Bittersweet Memories (Off-Limits)

I’m only mildly surprised when I see Ryan standing at the corner of the building during my lunch break. It’s like he somehow knows when Silas has a meeting and I’ll be eating alone. I wouldn’t put it past him to have access to his schedule.

“Your expression tells me I was right.”

I look up him and grimace. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“Aren’t you?”

I shake my head and walk past him, but he falls into step with me.

“So Silas had nothing to do with you being evicted? He didn’t orchestrate your entire relationship? You left me after you overheard one single conversation where I said things I didn’t mean, but you’re going to ignore this?”

I look at him, my heart filled with uncertainty. “I’m not ignoring it. I’m just trying not to jump to conclusions, that’s all.”

“He’s been stalking you, Alanna.”

I freeze. “What?”

Ryan nods. “After I learned about you two, I started to wonder how that possibly could’ve happened. You aren’t immoral. You aren’t the kind of woman who’d date her ex’s older brother. It had to be him. So I did some digging and I… I found out he’s the reason you lost your memories.”

My eyes widen, and my head starts to throb. “What are you talking about?”

“Alanna… Silas had been stalking you, and as you were running away from him, you got into a car accident. He lost track of you for a while, but because of me, he’s found you again. He’s dangerous, Alanna. I’m not sure why, but he seems obsessed with you. From what my private investigator told me, you were rich, and you’d been volunteering at a shelter Silas stayed at when he left home. He realized you were an opportunity to change his life, so he pursued you, but you weren’t having any of it. You had a boyfriend, but Silas didn’t care. He wouldn’t give up, and in the end, he caused you to be in that accident. In many ways, it probably saved your life. Who knows how far he would’ve gone if he hadn’t lost track of you?”

Fragments of memories flash through my mind. Me driving a Porsche. Packing food for a homeless shelter. Screaming at Silas to leave me alone. Every memory I’ve recalled but couldn’t place now fits. The big room with bunk beds that I’ve seen before must have been while I was volunteering. Me shouting at a younger looking Silas… was it because he’d been stalking me?

I begin to feel sick, my head pounding so wildly that I feel like it might burst. Did Silas approach me because he knew me in the past, or did he approach me because of Ryan? Was it a combination of both? Either way, he’s lying to me. He lied when I asked him if we knew each other in the past, and he lied about his reason for coming to the coffee shop. What else did he lie about? “The information you found, can you email it to me, please? I want to see it for myself.”

Ryan nods and wraps his arm around me. “Are you okay, Alanna? I didn’t mean to upset you. I just felt like you needed to know. It kills me to watch you fall for his schemes. I don’t know what his intentions are, and I’m worried about you. I’m worried you’re in danger.”

“Hey, take your hands off her!” My head snaps up at the sound of Silas’s voice, a sharp throbbing pain blinding me.

Silas pulls me into his arms and holds me tightly, my pulse racing. “What’s going on?” he asks. “I told you to stay away from her, Ryan. Mess with me all you want, but she’s off-limits.”

The sound of Ryan’s laughter grates on me, and I instinctively bury my face deeper against Silas’s neck. “I’m leaving,” Ryan says. “Think about what I said, Alanna.”

Silas gently walks me back to the office, supporting me with his arm. “What did he tell you, Alanna?”

I look up at him, taking in the clear panic in his gaze. “What do you think he said? You’ve been keeping so much from me, it could be anything.”

He tenses against me, falling silent as we walk into his office. He closes the door behind us and turns toward me. “I won’t keep anything from you anymore, Alanna. Tell me what he said to you. Give me a chance to defend myself.”

“Silas, I’ll ask you one last time. Did we use to know each other? Before I lost my memories?”

He grits his teeth and nods.

“Why did you lie to me? When I asked you if we knew each other before I lost my memories, why did you lie?”

Silas runs a hand through his hair and sighs. “Because amnesia is tricky. If I tell you about your past, it’ll distort your memories, and you might never regain them. Besides, you seem happy now, and the past mostly holds pain. Why would I want that for you? If your brain decided that you’re better off without those memories, who I am to then force you to remember something that might harm you? Alanna, every time you even try to recall your memories, you suffer from blinding headaches and nausea. Nothing good comes from trying to remember.”

“That’s a convenient excuse.”

“It’s the truth.”

“The truth… something that should be factual but seems increasingly subjective. Tell me, Silas. Were you the reason I was evicted?”

He looks into my eyes and crosses his arms. “No.”

“Is that the truth?”

“It is.”

“Then why did you take out 10k on the day I was evicted?”

“I didn’t. Ryan did.”

I laugh humorlessly. “I can’t trust either of you. You just keep throwing blame around. I can’t even ask you about our past because I can’t trust you to tell me the full truth. All I know for now is that you’ve been lying to me every step of the way. I don’t trust you. I can’t tell whether your intentions toward me are pure, or if anything we had was real at all. I can’t tell if you’re playing some type of sick game, and it scares me. You scare me, Silas.”

“Alanna—”

I hold my hand up and shake my head. “No. I can’t do this. You knew about my past. You saw me struggling to remember, and you still didn’t say a word. Would you really do that if you are the man I see in my dreams? If that were the case, wouldn’t you want me to remember you?”

“It’s not that simple, Alanna. I was trying to protect you.”

“From what? Because from where I’m standing, the one I need protecting from is you.”

I shake my head and turn to walk out of his office. “I can’t do this, Silas. I need some space and time to think. I don’t know what to believe, but I do know I don’t believe you.”