Page 8 of Mangled Memory
And at six days, no one could stop me from showering and getting all the funk from my skin. I was so gross, I’d started itching.That’s a no go.
I was going to bathe come hell or high water.
Or my legally wed ass of a husband.
Hell, high water, or husband—that should be the saying. I don’t know which is the lesser of the three evils.
Christian fucking Barone wanted to be with me in there. He wasconcerned. Yeah, fuck that. I don’t need his concern now and I sure as hell didn’t want it this morning. I do not know him. Having a complete stranger watch me shower is near the top when it comes to things that feel like absolute violations.
Not that I know the nurses or want them watching me either. But their eyes are clinical, and they do it for a living. It’s not leering; it’s hospital liability. For some reason, I was okay with one but not the other and that started another round of terse conversations that ended with him getting his way.
Again.
I’ve known the man less than twenty-four hours, and I wonder what I saw in him in the first place that made me have a second date, much less accept a marriage proposal. Maybe this isn’t my first head injury.
Now that’s a sobering thought.
He left for work when I went to therapy, and it was a good thing too. I was damn close to asking for a divorce.
What stopped me were Liam’s words from yesterday banging around my head. When it was that I told my brother Christian dotes on me or spoils me is beyond me. But sometime in my blackout era, as I’m now referring to it, I let my hard as nails brother know I was safe and happy. Gag. I even used the words “dream man.” Double gag.
I know this only because Liam is not prone to exaggeration. He’s wildly and brutally honest. The kind of honest that’s painful, but the kind that’s liberating, too, because at least I always know the truth.
Although the when, where, and why of how Liam came to have that information is outside my understanding. But he recalled it and gave it back to me in a hospital bed in a time of fear. He must’ve known I needed it.
My brother isn’t mush. Except for me, he doesn’t have a softspot at all. So him giving me that whole spiel was intentional. I just don’t know his intent.
Both arguments are volleying in my head. The left hand with its controlling, cold, unknown man and the right with its doting, spoiling, dream man. It’s an unwinnable fight, though. Because I do not know him.
I don’t care what Christian says. I don’t know him.
I don’t care what Liam says. I don’t know him.
No one is going to convince me of something at this point. I need to see for myself.
My door flies open again, and I brace, expecting the object of that anxiety to command the room with his mere presence and his finely chiseled jaw.
Instead, my dad looms, his shadow pouring into the room with the lights from the hall.
“Oh good. I wanted to talk to you, Ayla.”
“Hi, Dad. What’s wrong?”
He kisses my forehead, before plopping into the chair at my side. His eyes linger at my temple and the row of sutures there.
“My girl, I wanted a word alone with you. I won’t take much of your time. How much do you remember?”
“Of what?”
“Of everything.”
“The ordeal? Nothing. But I remember everything prior to a handful of years ago. I don’t know where the memories dip out, but the last year or two is blackness. Why?” I pause and ask the question that’s been dancing on the edges of my mind. “Have I had a previous head injury? Is this the second time I’ve had this experience?”
He looks taken aback. “No. Aside from some let’s call themlapses in judgment, you’ve never had any mental issues.”
Lapses in judgment?
“Christian Barone is one example. I don’t know what he said to convince you to marry him, Ayla, but you need to be smart. Be very cautious. That man cannot be trusted.” He looks toward the door as if he’s racing the clock to communicate a dire message.
