CHAPTER 18 – BUILDING A NEW LIFE
Tara
The morning light in Minneapolis is blue, always blue, pooling on the marble floors of Hunter’s penthouse like melted ice.
It wakes me before my alarm, every day, same as the espresso machine’s hissing, same as warm glow of contentment that suffuses my form.
I turn my head and see the skyline burnished in glass, the river turned to silver far below, and in that split second of waking, I know I’m a woman who chooses her destiny as Tara, Daisy, or both, simultaneously.
Plus, I’m here. In Hunter’s bed. Our bed, now, for six months running.
There’s a comfort to it, the sameness: the sheets, the clean heat of his body, the echo of his breath on my neck.
He’s not in the bed right now, so there’s no need to be careful.
I slip out of the covers, throw on a t-shirt, and float barefoot through the hush.
The city hums at the windows. Somewhere in the penthouse, the heat kicks on with a click and a rush, stirring the dust in pale golden beams.
It’s Monday. That means coffee, Psych 201, and a late-afternoon seminar on dissociative identity disorder.
I am, as the syllabi would have it, “the girl most likely to diagnose herself.” My professor has no idea that I once suffered a psychiatric crisis myself, and maybe I’ll reveal it to him one day - or maybe not.
I pad into the kitchen. Hunter’s already there, hair mussed, gym shorts clinging to his thighs, reading the news on his phone with the frown of a man who could solve the world’s problems if only someone would let him.
He grunts when he sees me, but I catch the flicker of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
“Can’t sleep?” he says.
“I did. I just got up early.” I slide into a stool at the counter and watch him.
He’s always beautiful like this: tanned, lean, with that CEO intensity that never really shuts off, even at 6 a.m. Sometimes I catch myself counting the hours until I can crawl back into his arms, life with him is that good.
He pours two cups, cream for me, black for him. “You finish your reading?”
“I did,” I say, and it’s almost true. I’m about halfway through an endless case study about a woman with seven personalities, all of whom seem to have incredible sex lives. How she manages it, I have no idea.
Hunter slides my mug over, then kisses my hair. “Proud of you, Tara.”
I drink it in, the words and the heat. It’s always like this—he supports me in whatever I want.
He treats me as his equal, even if he’s a powerful CEO and I’m a college student studying psychology.
Sometimes, when I’m feeling especially bad, I suggest playing professor and naughty student with Hunter. The man loves it.
Today though, I just want to pass my midterm.
I blow on my coffee, watching the swirl of steam, and wonder what the old Tara would think of me now. Or the old Daisy. Or the girl on the stage at Sanctum, the one who was auctioned off like a priceless treasure, not even knowing her real name.
I think she’d be proud.
Hunter sits across from me, thumbing through his inbox. I know every line of his face now, the faint scar above his eyebrow, the shadow at his jaw when he’s tired.
“Big day?” I ask, just to hear his voice.
“Always.” He glances at me over the rim of his mug. “But I cleared my afternoon.”
That catches me off guard. “You did?”
He shrugs and grins. “I figured we could spend some time together. I haven’t seen you that much lately, sweetheart. Or at least take a nap together.”
I smile into my coffee. “That’s very domestic of you.”
He gives me a look, half warning, half worship. “Don’t get used to it.”
I laugh, and the sound is sharp, real. I want to go to him, wrap myself around his big frame and feel his hands on my skin, but there’s no time. I have to leave in thirty minutes, and if I don’t get moving, I’ll miss my bus and end up sprinting through the sleet in a panic.
I polish off my coffee, rinse the mug, and grab my backpack from the hook by the door. The bag is heavy with books—abnormal psych, memory theory, a worn paperback of The Bell Jar that I keep for emergencies.
Hunter stands, watching me with an intensity that still makes me shiver. “You good?” he says, voice low.
“Always,” I say, stealing a last look at the skyline. The city is awake now, traffic snaking over the river, the sidewalks full of tiny, bundled shapes.
He crosses the room and pulls me in, one arm a vise at my waist, the other cupping my jaw. “Don’t let anyone mess with you,” he whispers.
I tilt my chin up. “You know I won’t.”
He kisses me, and it’s not gentle, not at all. His tongue finds mine, slow and deliberate, and when he finally lets me go, I’m breathless.
“Text me when you get to campus,” he says, smoothing my hair.
I roll my eyes, but inside I love it. “Yes, Daddy.”
In the elevator, my cheeks are hot, my pulse wild. I wonder if I’ll ever get used to being wanted like this. I hope I never do.
Down in the lobby, the doorman nods at me, not even pretending to hide his curiosity.
I get that a lot. Everyone wants to know what the hell I’m doing in this building, how a twenty-two-year-old undergrad ended up living with the city’s most eligible billionaire.
I let them wonder because frankly, it’s not their business.
Outside, the wind cuts through my coat, sharp as memory. I breathe in, let the cold clear my head, and head toward the future. My future.
I don’t know what’s coming, but for the first time in my life, I want to find out.
The library at the university is freezing, and the silence ponderous.
But I love it here: the thump of heavy textbooks closing, the glow of study lamps, the smell of paper and sanitizer.
I stake out a spot by the window every Monday, overlooking the quad where the frost kills off the grass by October.
I can see everything from here: the slow trudge of students, the bright red scarves, the way the sun never really thaws the cement.
My laptop is open to a case study on dissociative fugue. Page after page of people who walk out on their lives and become someone else—sometimes for years. The stories all sound the same, but every now and then I catch a phrase that cracks my chest open.
“Subject reports feeling like a passenger in her own body.”
“Transient amnesia; unfamiliar with familial ties.”
“On awakening, a persistent feeling of unreality. Yearning for connection.”
Each line is a little electric shock. I want to say it’s academic interest, but it’s not. It’s the weird, uncanny comfort of seeing yourself mapped out by someone else’s data set.
Sometimes, reading these, I get flashes: a wine glass in my hand, a stranger’s mouth on my skin, laughter in a room I can’t remember.
Sometimes I catch myself writing Daisy in the margins of my notes, like the name means something more than just a gap in the records.
Like maybe she’s still in there, waiting for her chance to take over again.
I rub my eyes, blinking away the memory, and get back to work.
At the next table over, someone coughs, then slams a book shut. I look up to see her: the girl with pink hair and perfect eyebrows. We’ve never spoken, but I see her every week in this same spot, always surrounded by a wall of snacks and color-coded flashcards.
She glances my way, then smiles. “You’re here a lot, right?”
I nod. “Yeah. Hi.”
She pulls off her headphones, leans in. “I’ve seen you around. I’m Kat.”
“Tara. Nice to meet you.” The words are automatic, but not false.
Kat glances at my stack of books, then at my screen filled with tiny text. “That looks intense.”
“It’s for a paper,” I say. “On fugue states.”
Her face lights up. “Oh! Is that like amnesia, or more like, multiple personalities?”
“A little of both,” I say. “It’s complicated.”
She snorts. “Everything in psychology is.”
There’s a lull, then she asks, “Got any plans this weekend?”
It’s such a normal question, I almost laugh. “Just dinner with my boyfriend and his family,” I say, not bothering to hide the ring of pride in my voice.
She raises her eyebrows. “Isn’t your boyfriend that… what’s the word… magnate?”
I blink, surprised. “Magnate?”
“You know. The CEO guy. He gave a talk here last semester. Everyone’s been talking about it because he was that compelling and magnetic. Handsome too.”
I can’t help the blush that rises in my cheeks. “Yeah. Hunter McCarren’s his name.”
Kat whistles, long and low. “Damn, girl. How’d you land a billionaire?”
I grin, playing it off. “Sheer luck.”
She smiles back, teeth white and even. “I bet.”
We chat for a minute, and I realize I’m not nervous, not really. Six months ago, I’d have turned to ice at this kind of attention. Now, it just feels like another part of my story—a chapter I don’t have to be ashamed of.
Kat asks, “So, your paper. Is it, like, a personal interest, or…?”
I hesitate, then decide to be honest. “Personal, I guess. I lost my memory for a bit last year. Came back, eventually. Now I’m just trying to make sense of it.”
She’s silent for a moment, then says, “That sounds scary.”
“It was. But it worked out.” I glance at my phone. “Now I just have to survive midterms.”
She snorts again. “You and me both.”
Kat slips her headphones back on and waves a little before diving back into her flashcards. I stare at my screen, but the words swim together.
I think of Hunter, waiting for me at home, and I smile. I think of Daisy, and I don’t flinch.
She’s not gone. She’s there inside, but it’s not scary. She’s a part of me that I can draw on for strength, and for sass.
I finish the page, close my laptop, and gather my books. As I walk out into the pale sun, I feel something shift inside me—a settling. Like all the pieces are finally where they’re supposed to be.
I’m not just a passenger anymore.
I’m driving.