I wanted to believe her, to trust that my best friend wouldn’t lie to me.
But something about this felt wrong. Not her exactly. Just the situation. The missing pieces.
“Jack’s visiting again tomorrow,” I said, watching her face carefully.
Pauline’s expression changed. Subtle, but there. Her shoulders went tight. Her smile became fixed.
“That’s good,” she said. “You should spend time with your brother.”
“You okay?”
“What? Yeah. I’m fine.” She tucked her hair behind her ears.
“You sure? You get weird each time I mention Jack.”
“I don’t get weird.”
“Pauly, you literally tensed up. What really went on between you two?”
“Nothing! I can’t believe you are asking this again,” She muttered the last part under her breath.
“I’ve asked you this before? Did something happen between you two that I don’t remember?”
I studied her. She was avoiding my eyes. Classic Pauline tells when she was hiding something.
“What? No. Nothing happened.”
“You two barely talked even before I lost my memory.”
“Exactly. We barely talk. So nothing happened.” She stood up and checked her wristwatch “I should let you rest. You’ve had a long day.”
“Pauline, you just got here,” I said.
She nodded, I looked at her closely. Her eyes were misting, like she was fighting tears she didn’t want me to see. I opened my mouth to apologize even though I didn’t understand why she looked so hurt, she’d always laughed it off whenever I mentioned Jack before, but now she looked to be on the verge of tears.
Was it something I said? Or something else.
“Sorry, Claudie. I just remembered I had an appointment, I’ll call you later, I love you.”
She left before I could push harder. I watched her retreating back, too shocked to see her wiping away actual tears.
Was this about a missing piece from my lost year?
Something was off. I couldn’t explain it. Couldn’t pinpoint exactly what felt wrong. But my instincts were screaming that I was missing something important.
Maybe it was just the memory loss. Maybe once I remembered the past year, everything would make sense.
But what if it didn’t?
What if I dug deeper and discovered this marriage was a mistake? What if Michael didn’t really love me and this whole thing was built on something I didn’t understand?
The thought terrified me more than anything else.
Because I’d loved Michael Ashford for over a decade.
And now I had him.
He was my husband.
