“Well, apparently, you could, and you did.” It was his turn to let out a deep breath. “Look. I don’t want to argue. I think we did enough of that near the end.”
I was almost grateful I didn’t remember what “the end” had entailed… and what I’d said to put that look in his eyes. I knew that when he left this time, he probably wouldn’t come back, and I felt an almost paralyzing loss. I looked at him wordlessly, trying to memorize his face. Those expressive eyes could be so warm and kind. His nose, straight and a little overlong. And his mouth, soft and lush and made for kissing.
I wished I’d kissed him. I wished that his boyfriend’s timing had been a little worse, and I’d gotten a chance to get that mouth against mine again without zero guilt, zero regrets…when I was still trapped in the delusion that he was still mine, and I was still his, and he was just being nice enough to let me.
“I’d better go,” he said, and I nodded because I knew that was coming.
“Can you just tell me one thing?” I managed.
“What is it?” he asked tiredly.
“Why did I leave?”
His jaw tightened as the last vestiges of friendliness fled his gaze. “I guess you’d have to ask someone else that question. Because you sure as hell never told me.”
Long after he left, closing the door softly behind him, I lay back on my flat pillow, staring at the ceiling. I pondered things I had no answer to. Who was I? And what happened to me? Would I ever get my memories back? And the most important question of all: what the hell could’ve happened in my life to make me leave the only person I’d ever truly loved?
The answers never came, but fortunately, sleep did.
5
DR. Michaels was a lying sack of shit.
He’d promised I’d be out of the hospital in less than a week, but here I was, two weeks later, still sucking down my weight in Jell-O. I’d been convinced when he gave me the all-clear that it was time to go home. I was wrong. It was time to begin rehabilitative therapy.
Fortunately, I was wrong about Gray never coming back, either. He stayed away for a few days after our disastrous conversation and showed up that Friday with a Snickers bar for me to try. We skipped the awkward rehashing of our breakup, and I informed him that I wanted to try a Payday bar next—I’d seen one on a commercial. So far, M&Ms still led the pack according to my tastebuds, but I was dedicated to my research.
I tried grilling Gray during some of our talks, but it didn’t take me long to realize that I hadn’t exactly kept in touch. That was unfortunate because he was the only person that I knew in the whole damned world…other than the person who’d tried to kill me, of course. I was pretty sure that person wasn’t in the market for a new pen pal.
Detective Myers had stopped by several times to update me on her progress. I had an old car registered in my name in police impound. After being properly ticketed to death, it had been towed from downtown. It was reasonable to think I probably lived in one of the four apartment buildings around where I’d parked. When she looked into that theory, she couldn’t find anything in my name.
She showed me pictures of the rundown buildings, which easily fit into the categories of Sketchy, Oh God, Condemn It Now, and When Does The Wrecking Ball Arrive? As I looked at the pictures, I could feel her staring at me hard, as if she could read the truth in my eyes. Truth was, nothing looked or sounded familiar. Nowadays, that didn’t mean much.
I began to wish they’d continued to lie to me. Waking up thinking I could be the prince of some obscure kingdom would’ve made the healing process a little more pleasant. Instead, I was a pauper who drove an old car, lived in a drug-infested neighborhood, and had broken up with the best thing that had ever happened to me. Oh, and Former Me thought kangaroo ankle surgery was more important than upgrading my old-ass Honda Accord.
Fantastic.
Gray popped in around lunchtime and spent it in the chair at the foot of my bed. I was fairly sure he was only stopping by because he felt sorry for me, but I was too pathetic to tell him to stop. I finished playing with my Jell-O and looked up to find him watching me with another unreadable look.
“What is it?” I asked self-consciously. He was looking at me as if a map of Atlantis could be found in the creases of my face.
“Hmm? Nothing.” He shook his head. “I just…I can’t believe you got plastic surgery.”
“I did no such thing.”
“I know your face, Chris. I know it as well as I know my own.”
“I did not,” I insisted. I mean, granted, I didn’t even know my name, but I knew I wasn’t vain enough for plastic surgery. When I said as much to Gray, he frowned.
“Plastic surgery isn’t always about vanity,” he said firmly. “Life is already hard enough. If a small cosmetic change can make someone feel more comfortable in his skin, I’m all for it.”
You don’t seem all that thrilled about mine. “Do you have a picture of me before?” I asked hesitantly.
He stared at me for a long moment, like he didn’t want to admit such a thing. That pause told me that he did before he even let out a sigh and pulled out his phone. “Hang on.”
“You have a picture of me on your phone?”
“I haven’t taken the time to delete everything,” he said defensively.
“You said we’ve been broken up for four years.”
“So?”
I knew better than to pry. He turned his phone around so I could see the picture. I reached for his phone, but he pulled it back. “Can I see?” I asked frustratedly.
“You see with your eyes, Cross,” he said pointedly. “Not your hands.”
“What’ve you got in there?” I demanded, hiding a smile. “Nudes? Dick pics? ’Cuz I’ve seen your dick.”
“You don’t remember it,” he shot back.
“So you admit there are dick pics,” I crowed.
He bit down on his lip, fighting hard against a smile as he tapped his phone to keep the screen from going dim. “Just look at the damn picture, Cross.”
So there were other pictures of me in there. Or at least us together. I knew that deep in my bones, so I didn’t press. Instead, I stared at the picture of us in happier, amnesia-free times. We were up in the stands of a ball game, dressed from head to toe in green-and-white gear.
I gasped. “You should’ve told me I was a fucking Jets fan, Laurie,” I said in stringent tones. “That should’ve been the first damn thing out of your mouth.”
I got a small smile for that. “You were a fair-weather fan at best. When they were doing good, you were on board.”
“So…never?”
He snorted. “You’re missing the point.”
I stared at a face that was familiar and not at all familiar all at the same time. He was right. I was handsome before, but with a lot of rough edges. My nose had been a little crooked, with a slight bump on the bridge, like I’d been in a fight and it hadn’t healed correctly. My cheekbones were a little different and my ears less prominent. The differences were small individually, but put together, I’d had a lot of work done. I didn’t know why I felt so bad about that.