be right.
It wasn’t fair. I barely had any experience with guys at all, and then the universe went and dumped a gorgeous specimen of one right on my doorstep. No wonder I didn’t know how to talk like a normal person around him. It was time to get this guy out of here before I made even more of a fool out of myself.
“Look, like I said, I don’t know what happened to you, but something clearly did, and I think you need medical attention. If you can’t even remember the beach, you could have a concussion or—” I broke off, not sure what was worse than a concussion. “The point is, if you can’t talk, I can call a doctor for you. Or 911, if you just tell me your name and address and stuff.”
A thin thread of sadness unfurled in my chest like mist on the beach that morning. I did my best to ignore it. I had no right to be disappointed about this guy going to the hospital and getting out of my life. I barely knew him. And anyway, I was a recluse for a reason.
The kid’s moods changed like the weather though, because when I looked over at him again, his eyes were full of tears.
“What’s wrong now?” It came out more frustrated than I meant it to, but I was having enough trouble sorting through my own emotions today. I couldn’t handle managing his too.
The guy scrawled something across his notebook. “I don’t know.”
I bit back a frustrated sigh. Not the most helpful answer, but he probably wasn’t being purposefully obtuse. He’d been through something traumatic, after all.
“Okay, well, I’m sorry.” I tried to make my voice gentle. “But anyway, I think a doctor is going to need a name, at least.”
He tapped the notebook again, his finger rat-a-tatting beneath, “I don’t know.”
“What?” I massaged my temples and told myself not to snap at him. “Help me out here, kid. I’m confused.”
The look the guy gave me was so helpless, it could have broken my heart—if I hadn’t kept my heart carefully locked away in a fireproof safe, shoved in the back of a closet for the better part of the last decade.
He picked up the pen and wrote another message, a little longer this time, then held the notebook out for me to read. My jaw dropped.
“I don’t know my name. I can’t remember anything before waking up in this room.”
5
Ari
“Anything?”
Holden looked like he didn’t believe me, so I underlined ‘anything’ on the notebook approximately twenty times before holding it up again.
“Definitely worse than a concussion,” he muttered under his breath.
I blinked, confused, then decided I didn’t have the energy to follow that up. I was confused about so much right now. I slumped back against the desk, feeling…everything.
Tired. Stressed-out. Scared. Indignant that Holden seemed annoyed at me when none of this was my fault.
At least, I didn’t think it was my fault. Maybe it was and I just couldn’t remember. That didn’t make me feel any better.
Honestly, I was a hair’s breadth away from having a nervous breakdown, which was probably why I kept having weird reactions to things Holden said and did. Like, I had no reason to trust the guy, and several reasons not to, but when he’d been in such a rush to explain that he hadn’t touched me, that he’d left my clothes on when he carried me, I’d barely been able to control a manic laugh.
Frankly, I wouldn’t have minded him touching me. The guy was hot. But I would have preferred to be, you know, conscious for it. I didn’t think I had a sleep-sex kink, though, like everything, I supposed I didn’t really know.
Alas, Holden’s hurry to convince me that he’d respected my honor had me pretty sure he was straight. Unlike me, who was definitely not. I would have said I was gay, except when I glanced down at the portrait of Emma Bovary on the cover of that book, I had to admit she was pretty hot too. So maybe I was bi.
For a second, that thought tickled something at the back of my mind, but it vanished before I could catch a clear glimpse.
Anyway, none of that was important, and it was absurd for my brain to be dwelling on that right now, instead of the very real, very large problems of not knowing who the hell I was, what the hell had happened, and how long I was going to