George

No, it was like he was scared out of his mind. Like he was lost.

Fuck it. I got up slowly to make sure my legs stayed under me, came around the desk, and gestured for him to do the same.

“Come here,” I whispered, and… oh God. He did. He wrapped his arms around me, holding on to me fiercely as he trembled and tried to catch his breath.

“I’m losing my fucking mind,” he murmured unsteadily. “Something’s… I don’t know what’s happening, but I’m—”

“Hey. Hey. Easy. Just breathe for a minute.” I stroked his back with my good hand, pretending this wasn’t killing me for multiple reasons. I’d been aching to hold him. I didn’t deserve to be holding him. And I was also worried, and scared, and confused, and…

What the hell is happening?

After a moment, Silas drew back a little, but he didn’t pull away completely. Looking in my eyes, he whispered, “Everything is… different. The condo. Everything on the way here.” He did pull away this time, and he started pacing my office, raking a hand through his hair. “It’s like someone came in and just… changed everything.”

I leaned against my desk. “Changed everything? Like what?”

“Like…” He rubbed the back of his neck. Then he faced me. “You were there last night. Living with me. Your stuff was all over the place, same as mine. And then this morning…” His eyes lost focus as he slowly shook his head. “It’s all gone. It’s like you never lived there, and…” He trailed off.

My stomach twisted itself into knots. I had no idea what to say, especially because I knew exactly why all my things were gone.

“That, um… That sounds seriously disorienting.” I absently played with the edge of the bandage. “You said I was there last night?”

He turned terrified eyes on me. “Yes?”

I swallowed. “What else do you remember? From yesterday?”

“Um.” He wrung his hands as he kept pacing. “You came home from the conference. I picked you up at the airport, and—”

“Wait, wait.” I tilted my head. “Which conference?”

Silas halted and looked at me. “The one in Toronto.”

I blinked. “Toronto?”

Renewed fear filled his expression. “Yeah? I didn’t imagine that or something, did I?”

My mouth went dry. No, he definitely hadn’t imagined it. But I sure as shit hadn’t come home from the Toronto conference last night.

“Why?” Silas lost impossibly more color. “What am I missing? What’s going on?”

I inhaled slowly, and though I was confused and maybe getting a little panicky myself, I kept my voice even just so I didn’t freak him out more. “You didn’t imagine it. I went to that conference, and you did pick me up at the airport.” I moistened my lips. “But that was a year ago.”

His lips parted. “Are you serious?”

“Yes,” I whispered. “In fact, it was exactly a year ago last night.”

Silas’s eyes got wider, and he sank into the guest chair again as his face went slack.

I didn’t even have to check a calendar to be sure of the date or the anniversary. I knew—felt it all the way to my bones—because today was exactly one year since I’d torpedoed my entire world. One year since the guilt had been too much, and I’d come clean, and I’d destroyed the man I loved.

When he spoke again, his voice came out shrill. “Are you saying I’m missing a year of my life?” Eyes unfocused, he breathed, “How… How the fuck does something like that even happen?”

Oh, there were ways. There was plenty of magic that could fuck with someone’s memory. I’d never heard of someone losing an entire year, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if it was possible.

“I have no idea,” I said as gently and evenly as I could. “But it’s… yeah, it’s been a year.” The longest and most horrible year of my life, but I couldn’t bring myself to say that out loud.

“I don’t know what to do,” Silas murmured. “I’m… God, what the hell do I do?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered. I racked my brain to figure out what to even ask him. I couldn’t have him retrace his steps because he couldn’t remember them. Whatever had happened, there was just a blank space between the night I came home from Toronto and now.

Abruptly, Silas lifted his head and met my gaze. “Did we…” The fear in his eyes intensified, and his voice came out shaky. “Did we break up?”

My breath stuck in my throat. Christ. He really didn’t remember. In his mind, we were still everything I’d wrecked a year ago.

Silas’s shoulders sagged. “We did, didn’t we?” He got up. “Shit. I’m sorry.” Starting for the door, he said, “I shouldn’t have come here, and—”

“Silas.” I touched his arm. “Stay. I’ll—”

“I’m sorry,” he rambled on. “I should’ve guessed we had, but I just saw that everything was different, and I freaked out, and—”

“Hey. Hey.” I gave his arm a squeeze. “You don’t have to go. I’ll… I want to help you figure this out.”

He searched my eyes, a hint of tears brimming his along with the fear and confusion, as if our breakup was one revelation too many. “What happened to us?”

I froze. Did I tell him the truth? Because I didn’t want to lie to him and pretend we were friendly when he had every reason to hate me. At the same time, in Silas’s mind, we were exactly where we’d been the night after the conference. Which meant if I told him the truth, I was going to hurt him all over again. And this time, I’d be dropping that bomb while he was also dealing with his lost memory. He’d been in a good mood a year ago. Calm and chill, with no idea what was coming. One awful conversation later… Well. It hadn’t been pretty.

So what would happen if I did that to him when he was already on the verge of collapsing? I couldn’t begin to imagine how terrified and confused he was. He’d come to me because he thought we were still together, and because he was trusting me to help him at his absolute worst and most vulnerable.

I didn’t deserve his trust, but he didn’t deserve to find out that particular truth right now. Not like this.

Finally, I just said, “We realized we weren’t right for each other. A few months ago.”

Silas’s face fell. His shoulders drooped. Though he was a far cry from the devastated mess he’d been a year ago, he was obviously crushed.

In that moment, I wondered if this was harder for him than the real thing had been. If it had been less painful to for him to call me every name in the book, throw me out, and hate my guts, because he’d wanted me gone. Good riddance to bad rubbish, even though he’d also been hurt and devastated. This time, as far as he knew, we’d been as good as we were before I’d gone to Toronto, and now it was inexplicably over. He’d lost the version of me he loved without knowing he had any reason to hate me.

Goddammit.

I couldn’t help myself—I pulled him into a hug, ignoring the way my arm hurt when I pressed it against his back. “I still care about you. This thing you’re dealing with—I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

Silas exhaled, relaxing against me. “Thank you. Whatever happened to us, I have no idea how I’d deal with this without you.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and held him tighter as guilt burned even deeper and hotter than it had for the past year. I hoped that somehow, when all this was over, he’d forgive me for not telling him now.

The only thing I knew for sure was that sooner or later, he was going to find out for the first time—again—that I’d made the biggest mistake of my life.

Even if he couldn’t remember, he was going to know I’d cheated on him.

God, Silas. I am so sorry…