____________________...You know how it is in the movies? Accidents occur in such slow motion, but in real life, it is not so. In real life, it happened in the blink of an eye. One second my heavily pregnant sister is waving at me and the next thing I know, she is lying ten feet away, bleeding out. "RORY!" I screamed as I dropped the bag in my hand and ran in her direction, brain-numbing fear taking over. "Rory!" I heard Eric's voice behind me as I reached my unconscious sister. "No, no, no, no!" I prayed as I cupped her face. "Rory, wake up! Please wake up!" "Someone call nine-one-one!" I screamed at the crowd. "They are on their way." Eric was at my side. God, I hated him but at this moment, I could not be more thankful that he was there. "She is going to be fine." He did not sound like he believed what he was saying. "If something happens to her, if something happens to the babies..." I cried. "Eric, Rory would die if something happened to the babies!" Eric had a hand r
____________________...Tears flowed like a river as I stared at the serene, cyanotic face of my beautiful baby girl. She was a ditto replica of her mother with her button nose and pouty lips. "I am sorry Dadda failed to protect you, my precious." I kissed her forehead as the nurse told me it was time to say goodbye. I placed another kiss on her forehead. "This one, on behalf of your Momma. She loves you so much." My voice broke as I said it, and the nurse took my dead infant away from me.I slid to the ground as grief racked through me. Tears spilled out even as I tried to be strong for my other daughter and my wife."Rowan..." Zoe sat down near me, leaning against the wall. She didn't say anything else. She knew there was nothing she could say that could fix this.Everything was over."Rory is going to wake up, you know." She finally said."The doctors say the chances are very less." I reminded her."Still, I know she is going to wake up." She decided."How am I going to tell h
_________________________...1 Month Later....One whole month and Rory still had not woken up. At least she was fully healed physically so her doctor, Dr. Rena Henkins had hopes for her to wake up any day. It was that or not at all. But I held on to the former hope that she would wake up any day now. I knocked on the door that was ajar and pushed it open. Rowan looked up from where he was feeding Ki and smiled softly.I smiled back at him and placed the package and bags I had brought on the coffee table and then moved to my sister, placing a kiss on her forehead. "You need to wake up soon, big sis, or else Ki is going to turn out to be Dadda's girl," I told her, laughing. "Oh, she is a Dadda's girl already." Rowan stuck his tongue out at me. "Not helping." I rolled my eyes at him and turned to my sister, taking her hand in mine, leaning closer to her with my elbows holding me up on the side of the bed. "Rory, Ki is turning one month old today. It would be awesome if you wou
_____________________...I had settled Ki down on her bassinet before walking over to sit on the chair beside her. "Any day man." Ashton grinned at me. "Any time. She could wake up right this moment for all we know." I nodded. My hopes were high. I was going to keep staring at her on the lookout for the slightest flutter. My girls had spent too much time apart already. It was time for them to be introduced to each other. Just this morning, I had told Gabby that Ki was a Dadda's girl. But I did not believe that. Her mother was someone who was filled with so much love and care that once Ki spent more time with Rory, she was going to be more inclined to her mother. And I had no problem with that situation. All that mattered to me was that both my girls were happy and well. I sighed. "I am scared of what is waiting for her when she wakes up." The pain was inevitable. She would have to go through it. I was just worried that my wife would not be able to handle it.When she wakes up
__________________________..."She doesn't remember you." Once again, Ashton Ames' words rang in my ears. That my deeds will come back to bite me in the ass. Was I so bad that I was being punished like this?"I know him." Rory clarified, and I rushed to her side. "Yeah? You remember me, right?" I cupped her face. She tensed under my touch, and a pink tint painted her pale cheeks as her eyes dilated. My Rory would have scowled and swatted my hands away. She was becoming shy instead. Something was wrong. "You... You are Rowan. Rowan Keller." She said tentatively. "Yeah..." I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. "Your husband." I waited for her to correct me, but she just stared at me wide-eyed. "W-what?"She didn't correct me calling me her ex-husband. She was just lost. "How much did you forget?" I exhaled. "What year is this?" "Twenty-twenty." I turned to Derek and Dr. Henkins. "Four years?" I mouthed. They nodded, identical, sympathetic looks on their faces. "But they sa
_________________...A slap resonated in the hospital hallway. I rubbed my cheek as I looked up at Katherine who looked ready to kill me."Why did you not tell her the truth?" She asked, grabbing me by the collar. "Why did you tell her you were divorced?""Because he has common sense, that's why." Gabby came to my rescue, putting herself in between her mother and me as she glared down at her shorter mother. "You live in your world so you may not realize this, but your elder daughter has one fucked up life. And if the Rory from four years ago learns of how fucked up her life is, she might just fall back into a coma.""Shut your mouth and don't say such inauspicious things about your own sister!" Katherine cried, shaking Gabby by the shoulders. Gabby shrugged her hands off her shoulders, not giving a damn about the indignant look that her mother threw her way. "I am being realistic here. The doctor said she has traumatic amnesia. Traumatic. As in she has gone through a lot of trauma
_________________..."I can't believe she is coming home tomorrow!" Gabby was jumping around as she added the final touches to Rory's apartment. The apartment that I was moving in entirely as of today. The place had been decorated with couple stuff and pictures of the both of us everyday. It helped that Zoe had a knack for taking candid pictures at all events and somehow managed to capture one or two of ours where we weren't bickering or straight out fighting."I am so happy that she is!" Roselyn grinned as she signed with her hand for me to move our wedding photo to the left. "Perfect." She said, pretending to take a picture of it with her hands. "Alright, the place looks the part!" Kevin clapped his hands. "Very authentic."The front door swung open and Bianca and Zoe walked in, Bianca waving a folder in her hands. "Dr. Derek Mathewson, the hottest man alive despite being that bitch Ophelia's brother, has bestowed us with some fake medical reports." "Fake medical reports?" Eric
__________________..."What the actual fuck!" Ashton stared at the message on my phone. "Is this some sort of sick joke?""I don't think it is." I sighed. "But who would do this? And why?""Someone who is interested in you, of course." Eric pointed out."Or in her," Ashton said."Not in her." Gabby was quick to point out. "If they were interested in Rory, then they would not have tried to kill her. Unless it's some sick bastard who thought that if they can't have her then nobody can. But the probability is really low.""Smart-ass!" Ashton winked at Gabby who smiled in return. I turned in time to see the look on Eric's face - a look that said he was about to cut off Ashton's balls."So shouldn't we go to the police with this?" Gabby asked, turning to me as opened a can of beer. This girl really needed to stop drinking."We should.""They will probably call it a prank," Eric said. "It was a DUI case and the driver is in prison. I don't think they will be interested in digging deeper.