Chapter 11
Crash?
Monday, I wake up alone.
Groggy.
Horny.
Confused as all fuck.
Sunlight’s bleeding through the curtains, warm and too bright. The sheets still smell like Carol—lemon shampoo, clean laundry, something warm underneath. And she’s gone. No soft breathing next to me, no messy golden hair across the pillow. Just… empty space and my dumb morning wood.
I sit up, scrub a hand over my face, trying to blink the fuzz out of my skull. My cast knocks the wall and I hiss under my breath. “Fuckin’ hell.”
That’s when I see it—
A sticky note slapped onto the nightstand in her aggressive, no-bullshit handwriting.
My shift ends at 9PM.
There’s meds and breakfast on the island.
Meal prep in the fridge.
Spare key under the plant pot on the windowsill by the fire escape.
This is my number in case you need it. 55X-XXX-XXX
Be safe. If you go out, remember the address.
I stare at the note like it’s a damn poem.
Short. Sharp. All facts. No fluff.
And somehow it still punches me right in the chest.
She didn’t just leave breakfast. She left her number. A spare key. Instructions like I’m her stray she doesn’t trust the world with.
She trusts me with her apartment.
Her world.
I swallow hard, then read it again.
Be safe.
No emoji. No heart. Just Carol.
I roll out of bed slow, stretching everything but the arm I can’t use, and wander toward the kitchen. And yeah—there it is. A plate with covered eggs and toast under foil, still a little warm. Meds beside it, in a tiny bowl like she’s feeding a child or an elderly man.
Which, yeah. Fair. I’m basically both.
“Jesus, woman,” I mutter, shaking my head.
She made it impossible to not feel something.
Something big.
Something terrifying.
Something dangerously close to home.
I eat my breakfast.
Eggs, toast, still warm enough to feel like someone gives a shit.
I take the damn meds, even though swallowing pills without water always makes me gag like a wimp.
Then I just… sit there. In Carol’s too-small kitchen.
In borrowed clothes. In a life that isn’t mine but somehow fits better than whatever the fuck I left behind.
And then I wander.
Nothing dramatic—just pacing around the apartment like some bored dog, touching nothing, trying not to knock anything over with my damn cast.
There’s not much to snoop through. She’s not a clutter person.
No drawers of junk. No mess of makeup or shoes piled by the door.
It’s lived in, but efficient. Practical.
Like her.
She’s got a shelf of dog-eared books, mostly medical stuff with a few crime thrillers tucked in—figures—and a magnet on the fridge that says I’M NOT YELLING, I’M JUST FROM NEW YORK.
Yeah. That tracks.
And me?
There’s nothing for me to do.
No leads.
No fucking missing person file.
No calls from hospitals or miracle text from some long-lost whoever.
No buzz in the back of my head going yes, that’s mine.
Just static.
Just me.
Walking around the city yesterday helped, yeah. Not a lot, but… a little. A flicker here, a weird memory jolt there. But none of it feels whole. None of it feels like me. More like someone else’s dream I wandered into and forgot how to leave.
And if we’re going off the facts?
Then all evidence points to me being some rich asshole.
I recognize luxury. My body moves through clean spaces and expensive doors like it’s used to it. I’ve got zero practical life skills. Can’t cook, can’t clean, can’t even fold a shirt without making it look like a crumpled napkin. I eat like I’ve always had food. I sleep like I used to have safety.
So yeah.
Spoiled.
Privileged.
Probably selfish as hell.
Which is… not a great realization when you’re also processing the fact that no one is looking for you.
Because if I was rich, if I was loved, if I was worth something to someone… wouldn’t they have found me by now?
So that leaves two possibilities:
Either I’m not as rich as I seem—
Or I’m such a raging fucking prick that no one wants me back.
And that thought?
That burns.
And if no one wants me back—
If I really am just some rich, polished, useless fuck who pissed off every last person in his life?
If my memory never comes back, and the past stays locked in some mental vault with no key?
Then what the hell am I supposed to do?
I can’t just… keep living off Carol’s graces.
Can’t keep waking up in her bed, eating her food, using her shampoo like I belong here.
Can’t keep watching her work herself raw and come home to find me loafing around in her damn T-shirts like some pretty stray she adopted out of pity.
She says it’s nothing. That she’s doing it because she wants to. Because basic human decency still exists in this world and somehow she has it in spades.
But how long does that last?
How long before it’s not cute anymore? Before she realizes she brought home a human golden retriever with a six-pack and zero job prospects? Before I cross the line from grateful guest to fucking parasite?
And it’s not just pride.
It’s survival.
Because if the past doesn’t come back? Then I’ve gotta build a future. And I can’t build it on the back of someone else’s fridge magnets and goddamn leftover broccoli pasta.
I need to do something.
Be something.
Anything other than a hot mess on her loveseat eating prepped meals and googling “who the fuck am I” like that’s gonna solve anything.
Because even if no one’s looking for me...
Even if there’s nothing waiting back there—
I can’t keep being this fucking void.
Not here.
Not in her world.
So I eat the meal she left—
some chicken and rice thing with roasted veggies, perfectly portioned like she runs a five-star food prep service out of a shoebox apartment. Still warm. Still seasoned like love and guilt and maybe a dash of paprika.
Then I say fuck it, throw on the leather jacket she thrifted for me, and wander the neighborhood.
It’s not fancy, but it’s not a hellhole either.
People walk their dogs here. Little cafés have boards with daily specials written in smug handwriting.
There’s a bookstore that smells like paper and regret, a bodega with lotto tickets behind the counter, and old guys arguing about sports out front like it’s a goddamn religion.
It feels real. Like life is happening here whether I’m part of it or not.
And then it happens.
I’m standing near the corner store trying to figure out if I’ve been there before—(spoiler: I haven’t)—when two girls walk by.
Late twenties maybe, dressed like they’re headed to brunch or an Instagram photo shoot.
One of them does the double-take. Then the other.
They both start giggling, whispering behind their perfectly manicured hands like middle schoolers seeing a celebrity in the wild.
Then one of them—tall, lip-glossed, no fear—says, “Hey, you got a name to go with that face?”
I laugh awkwardly. “Working on it.”
They think I’m joking, which is fair. I smile. It’s muscle memory at this point.
“Wanna grab a drink sometime?” she asks, cocky and bold.
And for a second, I forget that I’m a mystery wrapped in trauma wrapped in thrift store jeans. My reflex is to say sure. To throw a wink or something suave.
But instead I say, “I don’t have a phone.”
They blink.
I repeat it. “I… don’t have a phone.”
And just like that, the shift happens.
The flirty smile dies on her lips. The other girl tugs her arm. Their eyes do this little flick—head to toe—like they’re re-evaluating the entire image in front of them.
No phone.
No name.
No story.
To them?
That equals bum.
“Oh,” one of them says, like I just confessed to being contagious.
They mumble a goodbye and walk away fast, heels clicking, whispers trailing behind like smoke.
And I just stand there.
Hands in my pockets. Jacket too warm now.
Feeling like the world just reminded me how paper-thin my existence is.
No past.
No phone.
No fucking clue.
I go back home—Carol’s home—and the second I walk through that door, something in me fucking shifts.
She’s there.
Hair up in a messy bun, scrubs half-unzipped, face flushed like she just finished sprinting up three flights of stairs and straight into my ribcage.
And it hits me like a goddamn train:
How fucking grateful I am for her.
Because while those girls on the street clocked me as a no-name, no-phone, no-future stray and bailed like I was about to ask them for spare change, Carol?
She didn’t run. She didn’t flinch. She took me in.
A total fucking mystery in a hospital gown with no ID and a busted arm.
She fed me. Dressed me. Gave me a drawer.
A goddamn drawer, like I was someone worth keeping.
And not just that—she gave me her bed.
Not the couch. Not a sleeping bag in the corner. Her bed. Her food. Her number. Her time. Her care. All without a single string attached, without asking for anything except that I not burn the place down or put knives in the dishwasher blade-up.
She didn’t treat me like a burden.
She treated me like a person.
Even when I felt like nothing.
So yeah.
I stand there in the doorway, watching her drop her keys in the dish and toe off her sneakers, and I feel this weight in my chest that isn’t pain or panic or confusion.
It’s gratitude.
Big and ugly and urgent.
Because maybe I’m still no one.
Maybe I’ll never remember who the hell I was.
But I can damn well decide who I want to be now.
And I don’t want to be a freeloader crashing on the kindness of a woman who deserves the goddamn world.
I wanna help.
I wanna give something back.
Even if it’s small. Even if it’s scrubbing dishes or taking out the trash or figuring out how the hell to cook something that doesn’t involve setting off the smoke alarm.
Even if it’s just making her laugh when she looks like she’s about to collapse from the weight of the whole goddamn hospital.
Because she took me in when no one else would.
And if I can’t be the man I used to be?
Then I can damn well try to be the kind of man she deserves to keep around.
----
Caroline Atkins
For the whole damn week, it’s been the same brutal loop. Me working double shifts, him stuck in some kind of identity purgatory, and both of us pretending this bizarre little domestic setup is totally normal.
Spoiler: it’s not.
I mean, yeah, I let the hot mystery man move into my apartment like I’m starring in some morally-questionable Hallmark reboot, but that doesn’t mean I don’t notice the cracks showing.
Crash is hanging on by a thread. His jaw’s always tight, his shoulders coiled like he’s one wrong thought away from self-combusting.
And his memory?
Still a stubborn little bitch.
We’ve tried everything—neighborhood walks, movie marathons, even a weird attempt at trigger-based cooking (he did not appreciate the curry incident).
Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
His brain is locked tighter than my med cart during an opioid shortage.
I get his frustration.
I really do.
If I woke up not knowing my name and then had to live in my apartment with me? I’d scream too.
But here’s the thing: we’re also sort of… figuring shit out. Together. Like a stoned newlywed couple trying to fake a personality quiz.
Turns out:
He fucking hates mango.
Like, full gag-reflex, dramatic-theatre-disgust face. Tried to be polite about it the first time I offered some and ended up dry heaving into the sink like I’d force-fed him battery acid.
Also turns out:
He loves sushi.
Weirdly specific about it, too. Like the man can’t remember his name, but you hand him a spicy tuna roll and suddenly he’s Gordon Ramsay critiquing balance and texture.
We discovered both of those things the same night, by the way. One after the other. Mango-flavored mochi followed by near-vomiting, followed by raw fish salvation and him nearly moaning over a piece of salmon like it held the secret to the universe.
“Maybe I was a food critic,” he said between bites, mouth full, smug as hell.
“Yeah,” I’d snorted. “You’ve definitely got the dramatic flair of someone who gets paid to shit on restaurants.”
So yeah. We’re living together.
He still sleeps on the right side of the bed, cast sticking out like a misplaced log. I still make coffee too strong. He still forgets where I keep the spoons. I still wake up sometimes to find him staring at the ceiling like it owes him answers.
And somehow, it’s starting to feel less like a temporary fix…
And more like a weird, fucked-up version of home.