Page 67 of What Doesn't Kill Us

“I tried to.”

Her jaw clenches, and I see anger cross her features before she quickly buries it. She inhales sharply through her nose, then gives me a curt nod. “I appreciate you being honest with me. I understand.”

I reach out and grab her hand, pulling it onto my lap and holding it between both of mine. “No, Toni. You don’t understand. And I don’t know if me explaining it will make you understand or not, but I’m going to try.”

Her eyes are wide, and she looks nervous, but finally, she responds, “Okay. I’m listening.”

I settle back against the headboard, keeping her hand between mine as I speak. “When you were first injured, I went out of my mind. Of course, the only one who knew the complete story of our relationship was Matt, and even though he watched me like a hawk, sometimes things would get out of hand too quickly for him to contain. You had a vague idea of who I was, and we planted as much benign information as we could to keep you pacified, but it was a constant struggle to keep the lines clear.”

“I tried my best to toe the line between what I wanted to do and what the doctor said was best for you, but now and then, things would become too much, and I would completely lose it. There was one time, after a certain instance of complete insanity, that Matt finally cornered me and mentioned the idea of hypnosis. At first, I was completely against it, thinking it was stupid. I thought I could figure it out and keep the rage down—and the hurt and the fear—but I had to accept I couldn’t. My entire life, they knew me as the man who could control everything, but being unable to control what was going on with you ate me alive. I was the Beast, but I was more like the Beast on steroids, and it was not pretty. To make it even worse, this behavior from me was also dangerous and confusing for you, and that’s what finally made me change my mind.”

She reached her hand out, resting it on top of mine. “Matt mentioned the hypnosis when I first got my memory back, but he didn’t go into any detail. But it helped you forget us?”

“I know it sounds silly, and I thought it was completely ludicrous, and that’s probably why it took a few times before it worked. It wasn’t a clear cutoff or anything; it mostly took the edge off the overwhelming feelings I had for you that needed to be kept at bay for fear of permanently altering your memories. And even then, it only worked to a point. My pull to you was so strong that even after they used hypnosis to make me believe you were nothing more than a pain-in-my-ass coworker who I was insanely attracted to, I still had moments where I would kind of pop back into my normal overbearing, possessive, jackass self.”

“Matt literally had to put trackers in my car, in my clothing because he couldn’t trust me to behave myself. I think if he could’ve micro-chipped me like a dog, he would have done so because keeping track of me ended up being a full-time job for him. And, of course, the more time that went on, the more often I slipped. It was like the bones of the hypnosis were still there, keeping me upright, but eventually, small bits of truth sneak through, sending me into a tailspin.”

She looks up at me, and then glances away, her lips pressed together in a thin line. I can tell she wants to ask me something, so I squeeze her hand and say, “Ask me whatever you want, Toni. I’ll tell you anything. Even things I know might hurt you in the moment. I won’t keep anything from you.”

“Did I do something?”

“What do you mean ‘did you do something’?”

She shrugs, attempting to pull her hand from mine, but I hold it tighter, not allowing her to pull away. “Was it something I did that made you want someone else?”

I laugh, and she gives me a dirty look. “Is that funny? Do you think you fucking other women is funny?”

She tries to pull away again, but this time, I grab her by both her wrists, pulling her so she’s leaned into me as I reply, “No, baby girl. What’s funny is that you think that I just went out and fucked other women when you were injured and needed me.”

“You said you tried to have other women?”

“I said that, but it’s not as simple as that. They had to use hypnosis to get me to forget about our intimate relationship and the depth of my feelings for you. But even after that, I still had a calling to you. Even though, in my brain, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why, because you were a mouthy pain in my fucking ass, and I constantly wanted to throttle you. Or, at least, throttle you while fucking the shit out of you. So, to take the edge off of all that, Tony decided we would go on a double date. It was fucking painful.”

“Double dates usually are painful, regardless of whether you have a super-secret girlfriend with amnesia or not.”

“That’s fair. He made it even more painful because he intentionally set me up with a woman I was typically attracted to, but also a woman who would have no problem with just getting into bed with me. Which, under normal circumstances, would be great, but I only became increasingly frustrated because I wasn’t interested, and in my head, I didn’t know why. Of course, Tony didn’t make it any easier on me because he thought it was hilarious. And Matt, who knew what was going on but couldn’t explain why, would pat me on the back and tell me I’d figure it out eventually when the time is right.”

She gives me a small smile, relaxing and shifting closer. “So, you’re saying nothing happened?”

“I’ll be completely honest and tell you exactly what happened. She attempted to put her lips on me, and I made a face that she found incredibly offensive, so she slapped me and left.”

Now she laughs. “She slapped you?”

“Right across the face. It was a good hit, too.”

“Well, I guess it serves you right, then.”

“I figured the same, but that slap worked me up quickly, and I started right back, asking questions. Tony didn’t have any answers, and once Matt gets a job in his head, you can forget him going back on the deal.”

“At what point did they undo this hypnosis?”

“It wasn’t so much an undoing, but after you forced Matt to arrest me, things changed rapidly. Matt wasn’t fully aware that I had gone off the rails until you showed up that last time and strong-armed him into taking you to me. After you left with Tony and he cuffed and stuffed me like the good friend he is, we had a heart-to-heart on the side of the road, and he realized I was slowly unraveling. At first, he was going to have it undone entirely, but after speaking to the hypnotherapist, they waited to see if it would wear off on its own—which it did. But by then, I was locked up with Agatha, and there wasn’t anything I could do with the recent revelations. I was impressed with myself on how many old memories I could incorporate into our new dalliances, though.”

She beams at me. “I didn’t know at least, not that I was fully aware of, but as soon as it all came back to me, and my old and new memories meshed back together, I saw the overlap. And I was shocked.”

“Shocked by what?”

She raises her brows at me, inclining her head as if I should already know. “Shocked by your incredible attention to detail, even if it wasn’t entirely intentional. The amount of stuff you unwittingly remembered from our one time together is insane.You’refucking insane.”

---