Page 27 of Love What's Left
More than ten years.Inside my mind, I claw frantic fingers at my brain. A third of my life can’t be gone. I can’t be that old.
He brushes his thumb across my cheekbone. “Shh. Let’s take a break. You’ve done a lot today. You don’t have to stress yourself out over this.”
I push away from him. “Ba-bathroom.”
“Okay.”
I rush forward on wobbly-colt legs to the bedroom, then through it to the attached bathroom, slowing when I get close to the sinks. When I showered earlier, I kept my face down and didn’t look in the mirror. I never do . . . because, deep down, I know what I’ll find.
I lift my head and face my reflection. The person staring back isn’t me. The eyes are too big in a gaunt face. My cheekbones stick out too far, the hollows beneath them and under my eyes ghoulish. My arms ache just thinking about dealing with the dry, matted nest of my hair. It used to be my best feature, glossy and wavy, but that’s gone too.
I grimace as I lean closer to examine my reflection. Someone broke my nose, and it healed badly. An inch-long pink scar nearly touches the corner of my left eye and another one, slightly longer, marks an ugly trail on the other side, near my temple. I press trembling fingers to my head.
“The doctor thinks your long-term memory issues may be the result of a combination of psychological trauma and the drugs you were given. The memories from before you were taken may come back to you over time. Your other cognitive problems, like forgetting words and conversations, could be a result of the drug or physical injury and may take a while. The human mind and body are miraculous, though. You could heal over time.”
Couldheal, notwill. “Why d-didn’t you . . . tell me . . . how old I was?” The words, so coherent and clear in my brain, fight for a place in my mouth.
“We did. I have, but you forget. Like you’re on a loop. It’s okay. You weren’t ready to hear it yet, but you’re improving now. You turned another corner today.”
“Yourwifecould forget . . . your name . . . forever?” If he isn’t lying and really does love me, he’d be better off if I’d died.
He meets my eyes in the mirror. “You’ll probably start remembering soon. If you don’t, we’ll figure something out. My name is Gabriel, but you can come up with a new nickname for me every time, and I won’t mind. Call me ‘pool boy’ or ‘cowboy.’ I’m into role-play.”
He winks, and I can tell he wants me to smile. It’s some inside joke he has with his wife.
But I’m not her. She’s gone, and I don’t find a thing funny about not remembering my own husband’s name.
I look back into the mirror, trying to find something, anything, worth fighting for. I’m not Sydney Walsh McRae anymore. She didn’t survive whatever hell she went through. I’m nothing but a broken creature with fine lines near my mouth and eyes. He told the truth. I’m not seventeen. I’m a thirty-year-old woman. “I look like a corpse.”
“You’rebeautiful.”
I shake my head. I was never beautiful. I was athletic and “pretty” when I put in an effort, and I was happy with that, but now . . .
“Look at yourself,” he says.
“Iam.”
“If you didn’t know the person in the mirror was you, what would you see?”
I look harder and try to understand what he wants me to. If I didn’t have expectations of who I was supposed to be, would I notice the scars and lines?
No. I’d be looking at her haunted eyes and emaciated frame.
“I’d want to give her a sandwich and a hug,” I say, the words stilted and slow.
He turns me toward him and brushes hair from my forehead. “Can’t you offer yourself the same kindness?”
Vaguely, I have a picture in my mind of this man bracing me against his chest, singing quietly as he sprayed my hair with detangler and combed it while I stared vacantly into space.
Then I woke up from the weird waking dream I’d been in and refused to let him help me. It’s been at least a week since I allowed him, or anyone else, to take care of me.
I attempt to run my fingers through the dark, tangled mass on my head, but my fingers catch on a snarl halfway down.
Shame and embarrassment flood through me. I didn’t let him do it, but didn’t do it for myself either.
“I’m ugly. Awful,” I mutter.
“You. Are. Beautiful,” he says. “I can’t look at you and see anything else. Don’t tell me to try. You’re brave and tenacious and smart as hell. You have a huge, generous heart. You’ve got skin I never want to stop touching. The most damned expressive eyes I’ve ever seen, and a mouth made for kissing.”
