Table of Contents
You Are Here
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
You Are Here
Copyright © 2016 S.M. Lumetta
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission of the author — except reviewers, who may quote a brief passage in a review.
Published by S.M. Lumetta
www.smlumetta.com
ISBN-13: 978-1535187497
ISBN-10: 1535187492
Editorial: Janine Savage, The Write Divas
Proofreading: Marla Esposito, Proofing Style
Cover design: S.M. Lumetta
Cover model: Nicolas Simoes, instagram.com/nicolassimoes
Fonts used:
Amethyst by Patricia Lazaro
Venti by Connary Fagan Type Design
Printed in the United States by CreateSpace
eBook design by CP Smith
For my mom, who refuses to let me give up. Ever.
I love you.
Chapter One
Lucie
Blank
“Blank.”
“That’s not a feeling, Lucie.”
“You asked me to describe how I feel, Vivien. I woke up from a coma just … blank.”
“Fair enough.” Her smile was sympathetic, which was a little irritating. “I think you should call me Dr. Bonnar.”
“Fair enough.” I could hear the snark in my voice and wondered if I was always such a bitch.
She attempted to be subtle when she sucked her teeth in frustration.
I smiled like a brat. I hadn’t set out to be difficult, but mining for feelings I couldn’t describe grated against me.
“I’m concerned you’ve not had any significant emotional reactions upon discovering what happened to your parents. To you.”
“Amnesia provides a strange form of comfort in its emptiness.”
“I’m just trying to help.”
My fears, hidden between skin and sinew, sparked at the idea of complete memory inundation. I breathed deeply and exhaled the wave of stress. I pinched and scratched the hem of my hospital-issued pajamas. I wondered what my actual clothes had looked like before they were ash.
“I know what happened. My parents were murdered point-blank, execution-style. Whoever did it tried to kill me, too, and burn the joint down while they were at it.”
Her expression was pained, but I steamrolled forward, holding up my bandaged arms and fingers. “Got the burns to prove it, but only here. I can see them, feel the pain—well, until I get another dose of drugs. Apparently, I’m allergic to morphine. Didn’t know that, either.”
“Lucie.”
“It doesn’t matter though because I don’t feel a connection to any of it. Why do you keep asking me questions? I don’t have the answers. If you’re so smart, why don’t you tell me?” My voice rose and I cleared my throat, not ready to be repentant.
She pushed her glasses up her nose and sighed. “Examining how you respond to any information, personal or not, can open a path to memory.”
I rolled my eyes and couldn’t understand why on earth we kept rehashing facts that rang no bells whatsoever, specifically with such horrific details. Vivien Bonnar was a stunning woman—brilliant and well-spoken—and really getting on my nerves. Or maybe it wasn’t her at all.
“Am I doing a goddamn research paper? My feeling on this information is that it’s tragic. All of it. Sure, I want to know everything I used to know, but I don’t. And I can’t explain to you why that doesn’t upset me! I know it should and I know I should be sad, crazy depressed even, but I’m not. What can I do about that?”
I stopped when I felt my chest heaving, panting with quick frustrated breaths. I was beginning to think the good doc liked to piss me off on purpose. Self-conscious, I grabbed a lock of hair and twirled it before noticing that Vivien was watching me. I tucked the strand behind my ear, noting that something about the action felt wrong. My hair had caught fire and the hospital staff had apparently chopped off a great deal. Maybe my body remembered, even if I didn’t.
“Lucie,” she began with that microscopic smile I’d gotten used to being annoyed by, “you’ve been sitting across from me every day, sometimes twice a day, for weeks. Not once have you raised your voice to the point of showing anything but confusion, let alone anger.”
“I’m not angry,” I snapped.
She just kept on with that pursed-lip smugness.
I took in a deep breath. “All right, you may have a point.”
The smile was more perceptible this time. “I’m not your enemy.”
“So, I can rule you out as the killer, then? Bonus. Session’s over,” I said quickly, my discomfort more palpable now. I stood. “I can go now, right?”
She glared over the top of her tortoiseshell glasses with her deep brown, almond shaped eyes, volleying between me and the seat I’d vacated.
“Shit.”
I fell back into the chair. It wasn’t as if I had things to do or hordes of visitors waiting—in fact, I hadn’t had a single visitor since I’d woken from the coma. I felt a painful twinge in my chest. Something bothered me, but I hadn’t the first clue how to voice it. I was afraid it wouldn’t help to even mention it. My irritation waned, and I admitted to myself that the petulant act was likely overboard.
“Sorry.”
She shrugged. “You’re not my first rodeo, you know.”
“Let’s get drunk, then.”
She grinned, acknowledging my lame quick-change act while accidentally revealing a sliver of actual personality. “Definitely an inappropriate doctor-patient activity.”
“No sex, I swear.” I winked, bolstered by her amusement but it was short-lived.
“Let’s talk about the visions.”
I looked away as my stomach jumped and twisted as if attempting escape. They were the source, the reason he was all I thought about. I wished I’d kept that clairvoyant little detail to myself, as she certainly thought me a psycho while he was my beautiful delusion.
“I’d rather not,” I said, los
t in his fathomless blue eyes and a smile like ice cracking as it corrupted his lightly freckled cheeks.
“You can’t be real, angel.”
Reality slipped away while his words caressed my ears, tickling a waltz down my spine to the tips of my curling toes.
“Lucie?”
I shook my head, initially unwilling to speak. Blinking hard, my focus sharpened and our eyes locked. “Just remembering the first.”
The first. Though not the only one I’d experienced since I woke up in the hospital several weeks ago, it was my most prominent rerun. Every word and its cadence, timbre, and note had been committed to memory like a favorite song, a looping soundtrack to the heartbreaking face cast on the back of my eyelids. How my skin anticipated his touch. I couldn’t begin to guess but I knew his hand in mine. I knew the heat of my body’s physical reaction. My veins pulsed with the need for him, a current of electricity that kept me moving and breathing. For the life of me, I couldn’t grasp why a man I’d never met was the key to the life I didn’t remember and to a love I could hardly dream of. How could a stranger be the reason to move forward? It was impossible to rationalize, but this connection was the only thing that truly seemed to soothe me.
Maybe that was why I didn’t want to talk about these “visions.” For someone who had no past to have issue with, there was more than enough emotion chained to my purported future to sink me. It was exhausting enough, trying to get through this therapy session.
I inhaled deeply and returned my gaze to Vivien, who—despite my fledgling doubts in her ability to do her job—was more at ease with my entire situation than I was. It was unnerving, but a serious goddamn relief.
“It’s all right.” Her voice slid downhill, a cushion of empathy wrapping around me as I heard a tissue pulled sharply from its box. “Here.”
Befuddled, I looked at her until I felt the tears running over my cheeks. Taking the proffered tissue, I pressed it to my face and briefly hid behind it.
“What am I supposed to do?” I whispered, shocked by the fear in my voice.
“Exactly what you are doing.” She made it sound like she hadn’t been trying to shove me off this cliff for the past three weeks.
“What? Cry? I don’t even know why I’m crying.”
“Because you need to.”
“Thanks, Vivi,” I said reflexively. It was both familiar yet foreign on my lips. The nickname had appeared on the tip of my tongue, though I’d never before thought to use it. I had purposefully ignored her request to keep the formalities because it felt like one thing I could control, but this was different.
Suddenly my breath stuttered, my eyes fluttered closed, and my nails dug into the upholstery as I tensed and I gripped the arms of the plush chair. Like trying to run away in a dream, I felt paralyzed.
A tall, broad-shouldered man stands grinning like the cat who ate the canary. The mantle above the fireplace behind him is decorated with a thick, green garland and scarlet silk ribbon. Multiple silver frames weave between the loops, displaying family pictures. It’s a Christmas party.
“Vivi,” the handsome, burly tree of a man begins, his lush baritone breaking over the second syllable, “there is no possible way to ever thank you for … well, shit, everything! But hot damn, lady, I love you so much. So fucking much.”
Vivien stands tall in the arc of his embrace as his hand settles on her stomach, round and swollen with the promise of their future. Stray locks of her long, black hair curl about the edges of a beaming smile as she watches him, eyes swimming with joy.
“My Nash, you massive sap,” she says every bit as emotional as he is. “You know I love you more than anything, but cork it because our guests may actually hurl. And since you’re going to be a daddy, start curbing the f-bombs. Merry Christmas, everybody!”
A rumble of laughter blankets the room as we raise our glasses to toast. My chest constricts with happiness. The echo of camaraderie warms and envelops us like the heat from the fireplace, but not nearly as much as the strong arms circling me from behind.
“Lucie?” Vivien no longer sounded at ease. “Are you all right?”
Stillness seeped from my muscles, leaving the fibers weakened and limp and my nerve endings frazzled like an ebbing power surge. I slumped a bit more into the chair and rested my head on my knuckles. Pain throbbed blandly behind my eyes.
“Depends,” I said, my throat dry.
“A vision.”
My responding sigh was a sad, resigned confirmation. I hated the word more than the so-called gift itself. Nodding, I reached for the glass of water on the table and guzzled it gone. I set the empty glass down before fixing my eyes on her.
“May I ask you a personal question?”
“All right.” The quiver in her voice belied her curiosity.
“When is your baby due?” As soon as it passed my teeth, I regretted the question.
The shock on her face was immediate and painful. She struggled to maintain a neutral expression, but it was thin. She was unable to speak for a moment, too busy fighting with herself.
My breath was stuck in my chest until I finally coughed it free. “Fuck!” I blurted, stumbling over my tongue to apologize. “I’m so sorry, Vivi—um, Dr. Bonnar, that was so out of line.” I stood abruptly to leave as quickly as I could. When she didn’t stop me, I continued swiftly through the exit room where an orderly waited with a wheelchair. I glared, irritated with the liability policy. I was perfectly capable of walking.
Wordlessly, he steered me to the other wing of the hospital and the thankfully private room I currently called home. I marinated in something like guilt along the way. Vivien was one of the only constants in the life I knew. She was incredibly patient with me, so I went and socked her in the stomach with a personal question like that. Did I basically call her fat? She wouldn’t be so upset by that, right?
Jesus, I am an asshole.
After depositing me in my room, the orderly helped hook my IV back up to my pain meds after I climbed carefully into bed, having learned it was best to avoid putting pressure on the burns, which extended from my arms to the heels of my hands.
Once settled, I contemplated the time I’d been in the hospital. I had more than twenty-five years under my belt, but only the weeks since I’d woken were available for recall. My memory, my family, our home—all of it was gone. I didn’t remember that my mother’s name was Jude, and my father was Roman. I couldn’t have told you our house was in Somerset, New Jersey, on a nice plot of land. His job, my education, where we had lived before … I was unable to recall a single detail. I had amnesia and not much else. I was an empty slate.
The first time I had opened my eyes post-trauma, my lids were heavy over blurry sight and my head throbbed. My surroundings had slowly come into focus, but the world had not. My room was cold and bland with off-white, naked walls, a window with cheap, beige plastic blinds, a stiff-backed chair next to the door, and awful fluorescent lighting.
I’d been afraid to turn my head, instead painting the room with my eyes from one side to the other. Rubbing the scratchy, over-bleached blanket between my fingertips, it took a full minute before it finally clicked. I choked on my own spit when I’d realized I was lying in a hospital bed.
Panic seeped in, trickling into my ears and crawling up my legs. I felt a chill from the inside out and that craptastic blanket became my security, twisted and pulled tight within my grip. My lips trembled as I had struggled to dig up clues.
Clutching my stomach, painful with knots, I had shut my eyes and tried to think. Tripping through the multiplication tables, the alphabet and other various textbook exercises without much ado, I then prompted myself with “my name is,” and a black hole swallowed me.
I’d sunk beneath waves of hysteria, the monitors howling in alarm as my heart rate skyrocketed. It wasn’t until I had heard those awful sounds that I’d even realized my arms were bandaged and that I was hooked to wires and IVs. The visual made the injuries real, and a slew of aches and pa
ins trampled my body like a metaphysical stampede.
A choreographed circus of nurses and doctors had swept through the room like a tornado. Painkillers soothed the physical discomfort, but nothing was touching the hollow pit in my stomach.
Who am I? What the hell happened to me?
I had to learn the answers to those questions. My doctor stood, stiffly listing off the medical issues while a nurse explained them and filled in the gaps.
“Even without head injuries, trauma of any kind can be enough for memory loss, though your amnesia is quite extensive. I have to say, an angel must be looking out for you,” she’d said.
I had quirked a brow at her, briefly chewing on the word “amnesia.” The inundation of the first vision had then interrupted any conscious thought.
“You can’t be real, angel,” he declares.
A shimmer dances through me. Unable to stop myself, I tuck the errant lock of curly brown hair behind his ear.
He exhales on contact, and his body and shoulders release the breath and tension as though he’s been holding them in since birth.
I reemerged from the fog of foresight without the privilege of his next words to find panic all around me. My doctor was shouting for a litany of tests. He thought I might be having a stroke based on strange eye movement and non-responsiveness.
Despite their concern, I’d zoned out, marveling in the mental movie of a first meeting with what felt like a soul mate. Why was I seeing this? Had this happened already? It didn’t feel like it, but considering I remembered nothing before waking up, I had doubts. In any case, where was this man and why did seeing him in my head comfort me so much? The short scene had settled into my bones and warmed me where I’d unknowingly been cold. I didn’t understand it at all.
Between my non-stroke and the amnesia, I was under constant watch for several days. It seemed like I was being rushed to a new test every hour. MRIs, CAT scans, EKGs, I stopped trying to make sense of the slur of acronyms being tossed around. Every one of them found nothing unusual. That was enough to send me to psychiatric for evaluation, where Vivien was assigned to me, but only after being questioned by three different doctors.
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