Page 93 of Amnesia

I shrank away from the memory. “I don’t know who it was… It wasn’t clear in my memory.”

Eddie reached up, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “What happened in your memory?”

I shook my head. “I want to know why you suddenly don’t think I’m Sadie.”

“I thought you were for a long time. But there are things, details that prove you aren’t her.”

“What details?” I pressed.

“Sadie wasn’t allergic to shellfish,”

“Adults can develop allergies,” I argued.

“She hated when it rained. She was scared of storms.”

“After being missing for eleven years, I have worse things to be afraid of than a little rain.”

Eddie frowned. “You aren’t her.”

“If you’re so sure, why didn’t you tell me once you decided I wasn’t your long-lost love?”

He laughed. “Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.” His voice was bitter and so was the way he dropped my hand and stood.

“What good would it have done?” He raged. “You were already dealing with enough. You lost everything. You were in a coma, confused, scared. Telling you this horrible story only would have added to it. It would have messed with your mind. Everyone already thought I was crazy for insisting you were Sadie. Then you had the allergic reaction, and someone’s trying to kill you. Seemed like you had enough going on without me putting more on your plate. I was trying to protect you.”

“Were you disappointed?” I asked, standing near his back.

“What?” He flew around, his eyes still glimmering with anger.

I stepped closer, tilted my head back. “Were you disappointed when you realized I wasn’t Sadie?”

Eddie’s eyes softened. “Disappointed I still didn’t know what happened to her.” His fingertips drifted over my cheek. “But never disappointed in you. You mean so much to me.”

I touched his hand, flattening it over the side of my face with mine. “You really don’t think I’m her?” His reasons hadn’t been enough to convince me.

He took his time, really thinking, really weighing all the moments we had the past few months. I knew he was remembering her as a girl, really trying to understand.

“I don’t know anymore,” he finally admitted.

My eyes fell. Eddie gently tugged me into his embrace. My arms wound around his middle as he tucked me close. We stood there on the bank of the lake, in the too-tall grass, with the wind whipping around us. He said nothing, and neither did I.

I didn’t know what was going to happen next or how to even prove I was the girl who’d disappeared eleven years ago.

Eddie shifted, his chin dropping down beside my ear. With his arms still around me, the low tone of his voice drifted against my hair. “It doesn’t matter, Am.”

I tilted my head, not lifting it off his chest. “What doesn’t?”

“If you’re Sadie or not. It doesn’t change the way I feel about you.”

I pulled back. Using his hands, Eddie pushed the hair out of my face and stared down. “How do you feel about me?”

“I love you.”

My lips parted on a tiny gasp. “No one’s ever said that to me before.”

“That you can remember,” he teased.

“No,” I said, firm, somehow knowing this to be true. (Yes, I knew it made no sense. I had two parents who loved me.) “You’re my first.”

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