Page 28 of Haunted

“Luca! No! Oh, God, please don’t hurt me! NOO! Luca!”

“Goddammit,” I bellow. “Tell me where you are!”

“You don’t have to do this.” She’s crying now with hiccupping sobs, and it’s just as crushing. “No, no. Don’t do this. Please, oh, God, Luca, please!”

Her pleas pierce my ears and slice through my heart, leaving the life-giving organ dead. It still beats, but it’s pointless. I come to a stop and drop to my knees when I realize Jules isn’t screaming for me to save her, she’s crying for me to not hurt her.

Pain, brutal and unforgiving, has me falling to my hands. Remorse, shame, guilt, and grief paralyze me in my hunched position.

Jules isn’t with me right now, but her memories of that day are. The pain she went through, the terror of the unknown, and the despair of being alone. All that angst because of me. I put her through those things. I made her feel helpless and afraid.

I may not have access to my own memories of that day, but having Jules’s are enough to know they’ll haunt me for the rest of my life.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” I whisper to no one.

10

JULES

ISIT STIFFLY IN THE hospital bed, the blanket pulled up to just below my chin, and warily watch the man seated in a chair close by. His eyes are just as cautious. My body is poised and ready to jump out of bed if I feel threatened. I’m still debating if I alreadydofeel threatened. His eyes turn watchful, as if he’s trying to climb inside my mind to see what’s within. He wouldn’t find much, as there’s just a bunch of darkness, except for a few fuzzy clips that I’m not even sure are real.

I don’t know who the man is, except what he’s told me. He says we’re married, that we met a little over seven years ago, fell in love, and were married only weeks later. I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know him, but even so, he seems familiar.

My brain is a jumbled mess. I remember my parents and my little sister. I remember my childhood and my teen years. I was a lonely child. Not because my parents kept me sheltered, but because I was just so shy. I met my best and only friend when I was eight. I remember her dying at fifteen in a car accident,along with her parents. After Melanie died, I never made any more friends. By then, my sister, Teresa, was four years old, and it was her that I opted to play with, even though she was just a toddler. I remember graduating high school and being excited about going to Westerly to get my degree in interior design, something that I had dreamed about for years.

According to the doctor and my last memories, that was almost eight years ago, and seven of those years I was in a coma. I don’t remember the five or so months prior to the accident. I get little splotchy glimpses, but they’re too faint for me to understand the meaning of them. I don’t know if it’s because they aren’t really memories, or if they are, it’s been so long since they happened that they’re fading away. I’m too scared to wish them back, but I’m also curious about them. The doctor informed me I may never remember, or they could all rush back at any minute. I’m not sure which one I want to happen more.

I think back to when I woke a week ago. At first, I was so disoriented that all I could do was focus on the white ceiling. I had no idea who I was or where I was. My mind was a complete blank. I don’t know how long I stared at the ceiling, but something caught my eye. When I looked over and saw a man standing by my bed, unsurmountable fear slammed inside me. I didn’t understand why, but the strange man by my bed, staring at me in surprise, terrified me.

I screamed and screamed until my voice was hoarse and the doctor shot something in my IV that made me sleepy. I needed him away from me. I needed to feel safe again, and he was anything but safe. I was confused, but I justknewthe man was going to hurt me.

The doctor said I slept for thirty-six hours after that, and when I woke up, the man was gone. A day later, he was back, except he looked different. Or rather, his hair wasdifferent. I still felt the fear, but it wasn’t the same as before. This fear was from the unknown. I didn’t know the man, but I felt like Ishouldknow him.

He looked scared too as he watched me with his strange blue eyes. They were a bright, clear blue, with a darker blue ring around the outside edges. He watched me like he was expecting something. Like hefearedsomething.

When he opened his mouth to talk, I opened mine to scream, then slammed it shut when he quietly said the word “Jules” reverently. I knew the name. It wasmyname. That was when memories of the past started filtering through my mind. Not my past with the man, but before him.

He stood and stared at me as I processed the memories flooding in. When my eyes focused back on his, I noticed a nurse standing beside him, watching me with worried eyes.

The man cleared his throat. My body tensed, and he asked with a hoarse voice, “Do you know who I am?”

I wracked my brain, searching through all the memories that just crowded inside me, but no matter how much I scanned them, none held him.

I shook my head.

Something darkened the man’s eyes, and the look shot a shiver down my spine. Before I could show my fear, the nurse walked forward to check my vital signs. As she did so, the man introduced himself as Theo.

“I’m your husband.”

Those words had the monitor going haywire because they frightened me. There was no way this man, a man I had never seen before, was my husband. There was no way I would forget something like that.

“No!” I yelled.

Pain shot through my temple, and I screamed with the forceof it. I wanted him to leave, so I screamed at him to do so. Thankfully he did, but I saw the confusion on his face before he turned away.

A day later, he came back, carrying a marriage certificate with both our names on it. For some reason, seeing those names on that paper, bonding us legally together, didn’t feel right. It hurt me to see it. I felt so lost and alone, despite the fact that I was apparently married, and my husband was right there beside me, looking at me with an emotion I couldn’t place.

That was three days ago, and each day he’s come back. He tells me stuff we’ve done, about the short time we were together. He’s also talked about the attack that resulted in my coma due to a brain injury.

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