by Casey, L. A.
Your ex.
“My ex?” I tensed. “What the hell do you mean Elliot is my ex? He’s my boyfriend!”
My mother’s earlier words echoed in my mind. She’d said Elliot and I broke up four years ago, but that couldn’t have been true. It couldn’t. Elliot and I were in love. We were planning a future together.
“No, he’s n-not!” Anderson stammered, looking completely lost and panicked. “I’m your husband. You’re Noah Riley. Mr Ainsley, Mrs Ainsley . . . tell her.”
I looked to my parents and waited for them to deny this man’s claim, but they didn’t. They looked from him to me and their expressions were ones of sorrow.
“No,” I whispered. “Mum, tell me this is a lie. A sick joke. Please.”
Fat tears slid down her cheeks. I stared at her, waiting for her to tell me the words I so desperately needed to hear, but she didn’t. She took my hand in hers and gave it a comforting squeeze.
“You and Anderson married over three years ago now.” She rubbed her thumb over my skin when I stilled. “You and Elliot broke up and never got back together, honey. I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
I felt the moment that my heart broke in two. A pain that was body-consuming stabbed at my chest, and before I knew what was happening, I turned to the side of my bed and vomited until I was dry-heaving. My mother was in a state of panic.
“I want Elliot,” I cried as I retched. “I need him.”
“I already called his mum when I was out in the hallway earlier with your dad. She’ll get him here, honey. He’ll be here.”
“The hell he will!” Anderson spluttered as my father grabbed a tissue to wipe my mouth with. “Noah made it clear years ago that she doesn’t want to be anywhere near him. That arsehole isn’t getting close to her so he can hurt her again. I won’t allow it.”
Anderson’s words were like a hard slap to my face.
What on earth had happened in my life for me to marry someone other than my Elliot – and worse, to never want to see or be near him again? I stared at Anderson as tears rolled down my cheeks, and I looked at Doctor Abara as he crossed the room, stood in front of Anderson and spoke in hushed tones. Then I looked back at my parents and found their gazes on me. They were worried over me. I could see the fear in their eyes, and it made me feel sick.
I wanted to scream.
In my head, I was comforting myself that this was all wrong, that it was some sort of massive mistake, but everyone in front of me was saying otherwise. My parents had informed me that Elliot and I broke up; my dad said he had cancer and I could see that he was telling the truth based on his appearance. Boris Johnson was no longer the mayor of London, he was now the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Everything that I had heard – and seen – matched up with what everyone was telling me.
I felt like I was a stranger in my own body, in my own life, and I didn’t know who to believe because I couldn’t even believe myself. The reality I thought I was living was no longer my own. I felt lost. I needed Elliot, I needed to speak to him, but when I looked at Anderson – who was still speaking to my doctor – his words suddenly replayed in my head. He’d said I had made it clear years ago that I didn’t want to be near Elliot and that he had hurt me in some way. I was seemingly married to this man, so there had to be a reason why he would say that.
I was so confused. I didn’t know who or what to believe.
“Why is this happening to me?” I wept. “What’d I do to deserve this?”
Dad leaned down, careful to avoid the mess I’d made, and gently kissed my head. “Don’t do this to yourself. You want someone to blame, something that can make sense of all of this, but sometimes bad things just happen, sweetheart.”
I wiped my cheeks. “But this didn’t just happen, Dad. I’m not like this because I woke up one morning and just suddenly lost my memory. I was in an accident, an accident I know nothing about, you . . . you have to tell me what happened.”
My parents shared a look and I didn’t miss the expression of dread and worry that passed between them. I didn’t think I could handle any more surprises, but I needed to know what had happened to me. Having no memory of what I’d been through left me feeling naked and vulnerable.
“Please,” I pressed as my head fell back against my pillow. “I need to know why I’m lying in this bed with an entirely different life than what I think I have. I deserve to know, and you both should be the people to tell me. You’re my parents.”
“A car accident,” Mum suddenly said. “You were in a car accident.”
My eyes widened. “But I can’t drive . . . can I?”
“No, you can’t drive.” Dad scrubbed his face with his hands. “You were in the passenger seat of a taxi when the accident occurred. Black ice on the road caused the accident. The driver is fine.”
My head swam as I processed what my parents were saying. Questions seemed to pile on top of one another, but before I had a chance to ask one, another person ran into the room. A person who made my whole body respond with a jump.
“Elliot!”
My heart practically burst the second I clapped eyes on him, then an ache took root. My Elliot . . . he looked so different. To me, it felt like I had just seen him, but he wasn’t as I remembered him. His chocolate-brown hair that used to be neat all over was longer – shaggy atop of his head while tightly trimmed to the sides of his scalp. He had thick facial hair now and he seemed bulkier, but I wasn’t sure if it was weight he’d gained or muscle. He seemed so much bigger, his presence that of a grown man. He looked tired and just as shocked to see me as I was him, but what caught me off guard the most about him were his ocean-blue eyes.
They were no longer lit with a passion for life. They appeared dull, empty . . . dead.
It frightened me.
“Elliot,” I repeated. “Everything is so wrong.”
He took a step towards me but Anderson got in his way.
“She’s confused,” Anderson stated. “Don’t come in here and take advantage of my wife, McKenna. You know she doesn’t want you any more.”
I gasped, shocked to hear those words leave Anderson’s mouth.
“I don’t u-understand,” I stammered. “Anderson . . . what are you saying?”
“He isn’t in your life, baby,” he answered me without looking away from Elliot. “He’s a piece of shit and I won’t let him break your heart again.”
Again?
Anderson invaded Elliot’s space and shoved him backwards. He was tall, but Elliot had four or five inches on him and was so much broader than him. They looked close in age but Elliot just seemed bigger in every way compared to Anderson.
“No!” I shouted, panicked. “No! Please, Elliot. I don’t know this man!”
Anderson spun to face me; his face was void of colour. He looked like he was physically hurt by my words, and a sense of remorse washed over me. I didn’t know this man, and I didn’t understand any of what was being discussed, but he was defending me against Elliot. He believed Elliot was a threat of some kind to me and he clearly didn’t want me to get hurt, and because of that I felt somewhat of a connection to him.
“Noah,” said Anderson.
“I’m sorry,” I said to him hurriedly. “I’m so sorry. I don’t want to hurt you, I truly don’t. I just don’t know you – you’ll have to . . . you’ll have to give me some time because this is all too much and I can’t think.”
My head ached so badly I placed both hands on my temples and whimpered. My entire skull throbbed to the point where I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears. The pain was so intense I felt as if I couldn’t breathe around it.
“Mr Riley, I think it’s best if you leave,” Doctor Abara said to Anderson. “This is entirely overwhelming for your wife – you must understand.”
I couldn’t concentrate on what the doctor was saying, I was busy breathing in and out to help the pain in my head. I was so glad the doctor had told him to leave because I didn’t think I could do it; he looked so upset a
nd hurt that I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t want to cause any more pain.
“Should I leave too, Mrs Ainsley?”
My heart just about stopped. I forced my eyes open and focused on Elliot as the room began to sway. I noticed bodies behind him, a nurse and two men in uniform. Security would be my guess.
“Elliot,” I rasped. “Please don’t leave me.”
I was sure I wanted Anderson to leave just so I could have a moment to try to sort out what was happening in my head, but I needed Elliot to stay. Even though he looked very different from how I remembered, he was familiar to me and I needed that at the moment. I needed something, someone, that I knew. I needed my rock.
Elliot closed his eyes as he clenched his hands into fists. To Anderson he said, “She wants me to stay, so I’m stayin’.”
“She’s my wife,” Anderson replied. “She’ll remember why I’m her husband and not you soon enough!”
I watched the interaction between them and I felt the loathing they had for one another. It wasn’t simply dislike; it was raw hate, and it was clearly felt by both of them with a passion.
“Until then, I’m stayin’ right here.” Elliot slowly turned his head and glared at Anderson. “You’re upsettin’ her by being here, so leave. Now.”
Anderson turned to me one final time, looking like he had a million things to say, before he left the room with the two security guards following behind. I watched him go, and part of me felt horrible and cruel. I had no memory of this man, but he knew me as his wife. I had no idea what was going through his head and I selfishly didn’t want to know, because I was having a hard enough time trying to figure out how I felt – let alone how everyone else was feeling.
“Elliot,” I said. “None of this feels real to me. I can’t be married to that man. I don’t even know him.”
Everyone stood back while nurses entered the room and cleaned up the mess I made from vomiting. I apologised over and over, but they assured me it wasn’t a big deal. Elliot took the empty seat to my right when everything was cleaned away, his eyes on the hand I had grabbed without thinking. With his free hand he was rubbing his fingertips over my knuckles, an action he did whenever he felt anxious. It made my heart clench.
His touch on my knuckles felt more intimate than ever, and it seemed touching me still helped to relax him. It comforted me to know that this hadn’t changed for Elliot even though we were no longer together and I was married to another man.
I found myself wondering if Elliot’s life had changed just as mine had.
“Elliot, why is another man saying he’s my husband? Why aren’t you my husband? I really don’t understand any of this. What happened to us?”
Before I got the last word out, the terrible ache spread across my head once again. I moaned and leaned back, covering my forehead with my free hand.
“Noah? Look at me, green eyes.”
I opened my eyes as my hand fell away from my face.
“Ye have a lot of questions, you’re scared and nothin’ is makin’ any sense to ye. I know, and I wish I could make it all better for you, but I can’t. Ye need to relax and stop puttin’ your brain through its paces. It’s workin’ overtime right now and ye need to give it a minute to get back into the swing of things.”
I sniffled as my eyes filled with tears.
“No.” Elliot swallowed as he brought his face to mine and wiped away the tears on my cheeks. I smelled whiskey on his breath. “I’m here. Don’t be scared, I’m right here.”
His closeness made my breath hitch.
“Don’t leave me,” I pleaded as I put a hand on the back of his neck. “Please, I need you so much.”
“I’m not goin’ anywhere, Nono. Go ahead and rest. I’ll be right here when ye wake up.”
“We’ll all be here, love,” Dad said, his tone firm.
“Promise, Dad?”
“Promise.”
The mention of rest had my eyelids suddenly feeling heavy and impossible to hold open. I tried my hardest to fight the seductive lure of sleep, but I was no match for it. Every bit of strength I had was drained from me. I let my eyes flutter shut with Elliot’s words falling with me into darkness.
“I’m never leavin’ ye again, green eyes. I don’t care what the hell happens. I’ve been apart from ye long enough, you’re my person. I’ll be fuckin’ damned if I let ye slip through me fingers again.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
ELLIOT
This was real.
I was sitting next to Noah Ainsley – Riley – and holding her soft, supple hand in mine as she slept with the morning sunlight shining on her beautiful face. She’d been asleep for almost ten hours and I couldn’t stop looking at her for fear that she’d suddenly up and disappear into thin air. I’d had dreams like this, ones that felt so vivid and lifelike that I wanted to sleep forever to stay in the moment where it was just me and her, like old times. This wasn’t a dream though – somehow it was my reality. I couldn’t stop staring at her. I noticed things that I remembered about her and things that I didn’t.
Her golden-blonde hair was cut up to her shoulders and no longer hung in waves down the length of her back. It was buzzed on the left side of her head, close to her ear to allow her wound to be cleaned and stitched closed. Her thick, fair eyebrows were as I had always known them, but a small, straight scar cut through the right one leaving a tiny gap between the hairs. I wondered how she’d got that scar.
She had a dusting of red and pink little dots and lines on her face. I remembered her having cuts on her face that night in the car; they had since scabbed over and healed, leaving behind little reminders that would eventually fade to white.
Her fair skin looked dull, and I wasn’t sure if it had looked like that before her accident or because of the accident. The main thing I noticed about her was that she had gained weight. Noah had always been tiny to me; she stood at five foot ten but had always been slim. I often teased her that the only curves she had were when she bent over. I hadn’t seen her in person in years, so I wasn’t sure when her body had made this change. I’d spotted her now and again for fleeting moments – when I was in Tesco, or driving down the motorway as I passed her and her husband’s car – but never close like this.
“Are you okay, Elliot?”
I looked up at Mr Ainsley and my stomach clenched.
I’d known him over a decade and to see him at the place he was at in life hurt me. I visited them often because not long after I’d lost Noah, they lost her too. Anderson Riley was Noah’s husband, and though I had no proof, I knew he was the reason she’d turned her back on her family after they got together. That miserable bastard took my heart from me and I hated him for it, but I knew what I hated most was the fact that I’d pushed her into his open arms.
I forced him from my mind.
“Honestly, sir, no,” I answered on a sigh. “I’m hurtin’ for her, she’s so scared and confused. I honestly don’t know what I can do for her and I’m worried about it.”
“For now, just being here is enough, honey,” Mrs Ainsley said.
I found myself nodding. “I can’t imagine what she’s goin’ through . . . to be told she has a whole other life to the one she thinks she had. She must be terrified.”
“She is,” Mr Ainsley said. “She is scared, and she wanted you. Your presence will help her.”
“But sir . . . if she thinks it’s 2015 then she thinks that I’m—”
“Her boyfriend,” Mrs Ainsley finished.
I felt lower than dirt when excitement and hope rippled through me. How many times had I wished that my and Noah’s memories could be wiped just so we could turn back time and be together like we were before everything became fucked up? I had got my wish, and the price I had to pay for it wasn’t worth it. Nothing was worth my sister’s life and Noah’s mental and physical health.
Nothing.
I swallowed. “I’m tryin’ to figure out in me head how I should approach her, approach the situation. I don�
��t wanna confuse her, and I definitely don’t wanna hurt her – but she’s married, and I’m not her husband.”
Nothing I did could change that fact.
“One day at a time, Elliot.” Mrs Ainsley offered me a small smile. “We can do no more than that.”
I looked back at Noah. “Does she know about Bailey?”
“No,” Mr Ainsley answered. “We told her she was in a car accident in a taxi, but we’ve not mentioned anything about your sister. I’m afraid, son . . . I don’t know how she’ll handle it. Doctor Abara is worried. When things get to be too much for her, she faints. Her brain is under a lot of stress right now; the swelling on her brain is causing her headaches that bring her serious pain.”
The thought of her being in pain made me feel so helpless.
“I understand,” I said. “It’s hard for me to say I completely agree, but I understand.”
“You think we should tell her, even with the state she’s in?”
“It’s not that.” I rubbed a hand over my face. “It’s the keeping-it-from-her part that makes me uneasy. I was always honest with Noah, and the one time I wasn’t it blew up in me face and then our relationship ended. It makes me hesitant about keepin’ things from her that I know she’ll want to know.”
Mr Ainsley reached out and gave my shoulder a squeeze.
“This is for her own good.”
“I know,” I relented. “That’s why I’m goin’ to keep me mouth shut because it’s for her benefit. You and the doc are right, it’s best to keep it from her until she’s stable. She was always close with me sister, and even though she pushed us all away after we broke up, I know she still loved her. Knowin’ Bailey is gone will devastate her, even more so when she finds out she was in the wreck with her.”
“You’re right,” Mr Ainsley said as he dropped his arm to his side. “This will sound stupid, Eli, but how are you holding up?”
“Not good, sir.”
I didn’t even try to lie. I had known Noah’s parents since I was eighteen, way back when I first met Noah. Not long after we started dating, she introduced me to them and her parents took an instant liking to me, and I formed a strong bond with them both.