Chapter 2 - The Apartment on Halsted
Nathaniel rubbed both hands over his face. "I was nearby the night of the accident. I heard the crash and got to your car before the ambulance did."
"You're a nurse. You helped me."
"Yes." He hesitated, just a beat too long. "I pulled you out of the car. Your necklace caught on my sleeve and the chain broke. I kept it because I wanted to get it repaired."
I just stared at him.
"I was planning to give it back to you after the wedding," he said. "I thought it could symbolize the night we actually met."
The explanation came out too smooth. Too complete. Too rehearsed, like something recited rather than remembered.
"You always told me you first saw me at the hospital."
He blinked. "I didn't want you thinking about the accident. The doctors said you were fragile."
I forced a smile onto my face and kissed his cheek. "Get some rest. You've got a shift at noon."
His whole body relaxed. He thought I believed him.
I didn't believe a single word.
A few hours later the hospital called and asked him to come in early. The second his car pulled out of sight, I opened my memory notebook and dug behind the medical documents tucked into the back pocket.
Two utility bills. Both from before my accident. Both listing an address I didn't recognize at all.
If I'd lived there before the crash, someone in that building might remember something about the life I'd lost.
Forty minutes later I was standing outside an old brick apartment building on Halsted. The building manager looked at me, then broke into a smile.
"Claire? Haven't seen you in forever."
I glanced at his name tag. "Mr. Alvarez?"
"Same as always. How's the new place treating you two?"
I went still. "You two?"
His smile faded. "You and the guy you lived with."
Something cold moved through my stomach. "What guy?"
He studied my face. "Claire, are you okay?"
"I had an accident. I don't remember living here."
His expression softened immediately. "I'm sorry. I had no idea."
"How long did I live here?"
"Almost three years."
"With someone?"
"Yeah. Mostly dealt with you, though."
"Do you remember his name?"
He frowned, thinking. "Nate. Nathaniel. Something like that."
My pulse spiked. "Who lives there now?"
"Nobody."
Then he added, almost as an afterthought, "But the rent's still being paid."
I stared at him. "What?"
"Somebody sends it every month."
"Who?"
"No idea. Long as the payment clears, I don't ask questions."
Someone had spent two full years quietly paying to keep my old apartment exactly as I'd left it.
"Do you still have a spare key?"
Minutes later, the door to apartment 3B swung open onto a place that looked like someone had left it in a hurry and never come back. Dust coated the furniture. But several boxes still sat stacked against the far wall.
I started searching.
The first thing I found was a stack of photographs. One showed me on a beach in a white sundress, hair longer than it was now, both legs unmarked, whole. I stared at myself. Nothing came back — no flicker, no recognition, nothing at all.
I found another photo. Then another. Until I turned over a third one and my breath simply stopped.
Nathaniel, kneeling in front of me. Both my hands pressed over my mouth. An engagement ring catching the light on my left hand.
The same ring he'd supposedly picked out eighteen months ago.
On the back, a date, written in my own handwriting.
Two years before my accident.
Nathaniel hadn't met me after the crash. We'd already been engaged, already planning a wedding, long before he ever claimed to have laid eyes on me for the first time in a hospital hallway.
Under the photographs sat an old phone. I charged it, then went through the messages.
One name stopped me cold.
Rosalind.
The same name crossed out in my own notebook.
I called the number. She answered on the fourth ring.
"Hello?"
"Rosalind? It's Claire."
Silence. Then: "Claire? Oh my God." Her voice cracked. "I never thought you'd call me again."
"I don't remember what happened between us," I said, swallowing hard. "But I need you to tell me."
Her first question frightened me more than anything else that day. "Does Nathaniel know you're calling?"
"No."
She took a long breath. "A few days before your accident, Nathaniel and I got drunk at a party. It happened once."
I closed my eyes. "You slept with him."
"Yes." Her voice broke completely. "We were supposed to tell you together. Neither of us did."
My hand tightened around the phone. "The night of my accident — I found the messages."
Until that exact second, I'd always believed my accident was the night my old life simply ended. Now I understood it was the night Nathaniel's lie actually began.
"What happened after that?"
"You called me screaming," Rosalind said, crying now. "You got in your car. I begged you not to drive."
I closed my eyes, and for one second there was nothing at all.
Then — rain. Water hammering the windshield. Headlights in my rearview mirror. A horn blaring behind me. Nathaniel's car. My hands locked on the wheel. Metal. Pain. Something pulling hard against my throat.
My eyes snapped open. My mother's necklace was still clenched in my fist.
"Nathaniel was there."
"What?"
"He followed me."
"I know," Rosalind whispered. "He told the police he was trying to get you to pull over."
May you like
I stared down at the broken clasp in my hand. That was enough. I still couldn't remember the whole argument — maybe I never would — but Nathaniel had known exactly what happened that night from the very beginning.
And for two years, he'd let me build an entire second life around not knowing any of it.
