Bitter Kisses (It's Just High School #3) - Thandiwe Mpofu Page 0,81
doctor says, pressing a button on the wall.
“Don’t tell me that!” Nicky snaps.
“Answer the question, doctor! Does she have amnesia or not?” Nathan rumbles. Mia flinches, looking terrified.
“Mr. Montague, please keep your voice down. In fact, I’m going to ask everyone to leave. It’s possible that this is too much for Mia and is causing her stress.”
“But doctor, she… she doesn’t remember?”
“Auntie?” Mia whispers. “Remember what?”
“Aw Mia, sweetheart,” Nicky cries, a completely devastated look on her face. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
Mia looks around now, a panicked look in her eyes. “What do you mean?” she croaks.
The thing in my chest just quits working.
“Mia,” I start, and without thinking about it, I’m already wheeling myself to her bedside.
“Young man, you can’t get close to her.”
I ignore the detective, evading everyone who tries to get in my fucking way. All I see is Mia who’s now looking at me, a sheltered look in her eyes.
She has to know who I am. She might’ve forgotten Nancy and thinks Nicky is still her aunt, but we met years ago.
Her amnesia couldn’t have affected her long-term memory, right?
“Baby,” I whisper, reaching her in record time, seeing as one arm is in a cast. She looks at me now, not looking away. I want to reach for her hand but now, the police are around me, everyone is saying something, shouting at me to get away from her but I just fucking focus on her. “Mia, I thought I’d never see you again.”
For a moment, just a brief, blissful moment, her beautiful aquamarine eyes hold my gaze and I swear on my fucking mess of a life, there’s a glimmer of recognition in her eyes.
My heart is not even beating.
My blood’s frozen in my veins as my entire soul grips this moment with everything.
It’s like our entire lives depend on this frail connection.
Take your time, baby. You’ve got this.
“Get away from her, you kidnapper!” I hear Nathan yell. “Get him away from my daughter!”
I hadn’t realized that I was fighting everyone who’s tried to touch me until then.
I’m sitting at the edge of this fucking wheelchair like a fucking sissy, gripping the bar of Mia’s bed. I can only imagine the desperate look on my face, reflected in her eyes that don’t look away from me.
But no, she doesn’t have to look away.
All she does to break me is blink and when her eyes open again, there’s a look in her eyes I’ve never seen before. Instantly, it replaces the hope I had started stoking like kindling to a fire when she woke.
“I… I don’t …” Mia stutters. “Who are you?”
The thing in my chest that she accused me of not working right stops working at those words. I guess she was right.
“Mia?” I think I croak out her name, feeling exposed and in danger of turning into something neither of us will recognize, but I don’t know. “It’s me.”
The EKG machine starts beeping again. She holds my gaze for a brief eternity, then as I predicted right as she shuts me out, she looks away from me, her chest heaving up and down so fast, mirroring my own.
She doesn’t remember me.
FUCK!
All the history we have, all the lust-hate glances, the kisses we shared, the way she cuddled under me when she sleeps like she was looking for shelter, everything… it’s all gone.
Because of me.
I thought my punishment for all the hell I put her through was me dying, effectively saving her from me and the fucking sinking ship I am. But it turns out the universe had something else in store and this right here, is it.
Mia forgetting me like I’m yesterday’s trashy song.
Erased from her memory as if nothing ever happened.
Everything.
Control, alt and fucking delete.
Just like that.
The silence that rings through my ears is so loud, and like a fucking idiot, I just stare at the side of her beautiful face, meanwhile I feel like I’m rotting inside.
It’s bittersweet, listening to her voice, but it also feels like a poisoned aphrodisiac of sorts.
On one side, I feel like I could jump for the fucking stars, pick them like a fucking bouquet of flowers then offer them as a gift to the love of my life but on the other, I’m just fucking livid…
“Uh, can everyone please leave the room,” the doctor says seriously as the nurses move around to usher people out.
“What, no!” Nathan says and the moment he speaks, Mia flinches again. Noticeably.