I spent the next hour exploring my own home.
Turns out, my home was massive. The penthouse took up the entire top floor of a building that was easily fifty stories tall. There were rooms I didn't have names for. A kitchen bigger than most apartments. A closet that made me stop and stare for five minutes straight.
I found dresses I'd never seen. Shoes lined up like soldiers. Bags hanging in neat rows, each one probably worth more than a car.
I touched a silk blouse hanging near the front. It was beautiful. Expensive. And completely cold.
Nothing in this closet felt like me.
I closed the closet door and kept walking.
The living room had floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides. The city sprawled below like a map I couldn't read. I pressed my hand to the glass. Cold. Like everything else in this place.
Then I found the office.
It was tucked behind a sliding door I almost missed. The room was small, compared to everything else. A desk. A laptop. Shelves filled with binders and files.
And on the desk, more photos.
I picked one up. Same woman. Same cold face. She was standing next to an older man with gray hair and kind eyes. His arm was around her shoulder. She wasn't smiling, but she wasn't frowning either. She looked... safe.
Who was he? Her father? A mentor?
I turned the photo over. No writing.
I picked up another. This one was different. The woman in the photo was laughing. Actually laughing. Her head was thrown back, her hair catching the wind. She was standing on a beach somewhere, wearing a white dress, holding hands with a man.
I stared at her face. At her smile. At the way her eyes crinkled at the corners.
That's me. I can laugh. I was happy once.
I looked at the man beside her. Tall. Dark hair. Sharp jaw. He was looking at her like she was the sun.
I turned the photo over.
Alexander and Me. Santorini. 2023. The best day of my life.
Alexander.
The name hit me like a punch to the chest. I didn't remember him. But my heart did. My heart was pounding. My hands were shaking. My eyes were filling with tears I didn't understand.
Who are you, Alexander? And what did you do to me?
I put the photo down. My hands were trembling too hard to hold it.
I needed air. I needed out.
I grabbed a coat from the closet, shoved my feet into shoes, and walked to the front door.
---
The elevator ride was a blur. The lobby was a blur. Everything was a blur until I stepped outside and the city hit me.
Noise. Cars. People. Buildings stretching up so high they disappeared into the clouds. I stood on the sidewalk, spinning slowly, trying to find something familiar.
Nothing.
I didn't recognize the street. The buildings. The smell of coffee and exhaust and rain from last night.
I didn't recognize anything.
A woman bumped into me. She muttered sorry and kept walking. A man with a briefcase cut in front of me, talking on his phone. A delivery driver on a bike almost hit me.
And I just stood there. Lost. In a city that was supposed to be mine.
"Miss Vivian!"
I turned.
Lucas was running toward me. His suit jacket was gone. His tie was loose. His face was pale.
He stopped in front of me, breathing hard.
"How did you... you can't just..." He ran a hand through his hair. It was the most disheveled I'd seen him. "You left without telling anyone."
"I wanted to see outside," I said.
"You could have asked me. I would have..."
"I don't want to be trapped, Lucas."
He went quiet.
"I spent an hour in that apartment," I said. "I saw photos of a woman who looks like me but doesn't feel like me. I have a closet full of clothes I don't remember buying. I have a life I don't remember living." My voice cracked. "I don't know who I am. And I'm tired of sitting in that big empty room waiting for someone to tell me."
Lucas stared at me. His expression shifted through something I couldn't name. Worry. Pain. Understanding.
Then he did something I didn't expect.
He took off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders.
"It's cold," he said simply. "You should have worn something warmer."
I looked down at the jacket. It smelled like him. Clean. Woodsy. Safe.
"Where did you want to go?" he asked.
I blinked. "What?"
"You wanted to see outside. Where did you want to go?"
I looked around at the unfamiliar streets. "I don't know. I don't know anything here."
He nodded slowly. Then he pointed down the street.
"There's a café two blocks that way. They make hot chocolate with real melted chocolate. It's terrible for you. The owner knows your name." He paused. "Knew your name. She hasn't seen you in two years."
I looked where he was pointing. "Take me there."
He frowned. "Are you sure? It might..."
"Lucas. Please."
He studied my face for a long moment. Then he nodded.
"Okay. Follow me."
---
We walked in silence.
Lucas stayed close. Not touching, but close enough that I could feel the warmth of him beside me. People moved around us like water around stones. They didn't bump into me now. They moved. Like they knew.
Or maybe they were just moving because of Lucas. The way he walked, shoulders back, eyes forward, people just... stepped aside.
"Who are you, Lucas?" I asked.
He glanced at me. "Your assistant."
"That's not what I mean. Who are you? Before me. Before this job."
He was quiet for a moment. "I was nobody."
"I don't believe that."
He almost smiled. Almost. "I grew up in a small town. My mother worked three jobs to send me to school. I got lucky. Got a scholarship. Graduated. Needed a job." He looked ahead. "You hired me."
"When?"
"Five years ago."
I did the math. He would have been twenty-seven. Young. Starting out.
"Was I nice to you?"
He didn't answer.
"I wasn't, was I?"
"There's the café," he said, pointing.
It was a small place tucked between two big buildings. Warm light spilled out the windows. I could see people inside, laughing, talking, living.
I stopped in front of the door.
"Do I go here often?" I asked.
"You used to. Before..." He stopped.
"Before what?"
He shook his head. "Before everything."
I pushed open the door.
A bell rang. A woman behind the counter looked up. She was older, maybe sixty, with gray hair and a face full of laugh lines. Her name tag said Marlene.
Her smile started to form. Then she saw me.
The smile froze. Her eyes went wide.
"Vivian?"
I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how to be this person. The Vivian she knew. The Vivian in the photos.
So I just said the truth.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I don't remember you."
Marlene's hand came up to her chest. She looked at Lucas. He gave a small nod.
"Oh, honey," she said softly. "Oh, honey. Come here."
She came around the counter. She was shorter than me, round and warm. She pulled me into a hug before I could react.
I stiffened. I didn't know this woman. I didn't know why she was hugging me.
But then I felt it. Warmth. Genuine, simple warmth. The kind that didn't ask for anything in return.
And I started to cry.
I didn't mean to. The tears just came. Marlene held me tighter.
"You've been gone so long," she whispered. "I thought you forgot about me."
"I did," I choked out. "I'm sorry. I forgot everything."
She pulled back, her hands on my shoulders. Her eyes were wet too.
"You're here now. That's what matters." She looked at Lucas. "You brought her back."
Lucas didn't say anything. He just stood by the door, watching us. His hands were in his pockets. His face was calm.
But his eyes. His eyes were soft.
Marlene led me to a table by the window. She brought hot chocolate without me asking. Real chocolate, melted into warm milk, topped with whipped cream.
I took a sip. It was perfect.
"She always ordered the same thing," Marlene told me. "Every Tuesday. Two years straight. Would come in, sit right here, and drink her chocolate while she worked."
"What did I work on?"
Marlene glanced at Lucas. He gave a small nod again.
"You were always writing," she said. "In a little notebook. Red cover. You'd sit here for hours, just writing."
I looked down at my hands. "I don't remember."
"That's okay." She patted my hand. "Maybe you'll remember someday. Or maybe you'll write something new."
She went back to the counter to let us talk. I stared at my hot chocolate, watching the whipped cream melt.
"Why did I stop coming?" I asked.
Lucas sat down across from me. "You stopped doing a lot of things. After Alexander."
There was that name again. Alexander.
"Who is he?" I asked.
Lucas's jaw tightened. "He was your fiancé."
My heart stopped.
"Was?"
"He left. Two years ago. The day before your wedding."
The words hit me like a wave. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. My chest was caving in.
The best day of my life, the photo had said. Santorini. 2023.
He left me the day before our wedding.
"Is that why..." I couldn't finish the sentence.
"Why you woke up crying?" Lucas's voice was gentle. "I think so. I found you in your apartment. You were..." He stopped. Swallowed. "You were crying so hard you passed out. When you woke up, you didn't remember anything."
I stared at him. "How long was I asleep?"
"Almost a full day. I was about to call a doctor when you woke up."
I looked down at my hands. They were shaking again.
"He broke me," I whispered. "He broke me so badly I forgot my own name."
Lucas reached across the table. His hand hovered over mine. He didn't touch me. Like he was asking permission.
I turned my palm up.
His fingers wrapped around my hand. Warm. Steady.
"He doesn't get to break you again," Lucas said quietly. "Not while I'm here."
I looked at him. At the man who brought me breakfast. Who ran after me when I left. Who stood in the corner of a café watching me cry over hot chocolate.
"Why do you care so much?" I asked. "I wasn't good to you. I was cold. I was mean. I was..." I looked at the photo in my memory. The cold woman. The one who never smiled. "I was her. The woman in the photo. And you stayed anyway."
Lucas was quiet for a long moment.
Then he said, "Because I saw her too. The woman who came here every Tuesday. Who drank hot chocolate and wrote in a red notebook. Who laughed on a beach in Santorini. Who was brave enough to love someone even though she was terrified."
His thumb traced circles on the back of my hand.
"That woman was still in there. Even when you hid her. Especially when you hid her. And I knew... if I just stayed long enough... one day she'd come back."
I didn't know what to say.
So I just sat there, holding his hand, drinking my hot chocolate, letting the tears fall.
And for the first time since I woke up in that giant bed, I didn't feel alone.