《I Forgot the Man Who Broke Me》全部章節：第 1 章 - 第 10 章

"You're telling us you forgot waking up at six every morning to bring him breakfast?"The girl stood up, her eyes full of mockery."It was freezing, and you wouldn't even wear gloves. You stood in line at the little cafe by the south entrance every morning to buy his favorite cinnamon oatmeal.""Derek mentioned once that the library was full, and after that you started showing up at five in the morning, shivering outside the doors just to save him a seat."Her words were like a switch, opening the floodgates for everyone else in the room."And junior year," another guy added, "Derek had a stomachache. You had a 102-degree fever, but you still stayed up all night to write his three-thousand-word term paper.""The craziest one was his birthday.""It was pouring rain. Every cab in the city had stopped running, and you ran two miles through the storm just to deliver some limited edition collectible.""By the time you got to the dorm, you were soaked head to toe. Looked like a drowned rat."

The guy sitting next to Derek was the first to react.He craned his neck and read the date on the invitation."The eighth? Next month?" He sucked in a breath. "That's... isn't that the date you and Derek originally set?"Derek's gaze finally fell to the invitation.He stared at the names embossed in gold on the cover.Bride: Ava Langley.Groom: Nathan Sterling."Nathan Sterling," Derek read under his breath, then gave a short, hollow laugh.He looked up, his eyes full of disbelief and derision."Ava, you had a fake invitation printed just to get back at me?"He tapped his knuckles against the cover, utterly certain of himself."You threw every gift Nathan ever gave you in the trash, right in front of the whole class.""You told him to his face never to bother you again.""You really think he'd marry someone who cut him off for another man?"The more he spoke, the more certain he became that he had exposed my pathetic little scheme."Even if he were willing, you wouldn't marry him.""No

Back home, I shut myself in the study.Nathan didn't ask why. He warmed some milk, left the mug on the desk, and quietly closed the door behind him.In the bottom drawer of the desk sat a locked metal box.Chloe had packed it up from my old apartment after I left the hospital.She told me it held "half my former life."I tried my own birthday. The lock didn't open.I tried Nathan's birthday. Still nothing.Then I noticed the corner of an old clinic report caught in the seam of the box. It was dated the day before the accident, when the old Ava had been diagnosed with severe depression and decided to leave for good.I entered those numbers.The lock clicked open.With the open box before me, the choice of code suddenly made sense.Before she ever walked out that door, the old Ava had already changed every password that had anything to do with Derek. The day she decided to save herself was the day she broke with her past.The box was stuffed with journals, a thick stack of ticket stubs,

I hadn't expected Selene to come looking for me.During my lunch break, I ran into her at a cafe near the office.She wore a white dress, her face pale, the picture of fragile innocence."Ava." She walked up to my table, her eyes rimmed red."I heard Derek went to see you."She bit her lower lip, looking every bit the wounded victim."Could you talk to him? Tell him not to kick me out? I have no family left in this city."I stirred my coffee without looking up."You've got the wrong person. Whether he kicks you out has nothing to do with me."Selene's composure cracked, tears welling in her eyes."How can it have nothing to do with you? If you hadn't provoked him by getting married, he never would have tried to throw me out.""Ava, my parents had just died. I really did lose my memory from the trauma. I wasn't trying to take your place.""Derek told me you were his sister, and I believed him."Just then, the cafe door burst open and Derek stormed in, livid.He seized Selene's wrist wit

Nathan and I held our wedding at a private island resort.We invited only close family and friends, none of the college classmates from the reunion.The sea breeze was gentle. Sunlight filtered through the white canopy and dappled the lawn.With my arm linked through my father's, I walked down the aisle toward Nathan waiting at the other end.He wore a white suit. The corners of his eyes glistened. He watched me with something close to reverence.The officiant was just about to begin the ring exchange.Then a commotion erupted beyond the ceremony space.Derek had somehow managed to get a boat to the island.Hotel security caught him at a rope line on the beach before he could reach the ceremony.He had lost a lot of weight. His eyes were sunken, his jaw rough with stubble.The shirt that had once always been crisply pressed was now a wrinkled mess.He couldn't get in. All he could do was scream desperately toward us from hundreds of feet away, past the aisle and the flower walls."Ava!