Forgetting You

“I can’t help Bailey now,” I said, rubbing my thumb over Noah’s knuckles. “But I can help Noah, and I promise the both of you that I will do anythin’ I can to help get her through this.”

“We know you will,” Mr Ainsley said with a reassuring smile. “Anderson will be an issue. It’s terrible of me to say that about the man, but Noah didn’t react well to seeing him. With her currently not remembering him, keeping him away from her for the time being shouldn’t be a problem. Doctor Abara agrees that his presence is upsetting for her.”

“D’ye want to keep him away from her?” I questioned. “Because she won’t want that. I know her, she’s shocked right now, but when she realises her situation is real, she’s gonna want to speak to the man she’s married to.”

I hated admitting to myself that she was someone else’s wife, and speaking the words out loud left a sour taste in my mouth.

“I know.” Mr Ainsley nodded. “I just think that, right now, his presence will do more damage than good. He was clearly upset that she didn’t remember him, and I feel for him but I have to think of my child first.”

“She didn’t look like she knew him at all,” I admitted, trying not to sound too glad about that fact. “I wasn’t sure if I was simply just hopin’ she didn’t because I still have feelings for her, but she looked right through him. I saw it in her eyes, she had no fuckin’ clue who he was.”

“She has no knowledge of anything that has happened over the last five years. She told me she thought it was the sixteenth of March, 2015. She talked about you and her coming over for dinner on St Patrick’s Day.”

“March,” I repeated. “That was more than a year before we broke up. Jesus, today is four years since we broke up!”

Neither of Noah’s parents spoke as I tried to make sense of what was happening.

“She really does believe we’re still together, doesn’t she?”

“Yes,” they answered in unison.

“Jesus.” I rubbed my face with my free hand. “Just . . . Jesus.”

“I know,” Mrs Ainsley said with a sad smile. “This is unbelievable and a lot to take in, but we have to accept the cards we’ve been dealt and go with it. For Noah.”

“For Noah,” I echoed.

“Don’t think too far ahead, Elliot,” Mr Ainsley said. “We’re taking it minute by minute with her. She doesn’t know that she drifted apart from us. She doesn’t know Anderson, or the reason you both broke up. She doesn’t know about Bailey’s passing, or that she herself moved out of town and quit her job. We have to ease her into everything and we have to take baby steps, not just for her, but for us too. We’ve been given a chance to start over with her . . . We all have.”

A chance that I would be taking with both hands, because now that I had the opportunity to have Noah back in my life, I wasn’t about to let it – or her – go. I had lost Bailey, and I wasn’t letting anyone take Noah away from me again. Not even her husband.

CHAPTER NINE

NOAH

Warm fluid snaked down my cheek into the cracked corner of my mouth. I caught the blood with my tongue, and the metallic saltiness invaded my senses. Black dots spotted my vision and my ears rang. I forced myself to stand tall and unflinching as I watched the faceless man’s hand swing in a wide arc before it connected with my other cheek.

My head violently jerked to the side, and my neck cracked in protest. Steeling myself not to cry out in pain, I looked forward, stared up into his obscured face, trying to gauge his mood. Many nights just like this one had given me experience – enough that it had taught me that if I cried out, he enjoyed it more, and the beating would last longer.

“Where were you, Noah?” The voice sounded like Elliot’s and it was filled with a rage that terrified me. “Tell me!”

“Just taking a walk,” I answered, pressing a shaking hand to my throbbing face. “I swear.”

“Liar!” he growled, advancing on me. “I’ll teach you not to tell me lies!”

I threw my hands up in front of my face just as he swung his closed fist at me and connected with my jaw, bringing me to my knees as a pain-laced scream finally tore free of my throat only to be met with harsh laughter.

I felt hands holding mine before consciousness fully gripped me. As comforting as the touch was, it didn’t take away the fear that lingered inside of me. I felt confused, worried and slightly numb. I didn’t understand why I’d had a dream that felt as real as it did harsh. I wasn’t sure what had brought it on, or why I’d thought of it in the first place – all I knew was that it made me feel scared and incredibly uneasy.