Prologue
Tucker
When all is lost, we have our memories; So, what happens when the ones most important to us are reset? Erased. How do those left behind move on? Cope.
The answer is we don’t.
Without her, my life would be a black hole. One where time ticks slowly and harrowingly. My heart, an empty vessel—one that beats but isn’t alive.
I leaned against the back wall of Olivia’s hospital room by the tiny porcelain sink, biting the tip of my thumb and gawking as Doctor Patel questioned her. My stomach twisted tighter with each wrong answer Olivia gave, and I couldn’t help wondering what her lack of recollection meant for us and our future.
Every once in a while, she skeptically glanced at me, the stranger standing in her space, like she was curious about why I was there.
Olivia sat pretzel-style on the hospital bed with a thick, bleach-white blanket sprawling over her lap. Her white, blue-dotted gown draped from her shoulder, flaunting her collarbone, I’ve craved to get my lips on since she opened her eyes. However, since she can’t even remember my name, that won't be happening.
Her lengthy, dark brown locks were side-swept and dangling alongside her arm as she fiddled with the sparkling ring on her finger in her lap. Ellie’s engagement ring. The one I found in my pocket that night and slipped on her finger because I was unsure if I would ever get the chance to see her wear it.
Not a shred of make-up lined her eyes or painted her cheeks, but it didn’t affect her beauty in any way, shape, or form.
“Olivia, what year is it?” Doctor Patel asked.
“2019.”
Wrong. It’s 2024.
“Where do you go to school?” he asked.
“Penn Oak High.”
Wrong. UPenn. Your college.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked.
Her terrified, watering, ocean-blue irises, staring up at me as she rested on her father’s office floor, bleeding out due to a gunshot wound, surged through my brain like a flash flood.
“Um… I don’t know. I guess our maid, Rosa, was helping me shop for the new school year,” Olivia said.
Wrong. Your father shot you.
“One last question. How old are you?” Doctor Petal asked.
Twenty-one.
“Seventeen.”
My eyes swelled, and the pressure of my incisors on my thumb’s tip lessened in shock. My girlfriend, who’s pregnant with twins, thinks she’s seventeen and attending our old high school.
How is this possible? Why are her responses so wrong?
Doctor Patel twisted, knocking me from my staggered state. “Tucker? Can I speak with you outside for a moment?”
I nodded, following him out, Olivia’s eyes glued to us in confusion.
As Doctor Patel and I halted in the hall, the scent of dinner-time hospital food flooded my lungs. Phones chimed in the distance, and the reflections of nurses’ scrubs wandering about reflected in the glass panes of each ICU room.
Doctor Patel twisted toward me and folded his arms, keeping his tone low to avoid Olivia’s ears. “So, because of the trauma, I believe she’s developed dissociative amnesia. It explains why it took so long for her to wake.”
“So, what? You’re saying she didn’t want to wake up?”
“Her body, at least. Dissociative amnesia is like a defense mechanism the brain can use after something traumatic.”
I sighed, running my fingers through my curls. “Well, can we reverse it?”
“Well, any other time, I would recommend medication…”
“But she’s pregnant.”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“So, what’s the other option?”
“She needs to feel safe and cared for, and her parents are obviously… unavailable.”
Yeah, that’s a nice way of putting it.
“It might take time, but maybe try taking her to places where the two of you spent your time together. It might jog some of those memories.”
“Okay, yeah. Anything to help,” I said. “But do you think it’ll work?”
“It’s worth a shot. Just avoid anything involving the trauma that caused it. Her parents, her home… anything. It might traumatize her further.”
It’s good Ellie left me her house, then. I don’t have a home and can’t take Olivia back to Thistle Hill. I can only imagine what seeing her family walls lined in caution tape and blood stains would do to her psyche.
“On top of that, there’s also the option of group therapy with people like her who are suffering from conditions causing memory loss,” Doctor Patel added.
I can’t believe this is happening. How can Olivia forget me? Should I be hurt over this? It’s not her fault, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck.
The brain is a powerful tool. Currently, mine is going haywire. I can barely process all this information, so I can’t imagine how Olivia feels.
“So, is there like… a percentage or something of how likely she is to get her memory back?” I asked.
“It’s not an exact science. These things aren’t able to be predicted,” Doctor Patel said with a shrug. “All we can do is help in the best way we know how and pray that she regains at least a few memories.”
A few?
Can at least one be of me?
“Okay, um, is there anything else I should know?” I asked.
“Yeah. She’s about seven weeks pregnant,” he said. “For now, I would keep that under wraps.”
Does he mean to keep Olivia in the dark about our babies? That can’t possibly be the case.
My forehead pinched. “What do you mean?”
“At the moment, Olivia feels like she’s seventeen. Informing her of her condition might panic her. The fear she may experience will only set her back.”
Or, that is the case.
His point of view is sound, but that’s a giant secret. Colossal even.
“But I can’t lie about that,” I snapped. “How can I do that to her?”
He perked a brow. “Well, you’d be following her doctor’s recommendations and doing everything in your power to help her.”
“So, that’s what I’m supposed to tell myself to make that okay?”
“Tell yourself whatever you need to,” he said. “Because in the end, this isn’t about you. It’s about Olivia.”
I sighed heavily. My finger and thumb pinched my temple as my eyes squeezed shut tighter than the pressure currently forming inside my skull.
This entire situation is giving me a headache. I’ve cried for a tragic two days and haven’t slept well, so my eyes are burning with a swelter that could rival a pit of coals.
This needs to end. I need my Olivia back by whatever means necessary.
“Alright,” I said. “Alright, I’ll… I’ll do whatever I have to.”
“Okay.” Doctor Patel nodded. “I’ll schedule an appointment for her in two weeks to discuss a few things and see how she’s adjusting.”
“Thanks,” I muttered.
“Now comes the hard part…” he added.
Great.
I furrowed my brows. “Which is?”
This has already been hard enough.
“We have to tell her she’s actually twenty-one, her parents were arrested, and that you’re her husband.”
Husband. That was a lie I told to get into the intensive care unit to see her when she was unconscious. I’ve been meaning to ask her to marry me for the longest time, but everything happened.
I’ll be damned if I correct him now, though. I’m all Olivia has— even if it is little to her knowledge.
“Great,” I muttered sarcastically. “Because that's gonna go well…”
