Chapter 1: The Accident

(Lana—POV)

The lights in the hospital were too bright. They hurt my eyes like knives. I blinked and held my head because it felt like it was cloudy and thundering. I could taste iron in my mouth. My tongue felt weird and moved like it belonged to someone else.

A voice softly said my name. I looked away. A man stood very still outside the glass door. He didn't act like a guest. He stood like someone who had been waiting his whole life.

When I looked at him, he said, "Lana." He spoke in a low, warm voice. It put something in my chest that I couldn't put a name to.

"Who are you?" I asked. My voice sounded wrong and deep.

He opened the door without asking and came very close. He seemed too tall for the small room. His hair was dark and well-kept. His suit had a faint smell of rain. He smiled, but it wasn't a happy smile. It was a careful smile that was on the verge of panic.

He said, "My name is Adrian." "Adrian Kingsley." I am your darling husband.

The words hit me like a cold stone. My husband. For a moment, the room spun. I touched my chest where the stone hit. There was nothing there, just the sound of my heart beating like a slow drum.

I tried to imagine what life would be like with a man named Adrian. I tried to get things like faces, places, and love to come to life inside me. My mind was full of fog and the sound of a car breaking. The silence scared me more than the pain.

"Are you married?" I asked, and the word tasted like the name of a stranger.

Adrian's hands went to the back of his head. He laughed softly, like someone who was hiding something painful. He said, "You don't remember." "You were in a bad accident. You wasted time. The doctors say you will get better, but it will take time.

Not fast. A word that made fear move into the room.

Then a nurse came in to look over the charts and papers. She told him softly that visitors shouldn't be involved in patient care, but he didn't move. He kept looking at me like someone who is scared of losing a small flame.

"You weren't alone," he said softly. "You weren't by yourself that night."

The room got quiet again. I tried to understand that new sound. Not by yourself. The words felt like a string.

The nurse shook her head and left. Adrian came to the bed and sat down next to me when the door clicked shut. He reached out and took my hand. It stayed close to my skin, like a bird that doesn't want to scare its mate.

I didn't mean to, but my fingers closed around his. The touch felt strangely familiar, like a memory my body kept even when my mind couldn't. His hand made my skin feel warm. For a moment, something soft, like a smile, moved inside me, but then fear pushed it down.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" I asked. My voice shook. Not just the crash. It was something older, deeper, and more real.

He took a drink. The light made his eyes shine. "I thought I lost you," he said. "I thought you were gone for good."

There was pain in Adrian's voice. The kind that makes you want to do something to make the pain go away. I didn't know what to do. My head hurt. The memory of bright glass, tires screaming, and someone yelling my name came and went like someone turning a small light on and off.

A doctor said, "You were in a car," when he came back with more people. "You were hurt badly. But you made it through. You are lucky.

Good luck. The word didn't feel right. At the same time, I'm lucky and empty. I looked back at Adrian. I needed something real that I could hold on to.

"Where am I going next?" I asked.

He put his hand over mine again, this time with more force, as if he wanted to keep me from drifting away. He said, "Home." "Come on, let's go home."

His voice had a soft quality that made me believe him. There was also something else: a flash behind his eyes that felt like a knife. I couldn't tell what it cut.

The doctor talked about tests, getting better, and how stress can be bad for you. The nurse wrote things down. I heard the words, but I only felt them as shapes. Adrian stayed close by. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw sharp pieces that didn't fit together. Rain on the street. My hand in someone else's. My breath was ripped from me. A flash of light. A car that looks like a toy that's been bent.

When they moved me out of bed, I let him help me stand. My legs felt weak and shaky. He put his arm around my waist to help me stay steady. His touch made something hurt and feel safe at the same time, and I hated that they could be the same.

We drove away from the hospital in a black car that was quiet. The bright lines made the city look like it was moving. Adrian's reflection in the car window showed a man who wasn't moving and was looking at a woman whose life had been put back together wrong. He wasn't just watching me; he was watching something I couldn't see: a past that we both shared.

When the building of his house came up in the window, I felt a little scared. It seemed like a place that was meant to keep things, not let them go. Big glass and walls, with lights that didn't show any cracks. Inside, everything was alive in a way that I had forgotten.

He opened the door for me without any fuss, like he had done it a thousand times before. A quiet woman with a soft smile took my bag. A picture on the wall showed Adrian and me at a party at night, with our arms around each other. I looked strange in that picture. My face was lit up with happiness that I couldn't feel.

Adrian put his hand on my back and led me deeper into the house. There were little things in the rooms that reminded me of a life I had never had: a half-empty glass of wine, a scarf folded on a chair, and a book with a corner bent from being opened. There was a smell of citrus, smoke, and flowers in the house. My throat got tight. I reached for my ring finger without thinking, and my hand brushed against metal. A ring hugged my finger.

He had said a husband. The house said the same thing. Everything inside me screamed "lost."

They put me to bed that night in a bed that wasn't mine and left the curtains open to the city. I looked up at the ceiling and thought about glass and brakes and someone yelling my name. I tried to remember what my face looked like before. I tried to name things that I should have known. Names slipped off my tongue like leaves.

Adrian was sitting in a chair next to the bed. He looked at me as I breathed. He put a small bottle of water on the nightstand at one point. His hand brushed mine, and the room shook with something both dangerous and soft.

"Will I remember?" I asked into the dark, and the question itself sounded like a challenge.

He didn't answer right away. The city buzzed below us. At that moment, he looked older than the pictures on the wall.

"You will," he finally said. "Or I'll make you remember." His voice was calm. It had both a promise and a warning that I couldn't read.

I shut my eyes and tried to get some sleep. The lights in Paris kept moving like a river of gold outside. My life was waiting inside, between his hands and the city, like a story with pages ripped out.

There was a sound in the hall: soft steps. For a moment, the door opened and a shadow stood there. I turned to look, but all I could see was the dark shape of the door.

I felt a hand on my wrist before I could yell. It wasn't Adrian's.

It was chilly. It happened quickly. Someone whispered my name very close to my ear, but I couldn't place the voice.

"Lana," the whisper said, and the sound was both good and bad.

I opened my eyes wide.

The whisper came from the door, and when the light hit the face standing there, I knew with the horrible, sudden certainty that only memory can bring that the night had not ended the way I had been told.