Page 130 of Amnesty

He promised I was it for him. I believed him.

I wouldn’t be human, though, if the sight of his first love clinging to him, crying, didn’t chip away at the confidence I felt. This situation was all kinds of fucked up.

The things Sadie said to me would likely haunt me forever.

She was crazy.No.She wasn’t crazy. Crazy (to me) required a lack of rationale. A lack of empathy and understanding.

Sadie had empathy. Mostly for herself and what she lost, but for Eddie, too. I knew she loved him. Hell, maybe it was that love that kept her from completely losing it all these years. Maybe that’s why she clung to him so hard now. The thought was so sad tears sprang to my already blurry eyes.

She also understood that years of her life were stolen from her. There were moments of clarity in her eyes when she realized what she’d lost, what she would never get back.

No, Sadie wasn’t crazy. She was broken. Probably shattered.

Left staring down at her shattered pieces with no idea how to put herself back together. She’d been vulnerable, and that made her susceptible to brainwashing. She was convinced the only thing left for her was to banish me back to Rumor Island and pretend none of this ever happened.

The mental abuse she endured quite possibly outweighed the physical. After all, physical wounds heal over… but the mental abuse?

It echoes inside your skin forever.

I was sorry for the way she hated me. I even understood it. Hell, in her position, I’d hate me, too. To her, I was nothing but a replacement. I escaped that island without looking back. I left her there to rot alone. To wonder. To be taunted about how I took her name. Her love. Her family and her life.

My amnesia was a get out of jail free card… but what she didn’t understand was nothing in life came free.

I watched just yards away as Eddie wrapped her up tightly, making sure she was completely against his chest. His hand caressed the back of her head, sliding down the length of her long hair.

I felt I was being gutted with a knife.

Oh wait, that sort of already happened. That probably explained that pain.

Regardless, it hurt.

Though he held her, his eyes stared in mine. I was afraid to yell to him. Afraid to tell him what really happened and plead my case. She would lose her mind again. I had no idea what she would do. I didn’t think she would hurt Eddie. But I wasn’t willing to take the chance.

After all, it was two against one.

I knew without looking exactly wherehelay. I knew he wasn’t dead. The air still crackled with his sick and twisted energy. Just his presence made me feel weak. Made me feel scared and hopeless. How long did I spend feeling that way?

Long enough to crave death.

I was injured and bleeding. My body felt frail, perhaps my mind even frailer. If Sadie decided Eddie was somehow on my side, she could turn on him, and she would have help. I knew better than most people the kind of damage that man could cause.

Instead of saying anything, I sagged in the doorway, hand pressed against my side as blood slowly oozed between my fingers. I was getting lightheaded, woozy, and foggy. Even through it, though, I could hear her. Sadie poured out her twisted sense of truth, telling him I was playing him from the start. Telling him my amnesia had only been a game.

I asked him with my eyes, with no words, only with my heart.

Know me.

Know me without knowing, without hearing.

Know my heart.

“Where are you hurt?” Eddie asked Sadie, stroking her hair again. A part of my heart deflated.Everything inside me hurts.

“I’m not,” Sadie answered, pulling back. His eyes shifted away from me, and I felt cold the instant they were gone. “I made it out here to you before she could do anything.”

“Why is Amnesia bleeding?” he asked, keeping his voice gentle.

I perked up with renewed interest.

---