Chapter 33
Tuesday
I sort of hate that I’m smiling while looking at my things.
Photos.
A dried corsage from a dance.
Clothes that spill over onto the floor of a walk-in closet.
Shoes that must have cost a fortune.
The handbags are a whole other story of their own.
I spy several Hermès, Chanel, Vuitton, and YSL. The last one makes me think of the purse Loch sent to me the first night at the hotel. He spared no expense when he brought me into his life and took care of me the best way he knew how, protecting me from the world.
This isn’t about money, though I’ve been spoiled. No, this goes deeper.
Loch doesn’t realize he did more than save me. He brought me back to life by loving me. That’s why this world, although my things have me smiling, makes me miss the life I’ve been living with him even more. I pull my phone from my bag and text: I miss you.
Staring at the screen, I will him to see it. Relief washes over me when I see those three dots on the screen. But nothing compares to the joy I feel when I see his message pop up: I miss you more, baby.
I hold the phone to my chest as the adrenaline of being here wears off and question why I even came when I have Loch to traverse this with me at home.
Especially because the mental gymnastics with my “fiancé” have already worn me down.
He speaks in riddles and references things I can’t remember.
How long can I really pull off this charade?
Add in that my mind can’t settle on one thing that has truly gotten me closer to recovering my memories and it feels like an impossible task to achieve.
Why do I stay? The money is mine, enough to live a very comfortable life, and safe in my bank account.
All I have to do is prove who I am to claim it.
It makes it even more tempting to tell Loch to come get me and make me forget about this day.
But can I?
Can I really move on knowing this world exists, my past life still filling the walls of this room and gifts under the tree? I don’t even know my parents anymore. I would love to see them, but are the strings too tenuous to hang on?
I move to the alcove of the window, folding my legs under me and relax in the peace of the view.
It’s nice to breathe without having someone breathing over me, like that man was.
A soft cushion spreads end to end with hidden bookcases on either side.
Classics lining the shelves along with a few books by authors I must have treasured based on how many of their titles I own.
I breathe it in, this area saying the most about me yet.
Books.
A nook.
And a view.
I haven’t read a book since I’ve been at Loch’s, but something about being near my collection is so comforting. I take one of the novels down and flip through the pages of the romance. A quote stands out, reminding me of the fairy tale I was living.
You’re where time begins and ends and every moment between.1
Why’d I leave Loch? I know the rational answers, but love isn’t always logical. So why do I keep trying to make sense of it? He’s been every minute of the life I know, and I love him with my soul. Yet I’m sitting here in the middle of another state away from him.
A knock on the door draws me from my thoughts. I’ve been here for hours, but not heard another person. Until now . . . I stare at it, praying he hasn’t come back. After the second rap, I stand and call, “Yes?”
“C?” a woman asks through the closed door.
C?
Not Céline. Huh? Who is it now? We must be close enough for her to call me a nickname.
I take a step but then stop again. Do I answer it or tell her to go away?
Me saying I was tired worked as an excuse with him, but maybe this lady is a new opportunity for information.
Nearing dinnertime, I have to leave eventually, so I say,
“One moment.” I open the door and peek out. Curls of red hair and eyes that shine bright like fresh-cut grass in the spring greet me.
“It’s true,” she says, raising her hand with an enthusiastic grin that’s too big to contain on her small face. “You’re back.”
I open the door wider. “I am.” I can’t stop myself from smiling. If only everyone was this happy to see me. “How did you know?”
“I made Carter swear to me he would tell me the second you arrived. He texted me begrudgingly.” Her laughter tinkers in the air in a higher octave. She throws her arms around me before I have a chance to escape. “I’m so happy to see you.”
“Carter?” So that’s his name. With no justification whatsoever, I can see how it fits.
“Yeah, you know how he gets.” She rolls her eyes as she heads straight for the window seat where I had been sitting and tucks her legs under her.
Her outfit is similar to mine, but she’s in a baggier white button-up over her fitted ankle jeans.
It’s the colorful scarf around her neck that catches my eyes.
The hair and large green eyes contrast the more muted outfit, but someone as pretty as she is with her button nose doesn’t need distractions from her natural features.
She says, “I need to know everything. Why did you leave? Where have you been? I need all the adventure details.” Energy vibrates from her, but after dealing with Carter, it’s nice to be in the mix of her liveliness.
“Actually, I was hoping you could tell me a few things.” I sit on the chaise at the end of the bed, thinking she’s just the breakthrough I need to solve these mysteries in my life.
Her head tilts as her smile finally settles into something more subtle among friends who casually hang out.
“What do you want to know?” she asks. “We’ve just been here not doing much of anything.
Well—” She waves her hands again, waffling them back and forth.
“You know how boring it gets around here.”
She sort of reminds me of myself. I wonder how close of friends we were and if we formed our habits together.
“I’m still working on my site. Not a shocker, but it’s finally in the testing stages.
Oh,” she says, dropping her feet to the floor and sitting forward.
“Do you mind being a client for me? I really need someone from the outside to use it so we can find any bugs and fix them.”
“Sure.” I have no idea what I’m agreeing to. It’s been all of two minutes, but I can feel the connection to her, and trust for her. “I don’t know your name.” I didn’t intend to be so soft-spoken, but my worry for how she’ll react gets the better of me.
“What?” she asks, her smile growing but not quite reaching her eyes.
“I need to tell you something. Can I trust you?”
“Can you trust me?” She comes to sit beside me as confusion pinches her brow.
“What do you mean? You know you can trust me with anything.” She looks down at her lap as soft laughter rattles her shoulders.
“I never told anyone it was you that caused Joslin and Matt to break up when you made out with him at your sweet sixteen party. Or that you did it only to make Carter jealous. Not a peep left my lips when your parents found the fender of their Rolls dented, and they blamed Blake, who got sent to military school for lying about it since it was his third strike with trouble.” My stomach tightens as she continues, “Do I really need to remind you how you cut my ponytail off in second grade?”
I feel sick. “No. Please don’t. I sound like a horrible person.
” I wanted to know my past, but I wasn’t prepared for this.
Sadly, me and Carter might be more alike than I realized, so dating him makes more sense, quite honestly.
And Loch saying I was rude tracks with what I’m hearing now. I sigh. Wow, I was a mean girl.
“What are you talking about, C?”
“I got someone sent to military school because of something I did . . .?”
“You got an asshole who tried to assault me sent away. I don’t feel an ounce of sympathy for him.
Joslin had been fucking with you and Carter for years.
You may have made out with Matt to make Carter realize what he had with you, but Matt and I wouldn’t be together now if you hadn’t exposed her cheating.
I mean, it took him years to really see me as more than his hot friend.
” Clicking her tongue, she then adds, “But he got there in the end.”
Her personality is so magnetic that she’s managed to make me feel less guilty for my bad behavior. Impressive. “And the haircut?”
“That was just a bitchy move.” She laughs. “There’s no excusing that, other than we were seven.”
How did she manage to make me feel better about the awful stuff I’ve done in the past? If one thing is apparent from this quick rundown of stories through the years, she’s loyal. I angle toward her, and confess, “I really don’t know your name.”
“Why do you keep saying that?”
“I was attacked in New York City. Mugged, actually. I hit my head and—”
Her hand covers her mouth just as she gasps. Lowering it, she asks, “You really don’t remember me?”
“I don’t remember anything. I didn’t even remember me. I still don’t. That’s why I’m back.”
I’m not sure how long she stares at me with eyes wider than I’d think possible, hand back over her mouth, but her silence is not doing us any favors.
I shift and then eventually stand, walking back toward the window.
Resting my hands on the sill, I finally can’t take it any longer. “Please say something.”
When she lowers her hand, her mouth remains dropped open. “I don’t know what to say, Céline.” Looking into the void of the far corner, she takes another moment before turning back, and asking, “You don’t remember anything?”
“No.”
Jumping up, she rushes me and brings me into an embrace. “I’m so sorry. Are you physically okay?”
I nod, my eyes suddenly tearing. Why? Why am I so weak to my emotions? Because this is the welcome wagon I had hoped for. Family. Friends. Finding someone to help me through this. But it’s frustrating that I don’t even know her name.
She holds me tighter. “It’s okay. I’ll help you however I can.” Stepping back, she asks, “Is that why you were gone so long with no contact?”
“For the past two months, yes. I had a concussion, but I’m doing much better now, except for the memory loss. I woke up in the hospital and didn’t even know my own name.”
A small gasp is sucked in again as she shakes her head.
“That’s awful.” Taking hold of my hand, she holds it between hers.
A smile matching the gentle kindness of her grasp shapes her expression.
“I’m Allison. Allison Wyatt. Your best friend since preschool.
The other pea in your pod, peas to your carrots, BFFL, ride or die, but let’s not die. Okay?”
“I’m trying not to.” Laughing with her invigorates me, renewing the strength that had been waning. “Deal. Also, that’s a lot of peas going around.” I like how easy it is to talk to her. “I’m Tuesday—”
“Tuesday?”
Nodding again, I reply, “I just discovered that my real name is Céline the other day.”
“Wow, that’s intense. What do you want me to call you?”
I wish I could be Tuesday with her, but I don’t know if she’ll even want to be a part of my new life. “You can call me C or Céline. Whatever you’re used to.”
“C will be a hard habit to break.” Her welcoming and warm demeanor gives me the reassurance I need to feel safe to stay. “Where did Tuesday come from?” Taking a few steps back, she sits in the chair close to me.
“Apparently, it’s the name I gave for my coffee order right before I was mugged outside the shop.”
“You never did anything without thought, so I’m curious where that name came from.”
I’m eating up the insight she’s sharing. “Me too, but I’m curious about everything.”
“Oh my God! I just realized you met Carter. How’d that go?” Her expression tightens, cringing, but she still laughs. I think it’s nervous laughter. “You didn’t know who he was, did you?”
“No.”
“I’m sure you put him in a tizzy.” Her eyes dawn as they set on me again. “You probably have a lot of questions. Ask me anything.”
“I have so many that I almost don’t know where to begin.”
“If it’s not too presumptuous, I could start telling you things.” She heads for the door. “How about we get something to drink first, and then I can give you a tour of your house while we chat about everything?”
“I’d love that.”
With the doorknob in hand, she says, “I’m just happy to have you back. If you can’t remember all the shitty things I’ve done to you, that’s just a bonus.”
“Is it as awful as what I’ve done?” I ask, following her into the hallway.
“Worse. Like I said, at least you had good reasons. I was just a bitch.”
“I’m sure you had your reasons as well, just like I did.”
“This amnesia thing might work out well for me.” Her laughter travels the hall and then she puts a finger to her lips as if I’m the one making all the noise. Okay, I like her a lot.
Looking around, she points down the opposite side of the hall from my room, and whispers, “Carter’s office is down that way.
He started staying here when you disappeared, claiming to need to manage the property in your absence and ‘the long commute’ was problematic.
Even though his family’s estate is less than twenty minutes down the road. ”
“He cheated on me . . .” I grab the railing, not for physical support but because I may not love him now, but I probably did back then. I was marrying him, for Pete’s sake, so I must have.
Sympathy floods her complexion, turning it red. “That’s why you left?” Dropping her forehead into her palm, she says, “You didn’t tell me, but I should have known.”
It’s such a genuine reaction from a true friend that I’m feeling the same emotions as her.
I take a breath and try to wrangle the thoughts it spurs in me.
“How would you? I can only imagine the pain I felt, so speaking to anyone about it wouldn’t be easy.
” I cover her hand that she’s gripping the railing with.
“I don’t think it’s a loss. My gut tells me he’s awful. ”
She nods. “There’s a reason you ran down that aisle and disappeared.”
“One of many, it seems.”
1 Quote from Swear on My Life by S.L. Scott