I laughed once, bitterly.
“Apparently you weren’t afraid enough.”
“Claire, I’m sorry.”
“How did I find out?”
Her crying became louder.
“You saw our messages.”
I closed my eyes.
“And then?”
“You called me.”
“What did I say?”
“You were screaming. Crying. You told me never to speak to you again.”
My pulse quickened.
“And Richard?”
“He tried to stop you from leaving.”
“Leaving where?”
“You got in your car.”
The room around me disappeared.
For one brief second, something flashed behind my eyes.
Rain.
A windshield.
Streetlights stretching into long streaks.
My hands gripping a steering wheel.
Then nothing.
“Megan?”
“You shouldn’t have been driving. You were furious. We begged you to pull over.”
“We?”
“Richard followed you.”
My eyes opened.
“What did you say?”
“He got in his car and went after you. Later, he told the police he was trying to make you stop.”
Another flash came.
Headlights in my rearview mirror.
A horn.
Rain pounding against glass.
My mother’s necklace pulling sharply against my throat.
Metal.
Then darkness.
I dropped my free hand against the floor.
Richard had been there.
Not as some heroic stranger who happened upon the accident.
He had been part of the reason I was on that road at all.
And afterward, when I woke unable to remember the betrayal…
he had simply removed himself from the story.
Part 6 — The Man Who Gave Himself a Second Chance
Richard came home late that evening.
I was waiting at the kitchen table.
The necklace lay in front of me.
Beside it were the old photographs, my previous phone, and the picture of Richard proposing before my accident.
The moment he walked into the room, he knew.
He stopped.
His work bag slipped slowly from his shoulder.
“Claire.”
“You knew me before the hospital.”
He didn’t answer.
I held up the engagement photograph.
“We were already together.”
His eyes closed.
“Yes.”
“We were engaged.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Almost three years.”
A laugh escaped me.
Three years.
I had spent two years believing the greatest romance of my life had started in a hospital corridor.
But the man I thought I was discovering for the first time had already shared years of my past.
“You watched me fall in love with you again.”
Richard stepped closer.
“I didn’t plan it that way.”
“Really?”
“I swear.”
“Then tell me how it happened.”
