Page 4 of Stealing Chances

“Harper...my best friend, Harper?” she clarified slowly as she met my stare again.

Dread spread through me like thick tar as that last day replayed, amplifying the building headache.

“Best friend,” I murmured, head slowly shaking. “Is that all she is now?”

“I’m confused,” Bree said under her breath, and her boyfriend muttered a curse before pulling her close and whispering in her ear.

“Chase,” the girl on my other side said softly, her voice breaking.

I watched my sister and Konrad for a second longer before looking at the strange girl. “Who—” I pulled my arm away when she reached for me again. “Look, I’m having enough issues because a girl somehow ended up in my bed. So, if you could stop touching me, I’d appreciate it.”

The physical impact my words had on her was immediate and evident. Her chest caved and tears slipped down her cheeks, but she just stood there. Staring at me as if her world was crashing down around her when the last thing I remembered, it had been my world that was being destroyed.

“Chase, that’s Scarlet,” Bree said, words slow and unsure, even with the hardened edge to them.

“Okay?” I said, twisting the word so it sounded like a question. “Why won’t anyone tell me where—”

“Mr. Grayson, I’m sorry,” the doctor said as he stepped toward the foot of the hospital bed.

I curled my hand into a fist so I wouldn’t yell for someone to just answer me as he continued speaking.

“I was incorrect in my earlier assumption when you woke, considering this woman has been here nearly the entire time you have.” He gestured to the stranger at my side, then released a steadying breath and gave me a placating smile.

And just like that, my earlier worry was back.

Because that bad news I’d been waiting for was here.

“Mr. Grayson, it seems you may be suffering from amnesia,” he went on. “Retrograde amnesia, to be exact. And from what I’m gathering, you might be experiencing some confusion.”

I tried to laugh but ended up sucking in a pained breath through my teeth instead.

He was wrong.

This had to be a joke.

“Is that common?” my mom asked, the question coming out soft as she leaned against my dad for support.

“It isn’t unheard of,” he said to my parents as if I wasn’t laying right there. “More common when the amnesia is caused by certain events. But it happens—false memories that the subconscious has completely made up or others that are truly from the past, but at very different times than the patient remembers.”

“What memories?” I asked through clenched teeth and fought the urge to continue reaching for my fiercely pounding head.

“Your graduation was the day after your accident?” my dad asked after a shared look with my mom. “Is that what you told the doctor?”

I looked between him and the doctor a couple times and even looked at that girl for some reason. That girl who now could no longer look at me.

She was just staring at the edge of the bed I was lying on, silently crying.

“Why?” I asked cautiously.

“Chase, you already graduated,” he said carefully. His eyes darted over my face, taking in my reaction. “Two-and-a-half years ago. Bree and Konrad just started their senior year at San Diego State.”

No.

No, because...if any of that were true, then that meant Harper had our sonyearsago. And they weren’there.

“Harper. ..where’s Harper?”

The girl next to me released a pained breath and staggered back a step before falling into the chair there.

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