Remi
For the next two hours, I aimlessly drove around the city. Without my phone or my purse, the dwindling gas tank became more threatening by the minute. I had nowhere to go though.
Mark and Aaron would be at home. I wasn’t sure what their roles had been in this charade, mastermind or puppet. Though, in a lot of ways, what they had done was even worse than Bowen. They hadn’t left me. They’d stayed, day after day, lying directly to my face. Filling my head with detailed stories of the eleven months I’d lost that couldn’t possibly have been true. I’d point-blank asked them if I’d had a boyfriend. Dated anyone. Slept with someone. No, no, and no were always their answers.
Lies, lies, and more lies.
I considered going to The Wave, but my dad was just as culpable. He wouldn’t be there, but if I knew him at all, it would be the first place he’d look. My stomach wrenched as I thought back on his going-away party. The way he’d hugged Bowen and fumbled through a phony introduction. He’d always been shit at lying. Honestly, not seeing through it earlier was nothing more than a testament to how much I trusted him.
Betrayed and played a fool by my own fucking father. Yeah. That cut deep.
Where did this leave me now? Bowen had once told me that his life had been a maze of tragedy in which he was still searching for a way out. I had no idea I was trapped in the maze right alongside him. Only I’d been blindfolded and directed by an unreliable narrator. I’d spent the last eight months walking in a circle, my footsteps sliding into those of a woman who had forged the same path once before. A woman I didn’t even know.
Bowen called her Sally. No doubt a nod to my favorite movie—yet another flashing neon sign I’d missed. But whoever she was, I hated her with every fiber of my being. Because the only people who had ever loved me had been so desperate to get rid of her that they’d been willing to betray me in the process.
A sob tore from my throat.
God, I really could have used a mom right about then. Someone, anyone who cared about me enough to help me sort through the puzzle pieces in my head and make sense of the dumpster fire that was my life. There was only one person I could think of who would even be willing to take on a task like that. She was kind, caring, and attentive. Everything I’d wished my own mother had been. I didn’t know her as well as I would’ve liked and hated to burden her with my chaos, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt she would never turn me away.
Endless tears dripped from my chin as I marched into Atlanta Physical Therapy.
“Remi?” John called from the mats, where he was working with a patient.
At the sound of my name, Linda spun around, a warm smile already stretching her mouth. It vanished the moment our eyes met. Her face paled, and with hurried steps, she started my way.
I didn’t have to say a word. As soon as she got close enough, she stretched her arms wide, welcoming me in—an invitation I did not refuse. I collided into her with a desperate force, and she wrapped me up so tight and secure that her embrace momentarily warded off the chill in my bones.
“What happened?” she whispered into my hair. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I replied on a broken cry.
Her tall body slumped. “Shhh, it’s okay. You are now.” Releasing me with one arm, she tucked me into her side and guided me into one of the consultation rooms.
She dragged the two chairs across from the desk together and urged me to sit. Never releasing my hand, she sank down beside me and waited patiently as the emotions ebbed from my body. Damn, I wasn’t usually such a crier, but I guessed realizing my life was a fraud deserved a mental breakdown or ten.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked. “Or do you just need someone to be here for you?”
“Both,” I croaked.
She nodded and gave my hand a squeeze. “Okay then. Whenever you’re ready. I’m right here.”
I filled my lungs with a deep breath and tried to collect myself. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know where else to go.”
“No. No. You came to the right place.”
I offered her a wholly sad smile. “It’s just… Everything is so messed up. Not even twenty-four hours ago, I was the happiest I’ve ever been. And now, I don’t even know who I am.”
Her neatly sculpted eyebrows drew together. “What changed?”
I barked a humorless laugh. “Everything. Imagine finding out you’re a pawn in a game you didn’t even know you were playing. A game created and executed by the people who supposedly loved you the most.”
She slanted her head in silent confusion. “How so?”
I sighed. “The issues with my arms that brought me to physical therapy weren’t the only injuries I sustained in the crash. I have a brain injury and lost about eleven months of memories that still haven’t come back to me. It’s not something I usually brag about. Honestly, I didn’t even think about it very often. I had two amazing friends who’d filled me in on everything. Or so I’d thought. This morning, I discovered that every word out of their mouths had been fabricated bullshit.” My voice broke. “I had a whole life during those eleven months that they hid from me.”
She sucked in sharply and dropped my hand.
I dropped my gaze to my lap. While I knew good and well that none of it was my fault, it was still embarrassing to admit I’d been so grossly played. So gullible.
But I needed someone to hear it.
Someone to tell me I wasn’t overreacting.
Someone to objectively help me sort through the deception.
“That’s not even the worst of it,” I continued. “Apparently, in that time, I had been kidnapped and God only knows what else because in the months after I came back, I tried to kill myself.”
“Remi,” she whispered.
I lifted my wrists in her direction. “Multiple times, Linda.” Fueled by their deceit and unable to sit still for a second longer, I surged to my feet and began pacing the small office. “And nobody, not even my own father, thought it was worth mentioning to me. And even knowing all of that, I still feel like I’ve been filleted open because, as it turns out, the man I’ve spent the last two months falling in love with was actually my fiancé who left me without so much as a goodbye.” I slapped my hands against my thighs, my frustration growing by the second. “So now, here I am, more lost and confused than ever. I can’t even go home. I have no idea what the truth is or even who I can trust anymore.”
Linda shot to her feet. “Remi, stop.”
I couldn’t stop. I was a pendulum of heartbreak, every swing more volatile than the last.
As I continued to pace, grief joined the tornado of emotions roaring inside me. “The real kicker is that I can’t imagine a day when I won’t love him. But knowing he abandoned me, I can’t imagine a future with him anymore, either.”
Suddenly, she stepped in front of me, halting my frenzy. Her voice was firm but compassionate as she all but cooed, “Remi, honey. I need you to sit down.”
I hesitated for a beat. I’d come for advice, but I wasn’t quite ready to hand over the reins to thought and reason yet.
Her pretty face grew softer. “I just need your full attention for a second.”