Debacle? That’s what he calls it? That’s his reaction to seeing me again?
“It is possible that we have met before,” he begins. “I don’t exactly remember everyone I’ve met in my life. Some years ago, I was in an accident.” He pauses, and his eyes study me, maybe because I twitch at that word.
Accident?
He continues, his voice curt, professional, like he’s reading a script with no hint of any emotion. “At least, that’s what I was told in the hospital when I woke up. I was diagnosed with amnesia. Whatever I know of my past begins with that day in that hospital bed. I remember nothing from before then.”
“Wh–what?”
He’s just standing there, telling me this with all the casualness in the world. But each word leaving his lips is upending my life.
He was in an accident? He doesn’t remember me? He doesn’t remember us? He doesn’t remember the life we were supposed to build together?
My head spins. My breathing becomes rapid, just like yesterday. My body moves on instinct, almost unconsciously. Trying to reach him, to bridge the distance.
His hand comes up in front of me. “Don’t.”
That single word is a knife to my heart.
He continues flatly. “I’m only telling you this because you seem to know who I once was. I do not want word of this going around HQ. And you need to understand that whoever I was,whatever version of me that exists in your memories, doesn’t exist anymore.”
A sob threatens to break free as his name leaves my lips. “Kain—”
“Do not presume any familiarity between us, Ms. Donaldson. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just another staff member who works here. Nothing more.”
My lips tremble. I blink anxiously. My hands shake furiously.
“Whoever you think you remember,” he says icily, “that isn’t me anymore.”
The pain I feel at those words is beyond description. There is no suffering in this world, no anguish that I wouldn’t rather bear than this. My legs feel like they can’t support my weight anymore. I’m no longer breathing; I’m gasping for air.
Before any rational thought can stop me, I lift the photograph and show it to him. My hand is trembling so badly that the image shakes, but I try everything in my power to steady it.
“You don’t remember this?” My voice practically shatters on the question. “This is you.” I point at the boy in the picture. “And that’s me. You really don’t remember?”
Kain peers at the photograph. His eyes narrow, and his brow furrows. I see a flash across his features, too quick for me to interpret, before his face returns to being a wall of impenetrable blankness again.
“Like I said.” His tone is final. “Whoever that is, whoever that was, it’s not me anymore. This is the last time I will address this matter, Ms. Donaldson.”
He turns and walks away. I hear every single one of his footsteps as he leaves me there by the door to the stairwell.
I stand there, unable to move. It feels like he has just taken a hammer to my heart. Like he pulverized it into pieces so small that I will never be able to put it back together.
My lungs forget what they’re supposed to do for a moment. My hands hang uselessly at my sides as if they don’t belong to me anymore.
My world has ended.
Chapter Four
Anne
The photograph stays in my hand the whole way back to my cubicle. I don’t look at it again. I can’t. Every time my thumb brushes the edge, I feel the small crack in the paper. My hand clenches around it; it crumples, but I don’t care.
I sink into my chair without really seeing the desk, and for a moment, I just sit there, staring at nothing. Gradually, my grip loosens, and the crushed photo drops onto my keyboard with a soft tap. I leave it there.
“Whoever you think you remember, that isn’t me anymore.”
The words he said ring in my head. I press my fingers to my temples, staring at my computer screen. Several notifications pop up, but I ignore all of them.
