“No.” He runs a hand through his dark hair, an unconscious habit he hasn’t lost in all these years. “I didn’t forget you. I can’t forget something that doesn’t exist in my mind.”
The words hang heavy in the air like gas. Like poison.
“W-what?”
“It’s not that I don’t remember you specifically, Clover. I don’t remember anything. But I read your file. I know we were at Roots of Salvation, ROS, at the same time. I know I told my family about you. I know you left or escaped the same night I lost…”
I flinch. No one is supposed to have access to my history. The judge promised that all my records were sealed when the Danforths adopted me.
His gaze cuts to mine, then to the overhead lights, the lamps on every table—all burning brightly.
“Did you turn on every single light so you could open your front door?”
I shake my head, still trying to process how he could have access to information about me but not remember me. “I—I sleep with them on.” I lower my gaze as my cheeks heat. “Or try to.”
Roman leaves the couch to lean against my bookcase and study my home. I know what he sees. The curtains are all drawn tight, while every corner of my home is lit by LEDs like it’s a Christmas Spectacular.
“The night you lost what?” My words are no more than a puff of smoke.
I didn’t think it was possible for Valen to physically tense any more than he already is, but he stiffens like the teeth of a zipper, inch by inch, locking himself away.
“The night I lost my childhood. I don’t have any memories before waking up in the hospital when I was seventeen.”
My thumb taps against each finger with slow, deliberate movements.
“I—I don’t understand.”
Roman’s soft footsteps pad down my hall. I don’t even care where he’s going.
“I don’t have any memories, Clover. My very first memory is of a hospital room.” He’s watching me carefully, like I’m a grenade that might explode. It’s a fair assessment. “I woke up with no memory of how I got there or who I was, even after months of surgeries and therapy. They told me I’d been beaten. But they never caught the responsible parties—” He swallows hard. “My aunt pulled onto the grounds of Roots of Salvation and found me in the center of a mob. They scattered as she and her driver ran toward me. I had a note stapled to my shirt that said ‘Deliverance.’”
The room tilts as I try to make sense of his words.
That’s not true.
“You—you were beaten?”
He studies me like someone searching for a lie, a threat.
“I nearly died. When I woke up…” He spreads his arms wide. “Nothing. The first seventeen years of my life, gone.”
“How?” I whisper through my shaky breaths.
He didn’t leave me. He didn’t choose his mother. He didn’t abandon me.
Valen takes a step toward me, then hesitates.
“They don’t know.” His voice roughens, as though the militant mask he wears is crumbling but he won’t go down without a fight. “Trauma. Brain injury. The doctors called it dissociative amnesia. The memories might come back, they might not.” He studies me with all the distrust I glared at him with earlier. “It’s been fourteen years, and they haven’t.”
Fourteen years.
He was hurt while I was waiting for him at his Aunt Miriam’s house.
“When?” I ask, the tapping of my fingertips keeping me grounded. “When exactly did this happen to you?”
“Vivi found me on August fifteenth, fourteen years ago.”
The day I escaped.
