She Forgot Our Forever

I poured so much maple syrup over Lindsay's waffles that it nearly overflowed the takeout container. I still remembered how much she loved sweets.

But the little boy frowned and shook his head. "Dad doesn't like syrup."

Lindsay took out her card again. "Sorry, I should've mentioned it. No syrup on either order, please."

The waffles were for her husband.

My hand froze for a second before I set the container aside. "You don't need to pay again. I'll make you two fresh orders."

My memories of Lindsay no longer matched the life she lived.

Before she left, she asked again, "Are you sure we don't know each other?"

I looked at the little boy.

Whatever life she built without me, she seemed happy. There was no reason to disrupt it.

I tightened my grip on the tongs and nodded without a word.

I watched them walk away until they were almost out of sight. Then the boy's voice drifted back to me.

"Mom, can we get waffles for Dad every day?"

Lindsay carried the bag of waffles in one hand and held her son's hand with the other. "Of course," she said softly.

For a moment, the sight took me back to our days at the police academy.

We rarely got a day off, but whenever we did, Lindsay dragged me to our favorite little breakfast spot on a side street. She always held my hand in one hand and carried our waffles in the other.

A voice crackled through my earpiece, pulling me back to the present. "Unit 0307, return to base."

The waffle stand was part of an undercover surveillance operation. I had spent nearly two weeks there without seeing our target once.

Instead, I ran into the woman I hadn't seen in seven years.

When I got home, Hannah Phelps rushed over to greet me. She was the little girl Lindsay and I rescued from human traffickers.

We planned to officially adopt her once Lindsay finished her assignment. In the end, I was the only one left to keep that promise.

"Eric, come look at this." Hannah pulled out a shipping box. "This came today."

I leaned in for a closer look. It was a time capsule Lindsay put together years ago.

Time capsules were all the rage back then, but I never knew she had made one for me. She arranged for it to be sent to our old police academy, which contacted me a few days earlier and forwarded it to my current address.

A photo of Lindsay and me inside the box caught Hannah's eye. "Is that the woman who helped save me?"

I nodded.

"Wow. You two go way back, huh?"

Lindsay and I grew up together in Dover, and our parents worked together. We were childhood sweethearts, and we even went to the same college to study the same thing.

Everyone assumed we would end up together.

Hannah looked confused. "Then why did you break up?"

The truth was, we never actually broke up.

Lindsay fell off a cliff during an assignment and went missing for over a year. Everyone believed she was dead. The department even retired her badge number.

But I never stopped looking for her.

Then one day, my supervisor, Anthony Brock, told me they had found her. I was so happy that I missed his hesitation and didn't even ask where she had been.

Lindsay was alive and out of danger, but she didn't remember anything about us.

"Then why didn't you tell her?" Hannah asked.

I wondered the same thing back then.

The doctors said hypnosis might help her regain her memories, but her parents begged me to leave her alone.

"Eric, she's our only child. Please, just let her have a normal, peaceful life. She spent years risking her life to finish the investigation your parents started. She doesn't owe you anything, but she owes Joshua and Cody a chance to be a family."

Joshua Shaw was the man who saved Lindsay, a doctor in a small town.

Their words left me cold.

From the other end of the long hospital hallway, I watched Lindsay carry a child to an appointment.

"Once things settle down, we should start planning the wedding," Joshua said.

Lindsay looked at him tenderly. "I'd like that."

Only then did I finally understand.

She was no longer part of my life. She was about to marry another man and raise a child with him.

All the joy and courage I felt when I learned she was alive vanished. I let go of the hope that hypnosis might bring her memories back.

Not long afterward, I accepted a new assignment and transferred from Whitefield to Dover.

Hannah was only 15, but tears streamed down her face, as though she were crying for the man I was 7 years ago.

"But what if she wants her memories back?" she asked, unable to understand. "What if she wants to remember you?"

Countless times, I imagined how wonderful it would be if Lindsay remembered everything. But Joshua wasn't the only person I had to consider. There was Cody Shaw, too.

And Lindsay's parents were determined to keep her from risking her life again. There was no point dwelling on what might happen.

I smiled and wiped Hannah's tears away. "Our lives just went in different directions. Besides, it's been seven years. I barely remember her anymore."

I sounded as though I had finally moved on. But when I looked down at the words on the back of the photo, tears spilled down my cheeks before I could stop them.

All the pain I thought I had buried came rushing back.

[Eric, ten years from now, are we married with kids? Are we happy?]

Lindsay was 30 now. She was married, had a child, and seemed happy.

Just not with me.