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“If you need me to choose you, you shouldn’t have lied to me! I told you everything. EVERYTHING! You let me bare my soul when you already knew. You knew and yet you said nothing! Even now, tell me I’m wrong Cole, make me stay.” I’m panting, shaking with anger.
“You’re right. I was there. I know more than I’ve told you.” He looks suddenly exhausted, as if he’s been carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, but for some reason he’s not able or willing to let it go and tell me the truth. Without the truth, I have no reason to stay.
“I would stay with you, Cole, but I choose me.” And with that I walk to the elevator, Jack following.
The car ride is unbearable, I know it was too much to hope for silence. Jack erupts when we get into the car, hurling questions faster than I can answer. I explain the memory recovery to him and when he realizes the trigger was being intimate with Cole, that shuts him up for a good fifteen minutes. When we arrive at the hotel he insists we get a drink in the lobby and talk more. I’m wiped out and furious, but since he came to save me on a moment’s notice, the least I can do is have a drink with him.
“So you are going along with this plan of triggering your memories? Seems dangerous to me.” He takes a swig from his water.
“Dangerous? Dangerous is living without any memory. I want my life back, Jack. Two months might not seem like a big deal to you, but it feels like a lifetime after all that’s happened to me.”
“I just don’t understand why you would want to remember such a horrible event. Seems to me that if it was really that awful, you would be happy to forget.”
I can’t believe he is giving me shit about trying to piece my life together.
“Are you insinuating that I liked what happened to me?” I can feel my heartbeat speed up and I know I am dangerously close to punching Jack in the face.
“NO! I’m not implying that. Sorry, that’s not what I meant at all. I’m just worried about all of this being awful for you.”
“Look, Jack, I appreciate the ride, but I’m not up for anymore conversation, if you don’t mind. That whole episode with you and Cole was enough drama for me for one night. I didn’t expect either of you to be so possessive and jealous.”
Jack looks at me with empty eyes. His gaze moves to my left, over my shoulder, and then he looks back to me, saying, “Karma is a bitch.”
What does that mean? I can’t help wondering if Jack is talking about me, or himself. What I do know, is there is more to Jack than meets the eye.
Watching her walk out the door is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. We were so close, so close. It’s the worst kind of hell, to be given a glimpse into heaven and then denied entry. I had my beautiful love back in my arms, back in our home, and just like that she’s gone again. Not only gone, but with that dip-shit, hanger-on. The thoughts going through my mind are making me crazy. If I find out he touched her, I’ll break every fucking bone in his body.
I pick up my cell phone and dial the only person I know who can help me right now.
“Cole, its 5am…what the fuck?”
“Alex, stow it… She started to remember. The only problem is, she freaked out and that douche, Jimmy, came to get her.”
“Ha ha, it’s Jack, and while I agree on doucheness, he’s harmless. She’s not trying to hook up with him.”
“She was furious, Alex. How do you know this guy won’t manipulate her?”
“You’re overreacting, as usual. She doesn’t want Jack. She called me first. I was just asleep.”
“Damn you, Alex!” It is a relief that at least Mia called Alex first, before that loser.
Alex laughs. “Whoa, buddy, don’t shoot the messenger! Let’s talk about the great part. She’s remembering?!”
“Yeah, but it’s all fucked up. She doesn’t understand the flashbacks or what they mean, and I kinda let the cat out of the bag… ahh Alex, I fucked everything up!”
We sit in silence for a minute, and Alex says, “Well, we are going to have to start over. I’ll knock her in the head with a pan when she walks in and we can begin again.”
Fucking Alex.“Be serious, what am I going to do?”
“Let her process, tell me exactly what she knows, and let’s go from there.”
For the next hour, Alex and I talk strategy and she offers to fill in Grace and Richard. I’m so thankful for her, she’s been my eyes and ears for the year I’ve been in this hell apart from my Mia. I owe her my life, and hope one day Mia will remember so we can thank her together.
I go to bed alone, and I can still smell her on my sheets. I reach over and dial Foster, my head of security. “Put someone on that asshole who’s with Mia. His name is Jack. If he touches her, break his arms.”
I need her back. I’m not sure how much longer I can do this.
When I get back to the hotel, Alex isn’t home and the next day she’s gone all day, so on day three I still haven’t been able to even catch her up on the latest developments. I walk into my room and head straight for the bedroom. I’m getting used to the routine. By day I plot, and at night I analyze my life, trying to piece it back together. Yesterday I went by my old office, hoping something would click. Today I tried to go back to where I was at the night of the attack, but I couldn’t make it through the doors. I stood outside for an hour, just looking at those goddamn doors. Then I turned my hatred toward my feet, cursing them silently, for their refusal to move.
