Page 8 of The Reaper

But he noticed something else. She was afraid.

And it hurt him. He didn’t want her to feel afraid. He wanted to fix it for her. He hoped to fuck he wasn’t the reason she was afraid.

He took a breath and changed tactics. “How the fuck am I lucky enough to have you as my girlfriend?”

She smiled gently, but didn’t say anything. Why was she being so damn cagey?

“Why can’t I remember? I surely would have remembered you.”

She pursed her lips and replied quickly, “You have amnesia. You had a very bad head injury. They are keeping you here at Eastward-”

“I do remember you,” he said simply.

She paused, wide eyed. “Really? What-”

“I remember you finding me, I remember seeing your face, hovering over me, you looked… terrified. You said you were my girlfriend. You said your name was Hannah. I do remember that.” He was speaking quietly now.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m sure we have been here before, we’ve been in a bedroom, together, alone, before, right? Not just here, as in this hospital room, but together, alone, this… us-” He brought up a hand and gesticulated between them. She smiled again. Yes, he felt something between them. It was the one true thing in this maelstrom of a mess he’d found himself in.

“Us,” she repeated.

He simply nodded.

“I think I can remember… a moment…” he looked at her, unsure. “Perhaps, a feeling, of being with you…” He wasn’t sure he could articulate his erotic flashback yet. He wasn’t sure he could do it without getting a raging hard on at best, and at worst, losing his load in whatever hospital gown he had on down there. Neither were appropriate for this first, but not first, meeting with his beautiful, glowing girlfriend. His girlfriend? It felt… too good to be true.

She nodded though, unaware of where his thoughts had gone. Right in the dirty gutter.

“I don’t remember anything else though,” he sighed. “How in the hell did I get caught up in all of this?” He knew he sounded defeated, his voice was a mere whisper. His eyes moved to the window and she looked, too.

“Did they catch the people who did this?” he asked. “I’m guessing it was a mugging, or a car accident or something?”

She frowned. “No, nobody knows who did this… everyone was hoping you would know.” She said it was a smile, she tried to joke. It echoed in the silence that followed. He felt the hairs on his neck rise. Something was off.

“Hmm,” he growled. “Why don’t you know what happened? I mean, we’re together, right? We sleep together in the same bed, live in the same house-”

She opened her mouth to speak.

He blinked. “We don’t. We don’t live together, do we?”

She pursed her lips and shook her head. She looked down, plucked at the blankets a little.

What a punch in the gut. His visions of them pottering about together in a cosy flat had scrunched up in his face. Maybe this was the missing piece, the thing she was hiding from him, why it felt like she was lying. He hadn’t really been around all that much. Really, it didn’t sound like they had been boyfriend and girlfriend, a committed, serious relationship. It sounded like they’d been casual, it sounded like he’d been distant, thoughtless, selfish. He didn’t like that. That’s why he felt he could do better, that it was time for a change, he didn’t like this feeling, he was beginning to realise, and he wanted to change it.

She cleared her throat. “You worked a lot, you have your own place. I don't know why, I suppose we haven't got that far yet.”

He frowned. “Frankly, I’m confused why I haven’t put a ring on your finger, yet, Hannah, why the fuck don’t we sleep in the same bed each and every night?”

Her eyes went wide, she wasn’t expecting that. “We were just happy seeing each other occasionally-”

“How often, like a few times a week?”

“Er… sometimes.”

“Fuck’s sake,” he muttered bitterly.

She grimaced. “I’m sorry, I-”

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