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“Ivy, let’s say everything you remember is correct. Your masked stranger from your eighteenth birthday party was lurking around, protecting and falling in love with you for all these years because some secret cabal wants you to inherit your birth father’s role, but you have to undergo a trial to prove your competence. How does being committed to a psych ward while your husband and friends disappear from existence accomplish that?”
My fingers fist into my hair. “I don’t know. I hear it and knowit’s ridiculous, but it wasn’t my imagination. You have to believe me.” Tears drip down my chilled face like tiny icicles, chapping the tight skin.
I can still feel Wells. The way he held me and petted my hair. The way his lips melted against mine, his tongue tangling with the perfect intensity to transport me to the land of euphoric bliss. His raspy tenor wetting my ear. His wake-up calls and orders and infectious laugh that had to be earned. The way he listened to my every desire and hope and fantasy, reading between the lines and writing them into our story.
His sugar and scotch that smelled like coming home.
And movies and games and cooking with Liam and Ty and Gage. Campfires and training. Giggling like kids. Secrets and dreams.Family.
Celeste sweeps my hair behind my shoulder, her tone softening. “I believe one of two things: either you had extensive trauma and that beautiful brain of yours imagined a blockbuster-worthy plot, or that man you love royally fucked you over, using all his erasing skills to abandon you and let you rot in this mindfuck.”
Jesus, what if she’s right?But what would he gain from that? If nothing else, I was one hell of a payday.
It hurts to even entertain that, but they wouldn’t give up millions for nothing. Although that makes more sense than someone killing them. If they were dead, it wouldn’t account for the house that’s now empty and up for sale or the records showing it’s been that way for a year. And no one would be lying to me. They’d tell me my husband perished. It’s an endless fucking circle of nonsense.
“I don’t like either of those narratives,” I say, wiping my wet cheeks.
“I know.” She passes her phone back to me. “Look at the pictures of you again and the dates.”
She’s already resigned herself to the lies being spun, and I have no idea of how to combat them.
I swipe through the photos of me in the hospital bed. One fromeach month. “My face isn’t showing in the first three,” I mutter, half to myself. “Only my hair peeking out.”
Pulling up the last one, I dissect it, bit by bit. Dr. Barret is checking my chart. My face is visible in that one. It’s definitely me. My heart shoots up into my throat as I zoom in on the image.
“There.” I point at his stethoscope—or more specifically, the reflection in it. “That’s my mom, and that man there is Wells. That’s his suit and his belt. And that glint on his finger is his wedding ring. I’m certain.” The reflection is distorted and only shows their midsections, but that’s my husband.
Celeste looks, doubt still veiling her face, brow crooked. “Anyone could—”
“Those are Armani suit pants and a Stefano Ricci leather belt—exactly what he wears. Who would be in my hospital room, talking to my mom, wearing that?”
Her mouth falls open to answer, but she says nothing.
My hope soars like a kite. “Did you bring the knife?”
She closes her eyes on a deep breath. “Yes.”
“Give it to me.”
She glances around, uncertain, but digs into her coat lining, sliding it to me. I take the knife from her and hide myself from anyone inside, stepping behind the massive oak beside the bench. To test the weight, I toss the knife into the air and catch it. After the quick flip, Celeste’s eyes widen, but I don’t say anything. I also need to test the balance point, so I spin it like I’m twirling a pencil, allowing it to stop on my index finger. Steady.
Confident enough to throw, I point out a leaf a little less than twenty feet away. “See that lonely brown leaf dangling in front of the tree trunk over there?”
She peers over at the leaf, eyes squinted with intrigue. “Yes?”
With her hesitant answer ringing in my ears, I launch the knife, shredding part of the crinkly brown leaf but pinning the rest to the trunk.
I can hear Ty whoop in my mind.“You slaughtered that, Freckles.”
Celeste’s hand covers her mouth with a gasp, brown eyes startled into round orbs of shock. “What the hell was that?”
“Proof,” I quip as a small rush of victory courses through my veins.
“Yeah, okay.” She nods, breathless. “We have to get you out of here.”
IVY
It has taken two more weeks and several “breakthroughs,” to be released from the psych ward. It’s January 2. I’ve been away from Wells and the guys for a month without a single whisper of them still with me—a belief I’ve been clutching as a lifeline. It’s disheartening, to say the least, as is walking into my childhood bedroom, where everything is in the precise place it was before I moved in with Wells. Shock and devastation are my new normal, it would seem.
