by V. Theia
Twisted pain doubled Paige over and all that was heard was her soap opera-esque gasp.
Only there was nothing scripted about this.
Blinking at the man she was supposedly married to, she realized she didn’t know Reaper at all.
And that terrified her into trembling.
How could she love and hate someone with the same amount of passion coursing through her? She was shaking. Livid. Upset. Fucking devastated to be honest.
All this time and she’d been unaware of who she was. The real her.
“I can’t wrap my head around this. This isn’t real. It doesn’t make sense why you wouldn’t tell me this huge-fucking-thing?”
“Paige…” he came forward, just about as gently if approaching a wild animal. “Let me take you home, we can talk properly there. I’m sorry he ambushed you, baby. So fucking sorry for that.”
“Sorry?” She narrowed her eyes. “You’re sorry now, Reaper? Oh. My. Fucking. God. My father is the least of my worries right now. H-how…god.. how did I even forget any of this—forget you?” Pain sliced and diced her; tears welled in her eyes and she felt the urge to scream and never stop. “No! Don’t try to hold me, you don’t get to hold me, you’ve deceived me for god knows how long, Reaper. I can’t—I can’t…”
His features darkened but it wasn’t with anger and he grabbed her hand, stalling her from running away.
“This doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense.”
“I’m sorry…”
The dry rattle of his voice quaked all her internal organs out of order. Shook them with a kind of upset that’s a thousand percent pure gut-twisting pain. Paige’s hand tensed in the clasp of his as she tried and failed to tug free—so much stronger, it was Reaper who let her hand go, reluctantly. The pain on his face mirrored her own but she was selfishly only thinking of what was buzzing in her own head, her own screaming thoughts.
“How… how…”
“I don’t know, baby. I’ve asked myself that every day. Just please know there’s reasons, okay? I had good fucking reasons.”
Oh. God. Reality crash landed and Paige pushed herself off the wall. “I’m gonna be sick.”
She only just made it to the bathroom before her knees met the tiled floor next to the toilet bowl and she lost the contents of her stomach along with every memory and emotion she’d ever felt in the last four years.
Aware he’d followed, she couldn’t do anything but retch. While her stomach emptied, his chest rose and fell against her back as he held her, a comfort and a torment combined. She felt each of his breaths as though they came from her own staggered lungs.
I love him too. Was her underline thought.
Not a leftover sentiment from the past, though she had no memories to speak of, she felt it was true in her heart as hurt as she was, her love right now wasn’t a fabrication.
I love him here and now. The Paige I am now.
His pain and his hope clung to her in a way that would never be washed off.
The tears and anguish kept on falling.
She felt so fucking lost, like she’d been put into a spin dryer and set on her feet to walk a straight line.
Amnesia. Married. Husband. Wife.
It all whirled making one giant noise in the back of her skull and through it all Reaper stroked her back, held his presence in check, rasping words of love she tried to block out.
Questions upon questions stood in front of her like a wall of soldiers too tall for her to climb over, and the man crouching at her back was the only one who had all the answers.
* * *
Then
For five days Jud sat by Paige’s bedside, holding her hand, willing her to open her eyes. Praying to any god to bring his heart and soul back. He watched the machines monitoring her vitals and willed her to wake up, to come back to him.
And on the sixth day she did.
“Jud-son?” Was the first croaked word out of her dry lips. Jud, in the midst of a disturbed nap jumped out of the hard-plastic chair he’d dragged over to her bedside and leaned over her.
“I’m here, bug.” Emotion clawed at his throat watching her eyes flicker open and focus on his face. There she was, still so swollen and bruised, but beautiful.
Relief slammed hard into him.
Though the doctors told him she was stable and just as soon as her brain swelling reduced she would wake up, he hadn’t believed them—doctors lied, people lied, he trusted his own instincts and holding Paige’s hand hour after hour was the only thing keeping him going. “Baby, I missed you, don’t try to move, just lie still, you’re okay.”
“Judson… what…happened? Where am I?” With a catheter in the fine vein of her hand she raised it from the bed and Jud took hold of her delicate fingers immediately, bringing them to his mouth. “Why am I here? Did I have the baby?”
Oh, fucking hell. His heart squeezed until he felt like he could vomit.
For five days he’d concentrated solely on Paige, willing her back to life, using all his focus and sheer mental energy on her while he ignored his crushing grief.
Now it poured down over his head almost drowning him because for these few minutes she was oblivious to that pain and he wanted to protect her at all costs.
“Jud?” Sleepy, confused eyes looked up at him and nothing felt right on his tongue. What could he tell her to lessen the blow? Her hands crept down to her belly and that’s when her brow folded in. “Judson? Did I have the baby early?”
Sitting on the side of the bed he took both of her hands and squeezed her fingers gently. “I need you to be so brave, ladybug, because I have to tell you something.”
She visibly paled and he hated himself.
He hated her whole fucking family, but he hated himself most of all for not protecting those he cherished.
He’d known Sony was unhinged, why the fuck didn’t he take Paige far away from them?
She began to shake her head, her fingers clenched and trembled, her breathing increased making the monitor attached to her pulse start to beep. “Jud, don’t. Don’t say it. Please.” Her eyes filled to the brim; fat tears fell over her lashes. “Judson, no.”
“I’m so sorry, my love. So fucking sorry, our little one is gone.”
Her scream would stay with Jud until the day he took his last breath. It reached into his chest and fucking broke him open.
She was inconsolable. Her sobs were heart-breaking, they completely shredded his soul when he was unable to give her any peace and it brought nurses running into her room and no matter how tight he cuddled her, she couldn’t calm, so they gave her a strong sedative that put her to sleep.
He could only think it was a relief for her to be oblivious to pain for a while as he sagged into the chair by her bed and held her hand. Waiting.
He waited hours and hours and when she woke up for a second time, she blinked and asked, “Who are you?”
It was the single most crushing question of his life.
He was never the same.
Now
Paige Renner was never going to be someone he’d ever walk away from.
She’s the once in a lifetime kind of woman a man would kill to keep.
How true that was. Then and now.
He hated that saying.
Thinking in terms of before and after, fucking hated it more than ever but that was his reality.
He loved his wife and he loved his girlfriend.
He saw glimpses of his Paige from day one, the carefree daredevil, the girl who laughed and loved and cared for everyone, even people who didn’t deserve it. He saw glimpses of his wife every day and he fell so hard every fucking day for the girl who didn’t know him.
Crouching partway in the bathroom doorway, Reaper rested his hanging hands over his knees and turned his head to the left where Paige was sitting on the lone bathmat opposite the toilet. She’d been emptying her stomach for five minutes, she’d pushed him away, refusing his help when he tried to cradle her up. It hurt mor
e than anything else.
Now there was just silence between them.
Paige glancing over now and then like she didn’t recognize him all over again.
Only this time she knew him, but she didn’t trust him.
Her fucking father. He’d always hated that guy, from day one he saw clearly how he treated Paige. A pedestal wasn’t good enough for his queen and yet her family never recognized how precious she was. He’d hated them all for that very fact, but for Sargent to stroll in and decimate their whole fucking life, he wanted to put a bullet in the guy’s head.
Reaper saw that gloating look in the old man’s eyes, he’d taken great pleasure in hurting Paige just to dig at him, like breaking her was a means to an end.
He figured it wasn’t the last he’d see of him, but he had no special fucks to give on the matter.
The only one he cared about was currently curled into her knees on the bathroom floor. His heart was bleeding out not able to touch her.
“Paige.” She looked up. Dark circles had gathered under her eyes.
Goddamn her father. She was so happy yesterday, an hour ago. Every fucking day of the last four years he’d tread on eggshells, fearful of her memories returning and her reacting in the same terrifying way. He’d do anything so his Paige wouldn’t feel that crushing blow again knowing their baby was gone. If it meant she didn’t remember him? It was the price he’d paid with his heart and blood. He’d missed her until he was mad with it.
He’d pay as much as he needed to in order to protect his wife, even sacrifice his own happiness.
There was no ceiling on what he wouldn’t do for her.
With so much to explain, he couldn’t find a start to the words.
“Let me take you home, baby.”
“Is this all a joke?”
“No, bug.”
She visibly shuddered. “Don’t… please don’t call me that. It’s your wife’s. I can’t hear it, not now.”
He couldn’t hide his flinch. “You’re my wife.”
“Ten minutes ago I was just Paige. I’m still trying to process, okay?”
For a man who had been more than persevering over the years he suddenly lost all of it because the need to stride across the floor and pick her up was so fucking strong he had to force himself to stay right there and give her the time she needed.
He saw her glance at his ring he was rolling around his finger and then down to her own bare hand. That one was easy enough to answer and he cleared his throat. “I took off your ring before you woke up because I couldn’t stand seeing it covered in your blood. After your…episode, I held onto it until you wanted it back again.”
“Episode?”
He nodded. That was a minefield all on its own he didn’t want to get into for fear of putting her right back to square one.
“From the look on your face I don’t want to know what happened do I?”
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know, bu—Paige.” He’d been so careful never to use her pet name but now he was allowed to, the fucking thing was dangling off the end of his tongue. She’d been ladybug to him from the first hello, seeing her in those red and black spotted tights.
“It was the TV interview that made dad come, wasn’t it?” She asked out of the blue.
She climbed to her feet, rinsed her mouth and he watched her wash her hands.
“Yeah, he didn’t know where you were until now, I made sure of it.”
“I guess I know now why you didn’t want me to do it. You didn’t want me to find out.” Her tone was flat. He didn’t fucking like it one bit. She always had sunshine in her voice, it kept his own happiness simmering.
Reaper frowned. “It wasn’t like that, baby.”
His heart struck up a rapid beat when she walked towards him, he reached out a hand and flinched when she pulled it out of distance, wrapping both arms around her stomach.
It was as bad as he figured it would be and she didn’t even know all of their past yet.
Shit would only get worse.
Because he needed something to do before his fucking head exploded he recounted those days in the hospital through a tight voice-box. “I came every day in hopes you’d get your memory back, waiting in the hallway, praying every second you’d ask for me. The doctors said it happened sometimes, that the brain had withstood such a trauma that it compartmentalized so it could go on functioning. Dissociative amnesia. That’s what you did, Paige, you locked everything away.” You locked me away.
“W-what was so traumatic about a car accident that I’d forget I was married for Pete’s sake?”
When he searched for the right words, pressing his lips into a tight line, Paige narrowed her eyes, almost as if she had remnants of her old self when she’d always known when he was withholding something from her. “Oh, I get it, you don’t want to tell me.” She snapped. And just like that she slammed the bathroom door in his face, and he heard her gently crying.
His guts ripped out when he heard the lock engage. Shoulders dropped and he really fucking thought about knocking the thing down. Being locked out from her left him unstable at best.
But being an unbearable fucker was the last thing she needed.
“God, Paige. Open up, baby. I’m just trying not to overwhelm you with all the information at once.”
“I’m—I’m.” Hic. Hic. “I’m already overwhelmed. I don’t think I can get any more overwhelmed.”
Her sobs killed him.
“Please open the door, ladybug. You can trust me, I swear it.” Swallowing his panic, he rested his forehead to the white paneling.
“I don’t know if I can. You kept things from me. Important things.”
“You can, baby. I’m your Judson, remember?”
“I don’t remember anything, that’s just it! You were the one person who should have told me everything, no matter what.”
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“Yeah, now that you’ve been caught out. It’s too late.”
Reaper growled and pressed his hand to the door; she was only on the other side and yet he felt fucking miles from her. “I had reasons, bug. Important fucking reasons. Open the door and let’s talk about it.”
She swung the door open suddenly, jarring him back a step, and she pushed past him storming into the bare living room, she looked around like she’d forgotten this wasn’t her home anymore.
“I need—I think…”
“No.” he growled, and he went against his instincts to give her space and took her in his arms, she stood like a block of ice. “You are not leaving me, baby.”
There was a new sense Reaper was rolling the dice once more to save his life.
“I think I need some time alone.” She murmured, cracking his heart.
“Don’t leave me, baby. Please, don’t leave me again.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“Nothing prepared me for being a Mrs.” - Paige
Paige stared long and hard at the woman in the ceiling high mirror in Winter’s bathroom until her eyes stung and felt no different though everything had changed tonight.
She was no longer the woman she thought.
She was someone else.
Someone else to Reaper.
Wife.
He was her husband and had been her husband from the day she met him.
The second time, she meant. God, this was confusing and making her brain pulse.
It didn’t seem real no matter what avenue her brain took to try and understand.
Like she’d fallen asleep in front of the TV and was having the most vivid, unreal dream of her life.
It certainly wasn’t a delusion.
Nothing in her imagination could conjure something this gut churning.
She wondered what married Paige had been like. Was she so very different to the woman she was looking at? As hard as she searched, those answers wouldn’t come.
She’d turned up at Winter’s house a few hours ago and burst into tea
rs the moment her best friend opened the door. She’d about fallen into Winter’s arms and cried out the whole sorry tale. Her head was far too busy to have to look at Reaper at home while she sorted through everything. He’d watched her go, even though she saw it killed him, he’d stood at the curb next to her car and stayed there until she drove down the street, tears marring her vision.
God, she missed him already. Ached for the security of his arms, for him to make it better.
Sadness wrapped around her. A shroud of doubts plaguing her forgetful brain.
How could he have seen her every day for four years and never once tried to tell her who she was? Who she was to him? He’d made her think he’d loved another woman.
Had it been easy for him? Agony? A game?
She was colored in confusion and questions. Only his reaction made her feel as though Reaper had suffered, and she hurt all the more because of that.
At least his weird routine of being at the diner every day made some sense now.
She felt a wash of cold sickness recalling his face when he’d known she was dating.
His jealousy and forceful removal of those men.
Her belly twitched. Oh, god. She’d gone on dates with other men.
Now she was remembering his facial expressions, how he appeared devastated sometimes and other times blank like he was holding all the words inside while he twirled his wedding band.
Paige sighed and stared at herself, trying to place herself in another life with Reaper.
“Remember something, you idiot.” She taunted her image, smacking fingers into her skull as if she could knock memories free.
With so many questions swimming through her head and so very little answers, Paige felt like a lunatic raving to herself in the bathroom.
She shook her head, shucked off her clothes and climbed into the shower, where she hoped all thoughts for a few minutes would wither away because she had no answers, the only man who did was reluctant to tell her anything.
And she had to wonder why.