Chapter 3

ETHAN

The door clicked shut behind her.

I didn't move.

For several seconds, I stood exactly where she had left me, staring at the closed door as if I could somehow see through it—as if Katya might turn around, open it again, and take back everything she had just said.

It was a mistake, Ethan.

And it's over.

My jaw tightened.

A mistake.

That was what six years had been reduced to.

One night.

One mistake.

Something she could erase from her life and leave behind without a second thought.

But I couldn't.

I remembered everything.

Every word. Every look. Every promise.

Most of all, I remembered who she had been before the accident.

Before she forgot me.

Before six years of silence separated us.

I loosened my tie and walked toward the windows. The city stretched beneath me, bright and restless, completely indifferent to the war raging inside my head.

Six years.

Six years since I had watched the woman I loved look at me like a stranger.

Six years since everything I believed about love, loyalty, and friendship had been torn apart.

I placed my palm against the cold glass.

And the memories came rushing back.

Six years ago, Katya wasn't a stranger.

She was mine.

Not because I owned her, but because she had chosen me.

We were college sweethearts, and for a while, I had believed we were untouchable.

She was the one person who could make me forget the expectations that came with my family name.

With her, I wasn't Ethan Dawson, heir to a powerful family.

I was simply Ethan.

Her Ethan.

She never cared about my money or the life waiting for me after graduation. She cared about the small things—the stupid things that made us us.

She knew I hated black coffee but drank it anyway when I was exhausted.

She knew I became quiet when I was angry.

She knew when I was pretending to be fine.

And I knew her just as well.

I knew she hummed whenever she was concentrating.

I knew she stole food from my plate even after insisting she wasn't hungry.

I knew she hated thunderstorms but would never admit she was afraid.

And whenever we argued, she always crossed her arms and looked away because she knew that if she looked directly at me, she would eventually smile.

Sometimes I would deliberately tease her just to see that smile.

"You did that on purpose," she would accuse me.

"Did what?"

"You took the last piece."

I would lean back in my chair, completely innocent.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Ethan."

"Katya."

She would glare at me.

I'd grin.

And eventually, she'd laugh.

Those were the moments I thought would last forever.

We weren't perfect.

We argued.

We misunderstood each other.

We got jealous.

Sometimes we'd go an entire evening refusing to speak, only for one of us to give in.

Usually me.

But no matter how bad the argument was, Katya always came back.

And so did I.

There were nights when we'd sit on the university steps long after everyone else had gone home, talking about the future.

"What do you want after graduation?" she once asked me.

I looked at her.

"You."

She rolled her eyes.

"I'm serious."

"So am I."

She smiled, shaking her head.

"You can't just answer everything with me."

"Why not?"

"Because you need a real plan."

I took her hand.

"Fine. I'll make a plan."

"And?"

"And you're in it."

She looked at me for a long moment before resting her head on my shoulder.

"I'll hold you to that."

I kissed the top of her head.

"I hope you do."

Back then, I had no idea how cruel those words would become.

Because I meant them.

I meant every promise I ever made to her.

Then came the accident.

It happened six years ago, shortly after we had finished another argument.

It wasn't even a serious argument.

That was the cruelest part.

We had been fighting over something insignificant, and Katya had left upset.

I had planned to call her later.

I never got the chance.

The phone rang late that night.

There had been an accident.

I remember the drive to the hospital.

I remember the rain against the windshield.

I remember gripping the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles turned white.

And I remember praying for the first time in years.

Not for my career.

Not for my family.

Not for myself.

For her.

Please let her live.

She survived.

But when she opened her eyes, the life we had built together was gone from her mind.

At first, I thought the doctors were wrong.

She remembered her family.

Her childhood.

Her friends.

Her professors.

She even remembered small details that seemed impossible to forget.

But she didn't remember me.

I walked into her hospital room expecting relief.

Instead, I saw confusion on her face.

"Hey"

My heart jumped.

She knew my name.

I stepped closer.

"Yeah."

She looked at me for several seconds.

Then her brows furrowed.

"I'm sorry... do I know you?"

I stopped breathing.

"You don't remember me?"

She shook her head.

The smile disappeared from my face.

I looked toward the doctor, waiting for him to tell me this was temporary.

He didn't.

He explained that the accident had affected specific memories and that there was no way to know when—or whether—they would return.

I refused to believe it.

"We've been together for years," I told him.

"I understand."

"She loves me."

The doctor hesitated.

"She doesn't remember that right now."

Right now.

I clung to those words.

Right now.

I convinced myself she would remember tomorrow.

Then next week.

Then next month.

But the days passed.

Nothing changed.

The doctor eventually pulled me aside.

"You need to give her space."

"I can't just disappear."

"You aren't disappearing. You're allowing her mind to recover without pressure."

"And if she never remembers?"

He didn't answer.

That silence became my nightmare.

So I did the hardest thing I had ever done.

I stepped away.

Then my best friend became the person who remained beside her.

At first, I was grateful.

He knew her.

He knew about us.

I trusted him.

I thought he would protect her until I could figure out what to do.

Instead, I watched something I could never have imagined happened right in front of me.

Katya began relying on him. if only I explained myself clearly that time that I am meeting someone because I was planning to propose to him not because I was cheating on her. if only I didn't let her leave that night.

She remembered Marco

She trusted him.

She laughed with him.

And slowly, I became an outsider.

The first time I saw them together after the accident, I stood across the street and watched them through a café window.

Katya was laughing.

My best friend was sitting across from her.

He said something that made her cover her mouth as she laughed harder.

I couldn't hear what they were saying.

I didn't need to.

I knew that laugh.

I had spent years being the reason for it.

Now someone else was.

I called him afterward.

"Why are you with her?"

There was a long silence.

"What do you mean?"

"You know exactly what I mean."

"Ethan, she's alone."

"She's not alone. She has me."

"She doesn't remember you."

Those words cut deeper than they should have.

"You're my best friend."

"I know."

"Then you know what she means to me."

"I do."

"Then stay away from her."

Another silence.

"She needs someone."

"I need her."

He sighed.

"She doesn't remember that and I like her you are just lucky she chose you before but now she has her eyes on me”

I ended the call.

That was the first time I realized that losing Katya wasn't the only betrayal I had to survive.

I was losing my best friend too.

The man I trusted most was becoming the man standing between me and the woman I loved.

And the worst part?

I couldn't even hate him completely.

Because from his perspective, she didn't belong to me anymore.

She didn't remember loving me.

She only knew him.

And perhaps that was what made it so unbearable.

I couldn't fight a memory she didn't have.

I couldn't ask her to choose me when she didn't even know who I was.

So I left.

I went abroad to continue my studies.

At least, that was the explanation I gave everyone.

The truth was that I couldn't stand watching the two people I trusted most build a connection with while I stood outside.

I thought leaving would help.

It didn't.

I buried myself in work.

I studied until exhaustion replaced sleep.

I built the career everyone expected me to build.

I learned how to control my expression, my temper, my emotions.

I became the man my family wanted.

But every night, when I was alone, I remembered Katya.

The girl who used to steal food from my plate.

The woman who used to hold my hand when we walked through campus.

The girl who once promised to hold me to every future plan I made.

And I wondered whether she ever thought about me.

I wondered whether some fragments were remembered.

I wondered whether my best friend ever told her the truth.

I never got an answer.

Six years later, I returned.

And I saw Katya again.

She was standing across a crowded room, laughing with people around her.

For a moment, I couldn't move.

My heart recognized her before my mind did.

She was older.

More confident.

More beautiful.

But she was still Katya.

Then I saw the ring on her finger.

Engaged.

The realization struck harder than I expected.

She had built a life without me.

She had moved forward.

She had found someone else.

And she looked happy.

I should have walked away.

Instead, I began finding reasons to cross paths with her.

A business meeting.

A mutual acquaintance.

A social event.

Small coincidences that weren't really coincidences.

Every time I saw her, I searched her face.

I wanted one sign.

One flicker of recognition.

Something that would tell me that the woman I loved was still somewhere inside the stranger standing in front of me.

But there was nothing.

Then came that night.

The night I convinced myself that if she could only remember what we had shared, everything would change. I drugged her it was a company banquet and I ask someone to give her the drink which I drugged and specifically ask someone to bring her to my room. I was so drunk that night I drunk so that my guilt won't hunt me and I can make her mine that night she was still virgin. I know my girl won't give her first before marriage I knew her character which build my confidence. I take her three times that night I just couldn't get enough of her of my first love.

I was wrong.

Whatever I had imagined would happen between us, it didn't.

And when morning came—

she was gone.

I woke up in an empty room.

"Katya?"

Nothing.

I searched the room.

The hallway of the hotel but I found nothing

She had left without a word.

I ash someone to send me the footage of the hotel and wipe it clean.

Just like six years ago, I was left staring at an empty doorway, wondering how someone could walk away from me so easily.

How could she?

How could she wake up and simply continue living?

How could she be happy?

How could she forget me so completely?

And why was I the only one still carrying the weight of what we had been?

My eyes opened.

The reflection staring back at me in the window looked nothing like the college student who had once believed love could survive anything.

But somewhere underneath the suit, the success, and six years of carefully constructed indifference, that man was still there.

The man who loved Katya.

The man who lost her.

The man who never stopped waiting.

And now she has walked back into my life.

Only this time, she wasn't the girl who loved me.

She was the woman who believed our night together had been a mistake.

I closed my eyes.

Maybe I should let her go.

Maybe I should finally accept that the woman I loved six years ago no longer existed—not because she had changed, but because the memories that connected her to me were gone.

but i can't.

I just can't live without her.

I tried my best by I can't forget her. I love her so much I know I was wrong for drugging her but it's the only way I could think of.