Chapter Six #2
“Right.” A flash of uncomfortable sorrow streaks across his face.
Ashton dismisses the waiter and turns his attention back to me.
He fiddles with his fingers. “I don’t want to tell you the whole story as it’s not mine to tell.
And I know what little Noah told me before he went AWOL.
You and Noah met while in Bora Bora together.
He saved you from a guy trying to kidnap you, and you spent the rest of the week with him.
On the last night before you both were set to leave, the guy who tried to kidnap you earlier in the week returned.
You both almost died, but while he remembers everything, you walked away with amnesia. ”
Ashton stares at me, waiting for me to say something. Or to break. Or to scream. Internally, I’m doing a mixture of the last two, but on the outside, I hold my composure. I bite my tongue, sit up straight, and try my hardest not to cry.
But a single tear slips through as I blink.
And then another.
“Ashton, I—” More tears. “I don’t know what to say.
Are you sure it was me?” Though I know the answer.
The nightmares of a horror-filled face, the daydreams of romance, the plot of the novel that wouldn’t vacate my brain.
My weird desire to write a kidnapping into the story.
The proof of Noah’s existence is in the photo.
His identical twin sitting across from me.
The necklace the nurse gave me before I left the hospital. Because Noah was with me when I lost consciousness, and somehow I ended up with his necklace.
I gasp like a fish on dry land as I try and falter to wrap my bruised and broken brain around everything.
Ashton moves his chair from across from me to beside me as I lose my wits. He pulls me to my feet and wraps me in a tight embrace. My breaths are short and ragged until I’m struggling to take one at all.
“Name five things that are real. Right now. In this moment,” he commands, his strong voice breaking through the attack.
I fight through the haze and the feeling of a pounding jackhammer on my chest, choking out the first word that comes to mind, “Wood. This whole building is wooden.” I search for more breaths. “The smell of catfish.”
“Three more.”
I inhale again, this time catching a faint whiff of Ashton.
“You smell like coconut.” He laughs, and I continue to focus on my breaths.
The sun pours in through the window and warms my skin.
“The sun.” Ashton feels rock solid against me, his arms wrapped around my waist in a snug, warm, safe embrace. “You. It’s really you.”
My breathing starts to slow, and the fog slowly clears from my head. Through it all, Ashton continues to hold me and talk to me. Reminding me we are real at this moment and to hold on to that. He’s grounding me.
No one has ever done that for me before.
When my breaths come even, Ashton whispers in a raspy voice, “I’m not Noah, Esme. I know you’ve written a novel about a man who looks like me, and while I do share a lot with Noah, we are not the same person. You fell in love with him, not with me.”
“I know, and I’m sorry,” I say, leaning my forehead on his shoulder.
I’m too tired to be embarrassed. I choose to focus on the panic attack instead of my body attempting to recognize Ashton as the man from my novel.
“That hasn’t happened in a while.” It’s partially true.
It happened last night when I tied all the strings together in my head.
Or, at least, thought I had. Ashton isn’t my male main character, but his twin brother is.
Noah is real. The man I thought I created in my head—the perfect man—is real. Is he really perfect?
You know it, Meme, he says, his tone cocky. But I don’t have energy to deal with the voice in my head right now.
I continue to take deep, calming breaths. I used to get panic attacks all of the time when I first woke up in the hospital. They continued for months until, one day, I accepted what had happened to me, and I started to move on with my life.
“I shouldn’t have told you so much at one time,” Ashton says, releasing me. “That wasn’t the brightest move on my end. I had to help Noah through his panic attacks often.”
“You’re hurting, too.” I recall his tortured eyes as he told me the truth of what happened that fateful night.
I couldn’t imagine almost losing Ethan. I would’ve felt the same way that Ashton did if roles were reversed.
“Noah.” I taste his name on my tongue. I associate him with mangos.
At least, that’s what I’ve written about in my book.
What’s real and what’s fiction? “You said he’s missing? ”
Ashton grimaces and nods. “I think he lost hope that you would remember him, and well, it drove him mad. Your parents wouldn’t allow him to contact you.”
Frustration flares in my chest at the mention of my parents.
They lied to me. Mom, Dad, Ethan, and even Sam.
They all told me I was in a Jet Ski accident when the reality was that I was almost taken.
Murdered. And a man I had supposedly fallen in love with almost died protecting me. Then I went and hit reset on my brain.
How could they? How could they do this to me and Noah?
I don’t remember him like I should, I think, but I feel a sense of righteous anger on his behalf.
In my head, he’s been with me for a year.
It’s like I do know him in some sense of the word.
How much has he suffered because of my memory loss?
If we were genuinely in love, then what pain must he have been in?
I’m recalling every scene I drafted in a new light. Seeing red and not giving a crud if this makes my family mad, I stand straighter and look Ashton in the eyes. “What do I need to do?”
Ashton raises his brows in question.
I clarify. “Let’s find your brother. Let’s find Noah.”