by Tia Siren
Niagara Falls was truly amazing. What was even more amazing was how much Kate loved it. I sensed a change in her from the moment the two of us woke the next day. There was just something different about her. After we had both said “I love you” to one another, I think we could sense that the two of us had progressed to a new level in our relationship.
All morning, she was chipper and perky. By the time we got to the Falls, she was like a school girl. She pointed and clapped her hands at the wonder that was Niagara Falls, as if she had never seen anything like it in her entire life; not even a photograph.
And the best part about it was that she wasn't shy about letting me know how grateful she was that I had taken her there. She told me she loved me two more times that morning, once when we woke up and the moment after we left the Falls. I returned them, too. I really did love her. More than I had ever loved anyone. It was because of that and the way she was acting around me that I finally decided that it was time.
I was going to tell her the truth. There would be no more lying and no more deceit. I was sick of it all. I was sick of avoiding questions about the past and acting like everything that we did was our first time. I was sick of pretending to ignore that she had amnesia, and most of all, I was just sick of going to bed every night aware of how much I was going to hurt her.
That was going to end. I would tell her what I had done and hope that she saw it in herself to forgive me. I didn't expect her to. Not right away. I was sure that given time, she would come to see that we were perfect together. She would realize that it was just a stupid mistake on my part and that we shouldn't be kept apart because of it.
That was the plan anyway.
That afternoon we went trekking through the forest just behind our cabin. There was meant to be a beautiful little waterfall only a few hours in, and Kate was desperate to find it. Her positive energy was astounding that day, and I wished that I could have joined in. I was far too much in my own head. I would tell her that night, and all I could think about was what I would say.
"Come on!" she yelled from ahead as she darted through the forest."I thought you were an athlete!"
"Me? I don't think so. Maybe it's one of your other boyfriends."
"That must be it."
This far north, the climate was damp and moist. The ground was muddy, and every exposed rock and stone had moss growing on it. As such, I was very careful as I walked. I kept my eyes on the ground and my thoughts firmly on the task that lay ahead of me.
Kate was the complete opposite. She jumped through the trees like she was born to it. She was sure footed and was constantly running ahead of me, only to have to double back and scold me for not keeping pace.
"Jesus," she yelled. "It's going to be dark by the time we get there!" And again, she was gone from sight.
I chuckled as I hurried after her. "Maybe we'll have to camp out here tonight? That will really put you to the test!" To that, she didn't respond. "Kate?" I yelled out, curious as to how far ahead she must have run. But as I walked and listened, I couldn't hear any indication that she was nearby. "Kate!" I yelled again.
It was then that I began to panic. "Kate!"
I picked up my pace, running through the trees, looking off the path for any sign of her. She had never been silent for this long, and I feared something might have happened to her. The ground was wet and tricky to walk on. She may have fallen. She may have broken something.
I found her a few moments later. When I did, I felt my stomach drop out from under me. She was on the ground, unconscious. A big red bump on her head indicated that she had hit it, most likely in a fall.
"Kate!" I yelled, rushing to her. "Kate! Can you hear me? Kate?!"
I checked her pulse and did a very quick examination to make sure that her neck wasn't damaged. By the looks of it, she had simply passed out from the bump. It was bad but not as bad as it could have been.
I scooped her into my arms and began the trip back. The plan was still to tell her, but now I would have to wait and see what sort of state she was in when she woke up. I was worried for her health obviously. But I was also worried that I would have to postpone telling her the truth. If I had to wait, then I didn't know when I would get another chance.
I tried to push that from my mind. Her health was the most important thing right now. I was just glad that I was there. With me by her side, she was going to be okay.
CHAPTER 24
KATE
I remembered everything.
It was the ceiling that I recognized first. When I opened my eyes, I immediately remembered where I was. I was in a cabin on a getaway weekend with my boyfriend, Liam. But that wasn't all that I remembered.
I laid in bed, trying to make sense of all the thoughts that swarmed through my mind. It was all so confusing. The last three weeks were the most vivid. From the moment I woke up in the hospital after the car accident, all the way to the moment I fell down and hit my head in the forest. It was all fresh and clear. But that wasn't all there was. Not anymore.
I remembered who I was and where I had come from. I remembered my childhood and where I had gone to school. I could remember my best friend growing up and why we didn't talk anymore. I could remember my first boyfriend, and more importantly, I could remember my last.
"Oh, thank god," Liam said from the corner of the room. I jumped when I heard his voice, sitting up and turning around just in time to see him coming for me. "I was worried there for a minute. You've been out for hours."
"Oh, okay," I said vaguely as I looked into the eyes of the man I both loved and hated.
I didn't know what to make of what was happening. On the one hand, I knew that I loved Liam. He sat down on my bed, took my hand in his, and kissed it. I was only too aware of how I felt about him. I remembered the last few weeks we had spent together and how my feelings for him had developed. But I also knew that it was all a lie.
I remembered how we used to date. We dated for three whole years. It was during his last year of med school and his first two years at the hospital.
I could remember how in love we were back then, at least at first. But then it all fell apart as he worked more and more and saw me less and less. He constantly chose his job over me and made it seem like I was being possessive when I tried to see him.
And then he broke up with me. Out of the blue, he chose to crush my heart as if it were nothing. Even though he tried to take it all back the next day, I wasn't going to allow myself to be hurt by him again. He may have ended it, but I made sure it stayed ended. And that was how it was meant to stay.
But clearly, it didn't stick. It was hard to separate my memories and discern what was real and what wasn't. I couldn't tell what feelings and emotions I should be experiencing. Should I love the man sitting on the bed, stroking my hand, or should I hate him? I had never been so confused.
"So," Liam began. "It's still reasonably early. If you want I can call for room service and—"
"Actually," I cut in. The dichotomy between me hating the sound of his voice and loving it was strong. "I don't feel amazing. I think I might just go to sleep. Do you mind?"
"Not at all," he said, looking concerned. "If there is anything you need—"
"No, it's fine," I said quickly. Then, before he had a chance to say anything else I rolled over and closed my eyes.
But I didn't sleep, not really anyway. There was no way that I was going to be able to. As I lay in bed with my eyes closed, more and more memories came back to me, and I was able to better separate them in my mind. As they became clearer, I was able to better comprehend what Liam had done.
The moment it hit me, I felt physically ill. This was only compounded by the fact that he currently lay beside me with his arm draped over my body. It felt alien, not like that of the man I thought I loved. The man that I did love.
For I did love him. Or at least I thought that I did. But how could I now? After what he had done. He had used my amnesia to take advantage of me and date me again.
It was
disgusting. Not only was it totally dishonest, but it was tantamount to emotional abuse. He told me that he loved me, but how could he? How could you do that to someone you loved?
The hate built and swirled inside of me, and memories of how I used to feel about him came back to me stronger and stronger. But I couldn’t get the new feelings out of my mind. The ones where I loved him. The ones where he had changed, and he had become everything to me. He had been so good to me the last few weeks, helping me to become a better person. But it was all under false pretenses.
I felt torn in a million directions. Why couldn’t he just have been honest with me in the first place?
I didn't know what to do. A part of me wanted to stay with him. My life was meaningless without him. I had no job and no prospects. He gave me stability and a purpose. But at the same time, I knew that I couldn't do it. There was something inherently sick about it.
He was the reason that my life was the way it was. I remembered it all now. After he had crushed me the first time, everything fell apart for me. I stopped going to work and was eventually fired. I stopped talking to my friends, and they eventually stopped talking to me, too.
I stopped writing and abandoned it as a pipe dream. It was then that I got the waitress job and moved into that crappy apartment. It was all his fault.
I slept maybe an hour that night. Every time I closed my eyes, I remembered the good and the bad. The more I remembered, the more that the good morphed into the bad. Any way that I wanted to look at it or tried to spin it, what Liam had done was wrong. There was no going back.
I woke before he did the next morning, having not really slept. I turned around, looking into the face of the man that had taken advantage of me. Although I didn't doubt his new feelings for me, for I felt those, too, I also knew that there was just no way that I could forgive him for what he had done to me. I knew that I was going to have to end it.
It was a painfully awkward morning as the two of us got ready to leave. I tried to stay busy the whole time, never wanting to give him an excuse to kiss me or try and have sex with me. I feared that he would try and force himself on me, and then, I would have no choice but to confront him. I was going to break up with him, but it was going to happen when we were back in New York, back where I could distance myself from him immediately.
All that meant was that I had to act as normal as I could all morning. When he woke up, he asked if I wanted to go out for breakfast. I told him no, that I would rather just eat in the room. He ordered room service. While we waited, he tried to kiss me, and I knew what was on his mind. To counter this, I broke into a coughing fit, feigning an oncoming sickness. I told him my head hurt and my stomach ached. Anything to keep him away from me.
He kept his distance after that. But even as he did, he still made sure that I was feeling okay. He went for a drive to the pharmacy to buy some pain killers. He asked room service for some lemon tea. He did everything that a good boyfriend should do when their girlfriend was sick.
I think that was what hurt the most. I knew how much he cared for me. I knew that despite his sickening actions, his heart was most likely in the right place. But even knowing this, even knowing how hurt he was sure to be, I had no choice. What he had done was unforgivable.
And so, after a very slow and awkward morning, the two of us packed our things and made our way toward the car. I continued the charade of being sick. He carried my bags and made sure that I was comfortable as I climbed in the back seat. I was adamant about not sitting in the front.
As we pulled away from the log cabin, I wondered what he was thinking. Surely, the weekend hadn't gone to plan. Surely, he did not expect us to be heading home in such a dire mood. But then again, he hadn't banked on my memory coming back either. How long had he planned on lying to me? How long was he going to keep me in the dark? Did he hope that I would never remember? Was he really that naive?
They were questions that would never be answered. As soon as we got home, I was going to break up with him. I didn't know what I was going to do or what I was going to say. I only knew that I had to end it. I couldn't be around him anymore.
CHAPTER 25
LIAM
It was a sleepless night for me. I literally didn't get a single wink. The most I slept or came the closest to sleeping, were the few times I shut my eyes up nice and tight in the hopes that when I opened them, everything that had happened was all a dream. But then I would open them and feel the literal cold coming off Kate, lying beside me, and I would know that it wasn't a dream and that it had happened.
When Kate bumped her head, my first fear was for her safety. That was all that mattered. Seeing her, lying in the brush unconscious, was one of the scarier moments of my life. I rushed down to help her, hoping that she was going to be okay.
It didn't take long for me to figure out that she was going to be fine. But once that realization kicked in, another much more real fear took over. That she would wake up and remember everything.
I paced the room for hours and hours, waiting for her to wake up and thinking about what I would say if it came to that moment. But when she did finally wake up, I was still totally unprepared. I just had to hope that nothing had changed. But I couldn't be that naive.
She was so cold to me, so distant. It was like nothing I had ever felt before. I tried to chalk it up to her fall and that maybe she was actually sick and tired and just wanted to sleep? But even I couldn't believe that. As I lay beside her that night, I tried to pull her in close to me, wrap myself around her, and feel for some sort of response. A stroke of the arm, a squeeze of the hand. Anything to suggest that she still loved me and that her memory hadn't come back. But nothing.
When I finally “woke up” the next morning, she still treated me with the same cold, distant apprehension. I had to accept the fact that her memory was back, and she knew who I was and what I had done.
But that just raised the question of “what now?” I had blown it. I had utterly blown it. I had waited too long to tell her the truth, and as a result, she remembered everything on her own, and now, she saw me as the enemy. In a way, I was. I just had to prove to her that I wasn't. I had to remind her of what we had and what it could mean. But I had no idea how.
We piled into the car to leave the cabin, and I was very much aware of the fact that she had chosen to sit in the back seat. She had done it under the guise of being sick and wanting to sleep. But I was pretty damn sure that the real reason was something else.
"I'll tell you what," I began as we took off. "You can stay at my place tonight, and I'll take care of you. How about that? I can run you a hot bath."
"No, it's fine," she said back. "I really just want to be in my own bed tonight. You know how it is when you're sick?" Her voice was cold and distant. It was like she wasn't talking to me, but to a stranger.
"Okay. Well, how about I spend the night? I can make you dinner. Find you a movie to watch on Netflix and—"
"Seriously, it's okay," she cut in again.
She didn't sound angry at least. Just apathetic, as if she didn't care about me at all. In a way, I would have preferred her to be angry.
"Okay," I relented, going back to facing the road. And that was the literal extent of our conversation for the entire trip home.
She laid in the back with her eyes closed, pretending to sleep, but I didn't believe for one minute that she was actually sleeping. I was sure that, like me, she was trying to figure out what to do.
For six hours, we drove in silence. The whole time, I tried to figure out what to do or say. It was too late to admit the truth to her. If I did that now, I would come off as trying to back pedal on what I had done. She would know that I knew, and it would only make me look more manipulative.
The only thing I could think of was a declaration of some kind. She still loved me. I was sure of it. She just didn't know what that meant. She was probably trying to decide if her love trumped her hate and anger. I was going to have to show her that I was worth staying w
ith, despite all the lies.
She would still be angry with me, but at least she would know that my heart was in the right place.
The only question was what could I do? To ask her to marry me would be too much. We had, after all, only been dating for three weeks technically. There had to be something I could suggest that wasn’t quite that drastic.
As I pulled up in front of her apartment, I came up with an idea. I had always hated where she lived. Not only did the apartment itself suck, but the neighborhood was sketchy, too. I always hated thinking of her walking around here by herself, day or night. It was dangerous, and despite what she claimed, she would never be safe so long as she stayed there.
What would have been perfect was if she lived with me. That way she would have to come back to my place, and we would have to talk it out. But she didn't live with me. And just like that, I had a great idea.
I would ask her to move in with me. It was perfect. Not only would it show that I had changed and that I was serious about the two of us, which I was, but it would also give her something to think about. I wouldn’t just be the boyfriend who lied to her. I would be the potential partner who loved and cared for her. Who just happened to make one, stupid mistake.
"I'll help you with your bags," I said, jumping from the car.
"No you really don't have to," she began, but it was too late. By the time she was out of the car, I had her suitcase under my arm and was already on my way up to her apartment.
I walked ahead of her the whole way, making sure that she didn't have a chance to stop me and refuse me entry. When I reached her front door, I pulled out the spare key that she had given me a few days prior and walked on in.
"I don't know why you live in this place," I started as I dropped her suitcase on the floor. "You deserve so much better."
"Yeah, well it's the best I can afford," she said with just a hint of disdain.
The tension in the room was near breaking point. I could tell that she wanted me to leave. I was also certain that if I didn't, she would throw me out, but not before telling me what she knew. I had to act fast.