Chapter 12: Chapter 12
Chapter 12
Carly Lewis
POV
I listened for Chase to leave the door, before I move or even breathe.
I was a coward. It felt like every part of me screamed to go out there and face the music.
This wasn’t like me. Or I thought it wasn’t like me. Something about the way it made me feel to listen to him leave told me it was.
I gave myself a half an hour to talk myself out of going to take to Chase. But I was hungry and my head no longer felt like it was going to explode.
I got up from the floor, I took a quick shower and changed into a worn jean and a green sweater.
By the time I made it downstairs, my headache wasn’t hurting as bad anymore. It was almost non-existent.
The house was quiet, a little too quiet for my liking.
Stella was nowhere to be seen, which probably meant she was asleep. I was grateful for that. I wasn’t sure I could explain what had happened this morning when I couldn’t even explain it to myself. I’ve played it over and over in my head and I still couldn’t explain it.
The smell of coffee led me to the kitchen I saw Chase was standing by the kitchen Island with a mug in his hand, looking at something on his phone.
He looked up when he heard me enter the kitchen.
For a moment, neither of us spoke we just looked at one another.
The memory of his ex-wife screaming flashed through my mind once again. Then the memory of her arm twisted behind her back because of me.
I winced. "I uh owe you an apology." I said immediately.
He sighed "Carly..."
"No. Don’t..." I shook my head. "I attacked your ex-wife. I could have seriously hurt her." The words sounded even worse when spoken aloud.
"You thought she was a threat." he says softly pocketing his phone.
"That’s not an excuse." I say softly. I went through what to say when I was in the shower.
"No." he agreed. "But it is an explanation."
I sank onto one of the stools. My head began to pound again.
Chase studied me for several seconds.
The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, for like Chase was trying to be cautious, making sure I wasn’t a threat to his daughter. Even I didn’t know the answer to that.
Finally, he spoke. "What happened to you?"
I froze, my eyes met his green eyes. Something about his eyes always seemed so familiar. I didn’t know how or why.
I stayed quiet for a few seconds, not because I didn’t understand the question. But because I didn’t know where to begin.
"I don’t know." I tell him honestly. I had no idea what happened to me.
His brows furrowed. He didn’t question it, he gave me a chance to explain myself.
I stared down at my hands. "Three years ago, I woke up outside a hospital." The words felt strange on my tongue every time I said them. Like I was telling someone else’s story, like it wasn’t my story. It was a random human’s story. "There was a doctor leaving for work. He found me, bleeding out on a bench." I swallowed. "I had a ID on me and that’s all they found on me."
Chase’s expression softened slightly.
"I didn’t know where I lived. I didn’t know if I had family. I didn’t know how old I was." I laughed bitterly. "I didn’t even know what country I was born in. Carly didn’t own any property, they couldn’t find out if I was on a lease anywhere. I had nothing to my name."
The kitchen fell silent, Chase didn’t say anything, he just listened to me. He took a seat on a stool as well.
"I spent months in the hospital while they tried to identify me. While I learnt how to walk again, learnt I knew nothing about myself."
I remembered the endless questions the police, the doctors and social workers had.
The disappointment I felt every time they came back with nothing.
Carly Lewis had no family, no one filed a missing person’s report. No one was looking for me. Still to this day. "No one ever came to look for me." The words still hurt. Even after three years of waiting... It still hurt the same way it did back then. "I had no parents looking for me. No siblings or any friends looking for me. I had no one..." I looked out the window unable to look Chase in the eye. I didn’t want the same pity look I got in the support groups, the police, the doctors and nurses too. I didn’t want the same from Chase.
"Somehow the name Carly Lewis felt foreign to me. It felt like it wasn’t me." I say softly.
"You feel like you got the wrong ID and that Carly Lewis wasn’t your name?" he asks.
I nod. "I don’t think it was my real name."
The admission sat heavily between us.
"I don’t know who Carly Lewis is, I feel like I’m living someone else’s life" I confessed quietly. The words escaped before I could stop them.
"Every morning I wake up with no recognition of who I am. Where I am and how I got there. It takes me a few minutes to find my bearings." I continued before I lost my nerve. "A nurse at the hospital Amy helped me find a place to live and Amy helped me get my job at the bar." A small smile tugged at my lips.
"Amy basically adopted me, when I had no one else."
"She sounds like a good friend." he says softly.
I nod. "Amy was there for me when I had no one else." I stared into my untouched coffee. "For three years, I’ve just... existed."
The truth of it hit harder than I expected it to.
"I worked, paid my bills, tried to figure out who I was, what I liked. I did normal things for three years, like buying groceries, going to the mall. All I figured out was I didn’t like crowded places very much... I never felt normal." My voice cracked slightly. "There was always this feeling."
"What feeling?" Chase asked finally.
I met his eyes. "That I was forgetting something important. Like a part was ripped from me and I didn’t know how to get it back."
The kitchen seemed smaller suddenly. He now knew the parts of me, I kept hidden from everyone else, and somehow that didn’t frighten the bejesus out of me.
Because this was the part I hadn’t told anyone. Not even Amy knew how I really felt.
"I’ve had these moments recently." I admitted. "Little things. Well more like instincts, or like reactions. The way I notice exits when I enter a room. The way I can tell when someone’s watching me without having to turn around. The way I immediately took out those two men with your daughter in my arms."
Chase’s eyes narrowed slightly.
"I never questioned it before." My fingers tightened around my mug. "Maybe I should have questioned these things. I never questioned them until today when I nearly ripped that woman’s arm out."
Neither of us spoke.
Then I took a deep breath and I said the thing I’d been avoiding. The only reason I agreed to follow them. "The only time I’ve ever felt closer to remembering..." I hesitated. "...is since I met you and Stella."
Chase went completely still.
I looked away, unable to hold his gaze. My shoulders slumped. "I know that sounds crazy."
"It doesn’t." His answer came too quickly.
I looked at him. "What?"
He leaned against the counter.
"You said you felt like you’d seen me before."
I nodded slowly.
"And Stella attached herself to you almost immediately."
The thought still baffled both of us.
I laughed weakly. "She acts like she’s known me forever."
A strange expression crossed his face. "Stella must see something in you no one else can see. My daughter was left at my brother’s company when she was only a couple of months old. I have no idea who her mother is. Or where her mother is. Amelia and I got married so she could help me take care of Stella. Maybe Stella wants you to fill in the role as her mother."
I stared at him. The comment shouldn’t have affected me. But it did.
Because for the first time since waking up three years ago, I wasn’t chasing a feeling. I wasn’t chasing a ghost. I wasn’t staring into a void hoping for answers. For the first time, it felt like the answers might be staring back at me and that terrified me.
Because if Chase and Stella were connected to me finding out what happened to me back then it will help me find out who I was and if I was good for this family.
What if whatever took my memories three years ago wasn’t an accident? And somewhere deep inside me, I had a feeling I had forgotten my past on purpose.
But why?
"Carly..." Chase calls my name...
I look at him. "Ye-yeah?"
"Don’t worry I’ll help you find out who you are..." he promises.
I tried to smile but my head was throbbing. The more I looked into Chase’s eyes the more my head hurt.
I clutch my head again, trying to stop the pain. "Aah!" I screamed out.
"Carly? Carly what’s wrong?"
I hear Chase calling me but he sounds so distant... So far away from me.
