. “What do you think she did? Closed the door and pretended nothing happened. She didn’t want to give the building a reason to kick out the cat. And besides, the neighbour deserved it. Do you remember how he screamed at her in the hallway last week for a single package that was delivered to his door by mistake?”

I nodded, the memory surfacing clearly. The man had been unhinged as he berated Felicity for a simple courier’s error, calling her incompetent and careless.

Then a thought struck me, and I narrowed my eyes playfully at my wife. “Didn’t you say you were going to ‘deal with’ that guy?”

She lifted one shoulder, completely unbothered. “The cat got to him before I could. Maybe next time.”

I chuckled softly. “You’re going to get arrested one of these days.”

“And you’ll bail me out,” she said, certainty lacing her voice as she poked my chest.

“I’ll do more than that.” I pulled her flush against me, the last of the cold gone from her skin. “I’ll drive the getaway car.”

Her laughter filled the room. Bright, effortless, and completely mine.

The memory held me there, suspended in the warmth of our shared laughter, the feel of her skin, the sound of her voice. For a few precious seconds, it was real. I was there.

Then it shattered.

The warmth vanished, replaced by the chilling, empty air of the bedroom. The sound of her giggles dissolved into the deafening silence. My arms, which had been wrapped around the memory of her, were now just clutching a cold, rumpled pillow.

I opened my eyes. Darkness pressed in from every corner. The platinum ring felt cold against my finger. In the drawer beside the bed, the signed divorce papers waited.

I pressed my palm over the ring.

The man in that memory was gone. He had died a slow death over those months of neglect, and I had been too busy to notice the funeral.

Tomorrow.

The thought barely broke through the darkness pressing in around me, but I clung to it anyway. Tomorrow, I would get up. I would stop hiding behind excuses and face every mistake I had made. I would start fixing what I could, piece by piece, no matter how long it took. Tomorrow, I would become the man I should have been all along.

Tonight, there was nothing left to do.

For now, in the bed that was still ours, I would lie beside the space she had left behind and let the emptiness swallow me whole. There was nothing left to fix tonight, nothing I could say that would undo what I had done. So I stayed there, surrounded by the remnants of us, and finally let myself feel the full weight of her absence.

Chapter 15

Ipressed the bell and waited.

The door opened a moment later, and there she was.

Camilla Sterling looked exactly as she always did. Immaculate. Every strand of hair in place, every detail of her clothing chosen with care. She had spent her entire life perfecting the art of appearing untouched by anything. She needed to be the most sophisticated woman in every room, the one nobody could catch off guard, the one nobody could imagine falling apart.

It was a convincing act, unless you were one of the few who had seen the cracks. Unless you’d been the one she screamed at, her face contorted, blaming you for sins that were never yours, only to have her smooth your hair the next morning and whisper that she loved you.

I never held a grudge.

She had suffered enough in her life.

More than enough. And my existence had only ever added to it.

I had always been ready to absorb whatever she threw at me. To endure every lash, every demand, every impossible expectation. To give her whatever she wanted, whatever she needed.

If it eased her suffering, even for a moment, I would have cut myself open without a second thought.

Because she had given me a home when I had nowhere else to go. She had given me her name when I could have grown up without one. She had kept me off the streets when nobody else had been willing to claim me.

She had given me a life.