She closes the door an inch so I can’t see any more than a sliver of her face. “And I’m her mother. You people hurt her once. I won’t let it happen again.”
“We didn’t hurt her,” Ava says.
“Mom? Who’s at the door?”
I nearly push past the woman and into the house at the sound of Ellie’s voice. Ava grabs my arm before I can.
“No one of consequence,” her mother says. She slams the door in our faces.
Ellie
I watch from the top of the stairs as my mom shoves the front door shut.
“Who was that?” I ask without coming down. I don’t like strangers. Or unexpected visitors.
Mom climbs the steps and gives me a tight smile. Her dark hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and her face is lined with worry. I wonder again what happened to my easy, carefree mother with her broad smile and easy laugh. And when did it happen? During the last three years while I was living my life in Jackson Harbor? Or after “the incident,” as they call it? After she was called to a hospital in Michigan, where I was lying helpless, beaten black and blue, and in a medically induced coma while they waited for the swelling in my brain to subside?
“No one,” she says. “It was no one.” She steps forward and sweeps my hair behind my ear, tucking it back as she studies my face. “How are you feeling today?”
I shrug. “Good.” The truth is that I’m tired, and everything takes more effort than it should. I go to physical therapy three times a week, where they attempt to restore the strength I lost while I was lying in that hospital bed. “But who was at the door?”
Her expression tightens. “Friends of Colton’s.”
I freeze, fear making every muscle in my body contract.
“Don’t worry. I sent them away.” She squeezes my shoulder and shakes her head. I recognize the look in her eyes. She’s transformed into the fierce mama bear who’s been walking around with her hackles raised ever since I was discharged. “You’re safe, El. I promise you.”
Tears sting the back of my eyes. “What do you think they wanted?”
Mom folds me into her chest. “Breathe, sweetie. They’re gone, but I don’t think they were here to hurt you.”
I drag my bottom lip between my teeth. “You don’t know that.” What if they were here to scope out the house, to plan how they’ll break in later? What if they’re in contact with Colton and tell him where he can find me?
My fears are irrational, and I know it. If Colton was looking for me, wouldn’t he check my mother’s house first? But I can’t help the terror that claws at me when I think of my life in Jackson Harbor.
“It doesn’t matter. I sent them away.”
I nod. “Thank you.” I know I sound weak, but in this one area, I’ve allowed myself to be.
“I’m going to make some lunch,” she says. “Come downstairs when you’re ready.”
I nod, grateful to return to the safe haven of my childhood bedroom.
I’ve had two weeks back at home trying to come to terms with what everyone tells me: that I have three years of my life that I can’t remember. The doctors expect most of the memories will come back in their own time, but I haven’t even seen a hint of the missing pieces.
I’m not sure I want to.
Before, I would have imagined retrograde amnesia would feel like looking at a picture with a section blacked out. Instead, it’s more like someone cropped the picture, cutting away all signs of the last three years. If no one had told me, I wouldn’t have even known anything was missing.
I have so many questions about the years I lost on the night of the incident. I had an entire life in a city I can’t remember. A house. A job. A fiancé. Some days it all feels like an elaborate joke. How could I have been planning to marry a man I can’t even remember meeting? The last I remember, I was working for an art dealer and traveling the world. My job was my everything, and my future looked so bright.
But everything changed sometime during those missing years. By the time they found me, unconscious and barely breathing on my living room floor, I was a different person. I was a struggling real estate agent who’d exchanged a lavish life of art for piles of debt, and I was engaged to a drug addict who nearly beat me to death. How could things have changed so drastically?
I have so many questions about the place I’m told I lived and the life I’m told I had, but I want nothing to do with any of it. I was given a second chance, and I’m not going to ruin it by chasing ghosts from a life that almost killed me.
I walk to the window and frown when I see a blue Mustang parked in front of the house. A beautiful brunette leans against the passenger-side door, and a broad-shouldered man stands in front of her. Are they the ones who came to talk to me? The woman is thin—not frail but lithe, like a ballerina. She wraps her arms around herself, and the wet streaks on her face glisten in the sun.
The man dips his head and presses a kiss to the top of her head. Are they together? Or maybe brother and sister? I can’t tell, but clearly she’s upset and he’s trying to comfort her.