Chapter 1
By three-thirty on Thursday afternoon, the medical centre had settled into its familiar end-of-day rhythm.
The waiting room had emptied to two patients, one scrolling through his phone with hollow patience and the other pretending not to cough into her sleeve every thirty seconds. Behind the reception desk, the phones had finally slowed. The computer system lagged as if it, too, had decided it was close enough to the weekend.
Grace sat with one ankle hooked behind the other under the desk, her high ponytail slipping slightly from where she had tied it that morning. A few strands of dirty-blonde hair had escaped around her face, softened by the long day and the spring warmth that still clung to the building despite the air conditioning.
Beside her, Jane clicked through the appointment schedule for Friday, her glossy nails tapping the keys with more enthusiasm than the task deserved.
“So,” Jane said, drawing the word out, “what are you doing this weekend?”
Grace glanced at her. “Why do you ask like you’re setting me up?”
“Because I’m hoping you have an answer that doesn’t include grocery shopping, laundry, and going for a walk like a retired person.”
Grace smiled faintly and returned to the billing screen. “That sounds like a perfectly good weekend.”
“You’re twenty-five, Grace.”
“Twenty-six.”
Jane waved a hand. “Basically the same thing. You should be doing something irresponsible.”
“I’m engaged.”
“That’s not a disability.”
Grace laughed under her breath. “I’ll let Daniel know.”
Jane leaned back in her chair, studying her with the bright, shameless curiosity only someone in their early twenties could get away with. “You two are too wholesome. It’s unsettling.”
“We had takeaway twice this week. Scandalous.”
“That’s because you forgot to meal prep after your Sunday walk.”
Grace looked at her then. “You’re very invested in my life.”
“I’m invested because you have so much potential. Look at you.” Jane gestured towards her as if presenting evidence. “Tall, pretty, weirdly fit even though you keep saying you’re not anymore, engaged to an attractive man, yet your weekend plan is probably going to involve vegetables.”
Grace’s smile came easier this time. “I was in an accident, Jane. My idea of wild is staying awake past ten.”
“I know.” Jane softened slightly, then ruined it by adding, “But still. You have shoulders like someone who used to scare people at the gym.”
Grace looked down at herself, at the fitted black top tucked into tailored trousers, at the body she had learned to accept as hers because everyone had told her it was. She was fit, or close enough to pass for it. The doctors had said she had been stronger before the accident, more conditioned.
She did not remember being stronger.
That was the problem with most of her life before eighteen months ago. People could hand it back to her in pieces, but none of it felt like memory. It felt like being told about a woman she happened to resemble.
“I don’t scare people,” Grace said.
Jane gave her a look. “You scared Mr Henderson last week.”
“He tried to argue with you about a cancellation fee.”
“And you said one sentence, and he apologised.”
“I said, ‘Jane has already explained the policy.’”
“Exactly. Terrifying.”
Grace shook her head, still smiling, and finalised the payment on screen. “I’ll try to use my powers responsibly.”
The phone rang before Jane could answer. She grabbed it with her usual receptionist brightness.
“Good afternoon, Daly Family Medical, Jane speaking.”
Grace turned back to the computer and checked the last appointment list. Two doctors still consulting, one running late. Dr Nash’s door was closed. Dr Sayegh had just taken in her final patient. They might actually close on time if no one called at four-fifty asking for an urgent script, a medical certificate, or an appointment that should have been booked three weeks ago.
A flicker moved at the edge of her vision.
Grace stilled.
For half a second, the room seemed to deepen. The reception desk, the computer monitor, the soft beige walls of the clinic all remained exactly where they were, yet something else pressed through them. A shape. A man in a dark suit, standing near the hallway that led to the consulting rooms.
Watching her.
Grace blinked, and he was gone.
Her hand had already tightened around the mouse. She made herself release it slowly.
Jane was still on the phone, and nothing had changed.
Grace swallowed and opened the top drawer.
Inside were the ordinary things she expected to see. Pens. Sticky notes. A packet of mints Jane kept stealing. A half-empty lip balm. And the small plastic pill container she had started carrying again two weeks ago, after months of letting it sit untouched in the kitchen cabinet.
She stared at it for longer than she meant to.
Then she reached for it.
“Grace?”
She looked up.
Dr Nash stood in the doorway behind reception, his white coat pushed open, sleeves rolled to his forearms. He was in his late thirties, with tired eyes and a face that always looked kinder at the end of the day than it did at the beginning. He had been one of the first doctors at the clinic to treat her like a person rather than a tragic story.
His gaze had dropped to the container in her hand.
“You alright?” he asked.
Jane turned slightly in her chair.
Grace hated the way people noticed. She hated the way concern could fill a room faster than panic.
“I’m fine. I just feel like I’ve been getting a bit of déjà vu lately.”
“Déjà vu how?”
Grace twisted the lid off the container. “Just little flashes. Probably nothing.”
His expression changed in a way only she would have caught. Professional caution wrapped in friendliness.
“Any headaches?”
“No.”
“Nausea?”
“No.”
“Visual disturbance?”
Grace hesitated for half a second too long.
Dr Nash stepped closer. “Grace.”
“It’s not like before,” she said quickly. “I’m sleeping. I’m taking the medication. I’m not confused. I know where I am.”
Jane ended her call with a brisk, “Thanks, see you tomorrow."
Grace tipped two pills into her palm.
Dr Nash watched her take them. “You should tell Daniel.”
“I will.”
He gave her the kind of look that meant he knew she was lying.
Grace reached for her water bottle and swallowed the tablets before either of them could ask another question.
“I’m serious. If the hallucinations are coming back, even mildly, you need to loop him in. Last time scared the hell out of him.”
Grace’s fingers tightened around the bottle.
Last time.
That was how they all referred to it. Last time. Like it had been a storm that had passed over them and left damage behind.
“I know,” she said.
Jane’s face had lost its teasing brightness. “Are you seeing things again?”
Grace pushed the pill container back into the drawer and closed it with a neat click.
“No."
Dr Nash did not challenge it in front of Jane. That was one of the reasons Grace liked him. “Take it easy tonight,” he said instead. “No alcohol. Eat properly. Get some sleep. If it happens again, call me or go in.”
“I know the drill.”
“I know you know the drill. I’m saying it anyway.”
Grace gave him a faint smile. “You’re very dedicated to repeating medical advice to someone who works in a medical centre.”
“It’s one of the perks of the job.”
Jane waited until he had gone back down the hallway before turning fully toward Grace.
“You scared me.”
Grace looked at the appointment list again. “I didn’t do anything.”
Jane snorted. “You once fainted in the staff kitchen."
Grace said nothing because she had no memory of that day. She knew it had happened because Daniel had told her, because Jane had told her, because Dr Nash had checked her over afterwards and told her she needed to stop pretending her body was a minor inconvenience.
She remembered the hospital afterwards. Fluorescent lights. Daniel’s hand gripping hers. The deep embarrassment of waking up frightened and watched.
She remembered less about what had taken her there.
The man in the suit had appeared then too.
At least, she thought he had.
By five-thirty, the centre was locked, the lights were off, and Jane was jingling her car keys in the car park while telling Grace that she should absolutely tell Daniel what happened.
“It was barely anything,” Grace said as they walked toward Jane’s small hatchback.
“You saw a man who wasn’t there.”
Grace stopped.
The spring air was mild, carrying the smell of cut grass and warm bitumen. Across the street, the sky had started to soften into evening, the sun lowering behind a row of trees that had only recently come back into leaf.
“I thought I saw something,” she said at last.
Jane unlocked the car. “That is not better.”
“I’m tired.”
“You’re always tired.”
“Everyone is always tired.”
“Grace.”
She looked at Jane over the roof of the car.
Jane was young enough to still believe honesty could fix most things, and kind enough to keep trying even when it couldn’t.
“I’ll tell him if it happens again,” Grace said.
Jane gave her a long look. “You promise?”
Grace opened the passenger door. “I promise.”
It was close enough to the truth to get them both into the car.
They drove through streets washed in late-afternoon light, past shopfronts and houses and people walking dogs before dinner. Jane talked for most of the drive, filling the car with stories from patients Grace had already forgotten and weekend plans Grace suspected would involve at least one bar, two bad decisions, and a Sunday spent pretending neither had happened.
Grace listened because it was easier than thinking.
When Jane pulled up outside the small house Grace shared with Daniel, the sky was turning peach at the edges.
“You’ll text me if you feel weird?” Jane asked.
“I always feel weird.”
“Grace.”
She smiled. “Yes. I’ll text you.”
Jane looked only partially satisfied. “And tell Daniel.”
Grace stepped out of the car. “Goodnight, Jane.” Grace closed the door before Jane could say another word. “Drive safely.”
Jane pointed at her through the window, then pulled away.
Grace stood on the footpath for a moment, watching the car disappear around the corner.
The house was quiet when she let herself in.
It always was before Daniel came home. The kind of quiet she had once found comforting and now sometimes found too empty, as if the rooms were waiting for her to remember something they already knew.
She set her bag down, kicked off her shoes, and went to the kitchen.
Dinner was simple. Chicken, vegetables, rice. Nothing ambitious. Nothing that required too much focus. She washed carrots under the tap, sliced them into neat pieces, then paused with the knife in her hand.
The man in the suit stood at the end of the hallway.
Grace stopped breathing.
He was tall. Dark-haired. Older than Daniel. Older than her. His suit was immaculate, his posture relaxed in a way that made him seem more dangerous than if he had been tense.
He smiled.
Not warmly.
Knowingly.
The knife slipped slightly against the chopping board.
Grace blinked hard.
The hallway was empty.
Her breath came back too fast.
“No,” she whispered.
The word sounded fragile in the quiet kitchen.
She put the knife down carefully and gripped the edge of the bench until the room settled.
Not real.
Not real.
The doctors had explained this. Trauma could leave echoes. Her brain could misfire. The accident had damaged things she did not understand and healed in ways they called remarkable when they thought she needed encouragement. Hallucinations were frightening, but they did not mean she was losing herself.
She repeated it silently until her hands stopped shaking.
Then she picked up the knife again.
By the time Daniel came home, dinner was almost ready and the kitchen smelled of garlic, lemon, and roasted vegetables.
“Grace?” he called from the hallway.
“In here.”
He appeared a few seconds later, tie loosened, hair slightly messy from the way he always ran his hand through it on the drive home. His face softened the moment he saw her.
There was a time, or so people had told her, when she had not remembered him at all. She could not imagine that now. Daniel had become the centre around which her new life had arranged itself. Gentle, patient Daniel, who never complained when she asked the same question twice, who kept photos on his phone from the months she could not remember, who had built a history for both of them one careful story at a time.
“Smells amazing,” he said, coming up behind her.
“It’s vegetables and chicken.”
“My favourite genre of dinner.”
She smiled as he kissed the side of her head.
For a moment, she let herself lean back into him. His arms came around her easily, familiar and warm, and the tension she had been carrying since the clinic loosened.
This was real.
This had to be real.
“How was work?” he asked.
“Same as always. Jane thinks we’re boring.”
“We are boring.”
“She said it like an accusation.”
Daniel reached around her and stole a piece of carrot from the chopping board.
Grace swatted his hand. “That’s raw.”
“I trust your preparation.”
“You trust anything if you’re hungry.”
He grinned, and for a while the evening became what it was supposed to be.
They ate at the small dining table near the window while the last of the light faded outside. Daniel talked about a meeting that could have been an email, then about a colleague who had started a sourdough obsession and brought in bread dense enough to qualify as a building material. Grace laughed in the right places. Sometimes she even meant it.
He asked about Jane, and Grace told him the harmless parts.
Jane’s weekend plans. Mr Henderson’s cancellation fee argument. The computer glitch that had resulted in Dr Sayegh threatening to donate the device to “medical history as a cautionary tale.”
Daniel was still smiling when he reached for his glass. “You’re quiet tonight.”
Grace looked down at her plate. “Just tired.”
He studied her for a little too long.
That was the thing about being loved by someone careful. Silence was never just silence.
“Headache?” he asked.
“No.”
“Dizzy?”
“No.”
“Grace.”
She looked up, forcing softness into her expression before concern could harden into fear.
“I’m okay,” she said.
He wanted to believe her. She could see it in his face. He always wanted to believe she was okay, even when experience had taught him to doubt it.
Last time, she had told him she saw someone. A man who stood where no one stood, who watched her with an expression she could not explain. Daniel had taken her to the hospital within twenty minutes. She remembered his hands shaking while he drove. She remembered the waiting room, the tests, the doctors asking questions that made her feel less like a person and more like a malfunction.
“I took my medication,” she said.
It was true.
His shoulders eased slightly. “Good.”
“I’m just tired.”
He nodded, though not completely convinced. “Early night?”
“Maybe.”
After dinner, he washed the dishes while she dried them. They moved around each other with the quiet familiarity of a life built from small repetitions. Plate. Towel. Drawer. His hand at the small of her back when he passed behind her. Her hip bumping lightly against his as she put the cutlery away.
Normal life was not dramatic.
It did not announce itself.
It was made of things like this.
Warm water. Lemon soap. A man humming badly under his breath while pretending he wasn’t.
Grace wanted to stay inside it forever.
Later, when Daniel went to shower, she stood alone in the kitchen and looked toward the hallway.
Of course it was empty.
She exhaled slowly and turned off the light.
In the reflection of the darkened window, for one terrible second, she thought she saw him behind her again.
The man in the suit.
Closer this time.
Smiling as if he had been waiting for her to notice.
Grace spun around.
Nothing.
The kitchen was empty.
Her pulse hammered hard enough to make her chest ache.
From the bathroom, Daniel called, “You okay?”
Grace stared at the empty hallway.
Her mouth had gone dry.
“Yes,” she called back.
She stood there until her breathing steadied, until the house returned to its ordinary sounds, until she could convince herself that reflections were unreliable and tired minds made shapes out of darkness.
Then she went to the bedroom, changed into sleep clothes, and climbed into bed before Daniel came out.
When he joined her, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her gently back against him.
“Love you,” he murmured, already half asleep.
Grace placed her hand over his.
“I love you too.”
She lay awake long after his breathing evened out, staring into the dark.
Daniel slept beside her, warm and real, his hand resting over hers like an anchor.
Grace closed her eyes, attempting to block out the web of lost memories in her life, and the surreal sensation that the man in the suit was familiar yet not new. Somewhere deep beneath her name, another woman clearly recognized who he was and was afraid to recall.
