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Living with all that was hard enough. This? Knowing I couldn’t shield him from getting hurt a second time? I couldn’t even fit that into my head. For the past year, I’d wondered more than once if my conscience might eat me alive. Today, I kind of hoped it would.
I deserved it. I owned what I’d done and all the consequences that had come as a result. What absolutely killed me was how much it affected—and continued to affect—Owen. It utterlydestroyedme to realize that Owen was eventually going to relive that gut punch all over again, and there was nothing I could do to shield him from it. Sooner or later, one way or another, he was going to find out the truth, and for the second time in his life, he’d go from someone who loved me to someone I’d broken.
That hurt so much I could barely breathe. There had to be something I could do. Some fucking thing to—
A horn blared. I swerved, narrowly missing the pickup that had almost T-boned me. Tires squealed, and we all stopped. For a couple of heartbeats, the intersection was still and silent, every vehicle frozen in place, having all just avoided swapping paint or worse.
Then a middle finger flew, tires squealed again, and the truck took off. All around me, the other cars eased into motion, and I managed to navigate through the rest of the intersection without incident.
As soon as I found a place to stop, I pulled over and put the car in Park. Then I closed my eyes and pressed back into the seat. Wiping a shaking hand over my face, I tried to catch my breath. Shit. I was so careful about not driving while I was distracted. Today… fuck. I couldn’t do anything without being distracted because my entire world was concentrated into one pinpoint of anxiety and regret.
Good thing I wasn’t treating any patients right then.
I opened my eyes and took a few more slow, ragged breaths as my heartbeat steadily came down. The adrenaline started to ebb, but I didn’t feel better. In fact, now that the shakiness andoh shitfear were backing down, all the other emotions from earlier came crashing in with a vengeance.
And I fucking cried.
I couldn’t stop the tears, and truthfully, I didn’t bother trying. Wasn’t like it was the first time I’d cried over the past year. Sure as shit wouldn’t be the last.
What could I do? I couldn’t keep this card out of Owen’s sight. He deserved to know. As much as I didn’t want to hurt him all over again, it wasn’t fair to keep pretending we were amicable exes. Yes, I wanted to help him sort out his situation, but what happened when his memory came back? At the same time, could he handle that truth on top of everything else he was dealing with right now? His entire world was on its ass. Wouldn’t I just be kicking him while I was down?
But I kept coming back to how betrayed he would feel when he found out. There was nothing I could do to stop him from hating me again. The least I could do was not give him a reason to think I’d been trying to use his amnesia to weasel back into his good graces. Because I was pretty sure that was how I would see it: if the roles were reversed, and I found out my ex had swooped in to save the day, I would seriously question his motives. Trying to win me back? Trying to butter me up so that when the truth finally did come out, I’d be more willing to give him another chance?
I couldn’t save him from this. The very fucking least I could do was be honest with him.
Staring out the windshield as the tears kept coming, I finally had a sense of certainty about something. I needed to tell Owen, and I needed to do it soon.
But… how?
Maybe what I needed was some advice. Ideally from someone who already knew how badly I’d screwed up, and who would skip telling me what a stupid jackass I was and get to the part about what to do. Fortunately, I had just the person—someone who had already told me millions of times what a fucking idiot I was for cheating on Owen—and as it happened, I had the perfect excuse to hit her up for a one-on-one.
Matteo:Hey I’m heading back to the clinic. Any chance you can take another look at my arm?
I must’ve caught her between appointments, because the response came almost immediately.
Lia:You actually want me to look at it? It must be bad. Get your butt back here immediately.
I managed a halfhearted laugh through my tears as I wrote back that I’d be there in fifteen minutes. She knew me too well. I was as stubborn as they came about having my war wounds looked at. Any normal person with an ounce of self-preservation who’d been clawed to hell and back by a cranky raróg would be getting their arm checked over multiple times by a medical professional—veterinary or otherwise—before the day was over, and probably tomorrow and the next day, too. Such was the nature of working with critters.
I resisted most of the time because I was me, and because I hated needles. Today, I honestly didn’t give a damn if my arm got infected. I didn’t care about anything right now except this situation with Owen. But letting Lia poke and prod and maybe even suture my arm would give me a chance to pick her brain about how to handle things with Owen.
With the text sent, I took a few more deep breaths, then pulled away from the curb and back into the flow of traffic. My concentration was a little better now, if only because I had a mission. Get to the clinic. Talk to Lia. Deal with Owen. That was enough to keep my car between the lines and stop me from running another red light (which is what I was pretty sure I’d done earlier).
I was almost to the clinic when my phone buzzed again, and I rolled my eyes. “Jesus, Lia. I’m on my way.” It did take time to get from place to place, after all. One of the other doctors in the clinic was able to teleport, but I was a lowly mortal without magical abilities, so Lia was just going to have to wait.
At a stoplight, I glared at the screen, ready to fire back a reminder that I was at the mercy of physics and traffic laws.
But the message hadn’t come from her.
Owen:Hey, is there any chance we can talk more? Not gonna lie—I’m not handling this well. Really don’t want to be alone.
I groaned aloud and pressed back against the seat. I was in Hell, wasn’t I? The raróg had actually killed me this morning, and I was now in Hell. I was damned to spend all eternity being flogged by my own conscience via hallucinations of my amnesiac boyfriend still thinking I was a decent human being.
I didn’t have time to respond before the light changed. Once I was in the clinic’s parking lot, I let him know I’d stopped here, and that I would head his way once I was done. We also exchanged a couple of banter-y texts, which hopefully eased his panic a little. I couldn’t say it did much to assuage my guilt.
I walked in through the employee entrance, and I found Lia waiting for me with a tote in her hand. It was one of the kits the techs used when they needed to clean and potentially suture a wound, and my stomach lurched at the sight of the antiseptic. I fuckinghatedthat stuff.
“Come on, you.” She nodded sharply toward one of the exam rooms.
