His mouth tugged up in a crooked smile. “That’s why I was so surprised when you were so angry talking about them. I figured if anything stuck around, it would’ve been that. You told Oliver you wanted to help make the force a better place, right the wrongs that happened to you as a child. It was…brave of you. You willingly joined the force that you had so much hatred for, just to make a difference for someone else.”
Stunned was the only way to describe my current state. I couldn’t process or understand anything Winder was saying. It had to be a different girl.
It wasn’t me.
He sighed. “Do you remember going to school, getting a business degree, a marketing degree, anything remotely office-related?”
That gave me pause. “Do I need to detail every moment of my life for you to believe me?”
I had no need to remember. I had a job. A roof over my head. I was successful.
“You can’t remember, can you?” he murmured. He smiled sadly, a thousand emotions breaking behind it. “It’s okay. You probably just remember waking up one day and having everything you have now. Your therapist chalked it up to severe dissociation. How am I doing?”
No words came to my mind. Not a single excuse or explanation.
“You and Oliver made a good match. You were good cops, and eventually good detectives. My brother and I were pretty distant at that point, but I kept tabs on you guys. Made sure you weren’t getting into trouble.” He looked away.
I chewed on my cuticle.
“The last time he called me, he told me you guys were going undercover, so I likely wouldn’t hear from him for a bit.” Winder snapped his gaze back to me, an apology in his eyes. “That was the last time I ever heard his voice. The next call came from my mom. Oliver was killed, and based on the blood at the scene, you were presumed dead, or at the very least, missing.”
I changed my mind. This wasn’t real. None of this was happening. The weight around my chest constricted. There was no air. None. I gasped, desperate for even the tiniest bit of oxygen. “No.”
“Blaire, breathe for me.”
I couldn’t. I couldn’t because Winder had taken all of my air with his words, ripping them out of my chest. Wheezing, I looked at him with wide eyes.
“Count for me. Five things. Five things, Blaire. Now.” His voice was low and steady, anchoring me down.
“P…p…porch light,” I stammered. “Porch light. Broken step. Blue car. A star. Your eyes.”
“Good girl. Just focus on those five things for me, okay? I’m right here.”
He was right here. Right here, even as he ripped the ground out from under me. My breathing slowed, the night sky slowing its spin.
I sucked in a deep breath, my chest still unsteady. “What…what happened?”
A shrug, filled with unspoken emotions. “We didn’t have all the details. All we knew was the bust went bad. I buried my brother, and when they declared you missing, I mourned you the best I could.”
I repeated the words in my head, begging them to make some kind of sense.Brother. Girlfriend. Cop. Killed.My own personal mantra of fuck-ups.
“So then, imagine my surprise when I’m at one of my parties, and who appears but you. Blaire, I thought I was seeing a fucking ghost. I really thought I was losing it. I’d assumed over the years you really had died, along with my brother. I had to get closer to you, even if you were just a figment of my imagination.” He swallowed. “But when I spoke to you, I realized you had no memory of me. None. Everything was wiped clean. And then when I saw you again, you didn’t remember us speaking before. Whatever happened, you had obviously moved on. It wouldn’t be fair of me to bring back old wounds if you weren’t hurting in the first place. So I kept my distance.”
“I don’t understand,” I whispered. My words lost their meaning, knotted in the mess of things Winder told me. I didn’t know where to start untangling myself. “I don’t understand how this is happening.”
Winder leaned against the rickety railing, creaking against his weight. “The only thing I can possibly think is that you two saw something you weren’t supposed to. And if Leon’s information is true, it adds to the fact. You saw something, your cover was blown, and they thought they killed you both. Maybe they just hadn’t gotten back to retrieve Oliver’s body before?—”
“But…I’m still here.” I was dazed, with nothing to keep me on the ground. “I don’t remember being nearly…” I couldn’t say the word.Killed.
“Near death is pretty traumatic, Blaire. Watching your boyfriend be killed is, too.” Winder’s voice was quiet again, a blanket I wanted to hide beneath. “I’m not surprised you blocked it out. You did what you had to do to survive. You obviously escaped somehow.”
I didn’t know how I could forget an entire chunk of my life. How I could build an entirely different life for myself, and believe it to be true. I wanted so badly to scream at Winder, and tell him he was lying, but what did he have to gain?
Besides, if he was to be believed, I had done my fair share of lying. A new thought occurred to me, and I froze.
“Do you…do you think my dreams are… Shit.” I struggled to get the words out, my teeth chattering from either the frigid air or the stress. I spilled it all out in a gush. “Do you think everything that’s happening in my nightmares is actually happening? Am I a—” I couldn’t even say it.
Winder just stared at me, his eyes completely unreadable. Except I had spent enough time around him to know that when he said nothing, he said everything.
