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I looked over to find Trevor watching my reactions. “You thought this was a hoot the first time we were on it,” he said.
I shrugged noncommittally, waiting for it to be over.
Finally, the carriage went through a second set of wooden doors. Right before it did, an animatronic court jester jumped out, waved, and laughed like a maniac, asking us to come back soon. Why on earth would we do that? I think my heart stopped for a second when the jester jumped out.
When our carriage came to a stop, I couldn’t get out of it fast enough. Trevor followed me and shut the ride off.
“I’m sorry, I thought you’d think it was funny. I thought it would lighten things a bit.” He flipped the switch. The lights faded off, and the music ground down into silence.
I wondered about the personal hell of the operator who had to listen to the front end of the song as well as the back end of the song as both sets of doors opened over and over for hours on end. And that creepy court jester. There wouldn’t be enough money in the world for me to take that job.
“It’s late. We should probably head back upstairs for the night. You can explore the rest of the park tomorrow. You need to exercise and keep your strength up.”
I bit my tongue to keep from blurting out the truth about how strange I felt. Had he noticed?
I wanted nothing more than to get out of this dead theme park, but he was right on the practicality of staying. There was clean water here, and it seemed to be a good store of food, and electricity with two large fireplaces to keep warm and plenty of wood to chop down. There were beds and linens. It was survivable. Whereas, we had no idea what awaited us on the outside beyond this tangled oasis.
As we made our way to the tower, I couldn’t stop thinking about that stupid ride and the even stupider story. I couldn’t shake how much I felt like that princess in the tower, and I knew in a way I can’t explain that there were things about our relationship Trevor was keeping from me.
There was a sofa in the tower suite, but only the one bed. It was a room meant for a couple, not a couple and a bunch of kids. Maybe it was the honeymoon suite.
I looked away as Trevor took off his shirt and then his pants. Thankfully he stopped at his boxers. He slid into the bed while I stood awkwardly, my arms wrapped around myself as if to ward off a chill that wouldn’t arrive for months yet.
My gaze shifted to the sofa, wondering if I could make that work and how offended he’d be if I did it. Shouldn’t he have the decency to take the sofa and offer me the bed? If he was my husband? If he supposedly loved me? Shouldn’t he be more concerned about my memory? About my general physical and mental well-being?
He seemed in denial, like he just refused to accept the facts of the situation. Somehow he’d accepted the rest of the world as it was, but me not being able to remember him or our life together was too much. That was his line in the sand.
He turned off the lights. “Elodie... get in the bed.”
I kept all of my clothes on and slid in on my side, staying as close to the edge as possible. I closed my eyes trying to get that ride out of my head, trying to get everything that had happened since I’d woken in the pirate ship out of my head. I wanted nothing more than to dream of a world where everything was normal, and all the trucks and trains still arrived on time.
I felt him scoot up behind me. His arm came over my waist like the safety lever on the ride downstairs. His warm lips pressed against my neck.
I tried to squirm away from him. “Please don’t. I don’t know you.”
“Goddammit, Elodie. I’m your husband.”
I cringed at his tone. There was no one I could go to for help here. I couldn’t stop thinking about the drawbridge that effectively sealed me in with him until he decided to let it down. I was now convinced that I probably couldn’t even turn the crank to lower it down by myself. Maybe I was being irrational, but I felt so helpless.
“But I don’t remember that,” I said. “Please be reasonable. You’re a stranger to me. Can’t you understand that?”
He stroked my hair and let out a long sigh. I lay there stiffly, just waiting for him to stop touching me. After a few minutes of this, he backed off to his side of the bed.
I sat up against the headboard. Carved golden cherubs stabbed me in the back. I put my pillow between the carvings and me. “Can we talk about this?”
“Talk about what?”
“I don’t remember anything about my life, about you, about our life together. And you’re acting like I never told you I couldn’t remember anything. Like nothing out of the ordinary happened today.”
I heard him sit up and silently prayed he wouldn’t turn the lights back on.
“I just think it’s fucking convenient that you fall and get amnesia of all fucking things right when we were in the middle of a fight.”
“So you don’t believe me?”
He shrugged. “I just think it’s fucking convenient. Do you know how rare and unlikely amnesia is? Especially the kind of full-on memory wipe you seem to be suffering from. On a soap opera, fine. In real life, absolutely not. I just don’t buy it.”
“Well, I’m sorry you don’tbuyit.”
