In my last life, I had humbly used the scars on my hands to prove our love. Evan had been moved at first. I thought that small flicker
of emotion would be enough to make him investigate the truth.
I was wrong.
Perhaps he was too cowardly to seek the truth, or too arrogant to bother. In any case, Faye’s explanation gave him the perfect exc-
20.46
པ་༢༡།ནི།།།་ཏེ་སEs @ M) A SUS FR, UL U) MV༦ས་ (U BARC — ས་་ད སཐད་པདང བ༤༩་པ་ས་་ངས་༔ སས་༦ ད“་ད་ ་་དང ༼pངཿ་‘དང་པ་ ་འ༦ use to run He deliberately chose to hurt me.
“So what if it’s true? I trust my own feelings. Even without my memory, my heart tells me who I love.” He had touched his chest, his smile cruel “And right here,” he’d said, “I feel nothing for you.”
Thad cried with such despair that day. I tried to tell myself to give up, but the memory of Evan, his face covered in blood, wouldn’t let me go. The good Evan and the bad Evan tore me apart until I was on the verge of a breakdown.
But this time, facing his attitude, my heart was a placid lake.
After hearing Faye’s words, the confusion in Evan’s eyes dissipated. He was saved, free to take the easy way out. His brow relaxed; the headache seemed to vanish.
But his attitude toward me had shifted slightly. His tone softened, and he avoided looking at my hands. “If you were trying to guilt- trip me, you’ve succeeded.”
“Name your price. Anything but my affection, I can give you.”
Pburst out laughing. I leaned back against the headboard, looking him up and down with open contempt.
“Guilt–trip you? Let me tell you something, I wouldn’t stand by and watch a stray dog suffer, let alone a human life, no matter how worthless. And ‘anything I can give‘? That’s a big promise. How about you pay back the eight hundred thousand before you start
making grand declarations?”
Evan’s face flushed a deep red. He opened his mouth to argue but was speechless.
Just then, Dr. Adler came to remove my needles. She did one hand, and I did the other myself.
As my fingertips closed around a silver needle, Evan flinched back, a conditioned reflex making him hide his hands behind his back.
When he realized what he’d done, he froze, his breathing growing ragged.
I watched him, a wicked smile playing on my lips as I slowly, deliberately, pulled the needles from my hand, one by one. With each
needle, the color drained further from his face.
The body’s instincts don’t lie. Three years ago, when I used to practice on him, he developed a fear of my needles. Whenever I held one, he’d hide his hands. Now, he stared at my movements, his expression shifting from shock to pure panic.
He grabbed Faye’s hand, his voice fragmented and broken. “We need to… go home. Now.”
Chapter 2
8
Evan left. I didn’t know if he was shocked into remembering anything, but on the evening of the third day, I received his payment.
One million.
The eight hundred thousand I was owed, plus two hundred thousand in interest.
At that moment, I was clearing out the last traces of him from my apartment.
A few photos. A stack of love letters, Sweet nothings scribbled in the margins of books, daily notes stuck to the fridge.
I had just found the original IOU when the notification for the bank transfer chimed. My hand paused. I flipped over the picture fra-
me that held the note.
On the front, Evan was grinning at me.
‘Rhea, if you poke me again, I swear when I make my comeback, I’m leaving you!
Rhea, gentler! If my hands are full of needle marks, how am I supposed to cook for you?
Rhea, you liar! You promised you’d kiss me after this! If I ever let you practice on me again, I’m a dog!
I opened the frame, took one last look at the Evan from three years ago, and then, along with all our shared memories, I tore the photo to shreds.
By ten o’clock that night, every trace of Evan was packed in boxes and thrown into the dumpster downstairs.
As I turned to go back inside, I came face–to–face with him.
He was alone, looking haggard and disheveled, a few cigarette butts crushed at his feet. I guessed that a man as smart as him
must have already pieced together something from the clues.
We stood in silence. I had no intention of reminiscing. I slapped the original IOU into his hand for him to deal with and brushed past
him, reaching for my door.
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Just as I was about to step inside, his hand shot out and pressed the door shut.
“Rhea,” he said my name, his voice trembling.
I paused, my back to him.
After a long moment, he composed himself, his voice strained. “Rhea, do you know what it feels like to be abandoned by the entire
world? You don’t remember anyone or anything. You don’t know your past, and you can’t see your future.”
“You’re lost, you’re terrified. You’re a lone boat adrift in a vast ocean. You have no one to tell your fears to, nowhere to put your lone-
liness. You’ve been completely cast out by the world!”
He dropped his hand and leaned against the wall behind him, his head bowed, his voice thick with grievance and helplessness.
You wouldn’t know that feeling. You’ve never lost your memory. How could you understand? But I live with that pain every day, every
moment. It’s driving me insane.”
“I needed someone to pull me out. I needed a lighthouse. I needed to find a safe harbor.” His voice grew agitated, and I could hear
the faint sound of a choked sob. “And in my most helpless moment, my fiancée appeared.”
“The moment she smiled at me, I heard my heart race. I felt a long–lost sense of familiarity. My blood sang in my veins.” His speech
quickened, his tone rising. “Do you understand? It was like I had found my lighthouse. Like I had grabbed the only piece of driftwo-
od in the deep sea.”
“In this completely unknown world, the only thing I could be sure of was that she loved me, and I loved her deeply.”
“Yes, that’s it. I was certain. My heart wouldn’t lie to me.”
He paused for a moment, as if waiting for the storm of emotions to pass. When he spoke again, his voice was calm.
“I’m telling you this because after I left the hospital, I thought about it calmly. Your actions did trigger some conditioned reflexes in
- me. I believe there are things I still don’t remember. Things that might be about you, things that might have been very important to
me once.”
“But now, I can tell you with certainty: no matter what I remember in the future, no matter how important it was to the old me, it
will not change the love I have for my fiancée now.”
“Do you understand what I mean?”
Evan’s long confession came to an end. His conclusion was clear. Although his interactions with me had made him sense that
something was wrong, after a struggle, he had chosen to trust his feelings.
I lowered my head and laughed silently. A truth I couldn’t see after a year of humiliation in my past life was suddenly crystal clear.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t see the truth. He just didn’t want to wake up.
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I turned back to him, my eyes coolly taking in his resolute, almost oath–like expression.
“What does an amnesiac’s sob story have to do with me?” I said flatly. “The eight hundred thousand is paid. Whether you live or die,
who you love or hate, has nothing to do with me. If you don’t leave now, I’m calling the police.”
The wind rustled the leaves of the plane trees.
Evan stood frozen in the long shadow of the lamplight. It was as if he hadn’t heard me. His gaze was completely captivated by the
feather pattern on my pajamas. He stared, unblinking, until a tear escaped the corner of his eye.
He wiped his face in disbelief, as if he couldn’t comprehend where the tear had come from. After a long moment, he struggled to
maintain his composure.
“…Anyway, that’s… all I had to say.” His voice was resolute. “Rhea, no matter what tricks you pull, I will never see you again!”
9
That night, I slapped Evan twice, hard.
“If you don’t want to see me, what the hell are you doing creeping around my building?” I spat with each slap.
He was caught off guard. I slammed the door in his face, shutting him out.
Back inside, I changed out of the feather pajamas and went back downstairs to throw them away.
Evan had drawn that giant feather himself. He hated the light, flimsy name my parents had given me–a constant reminder that
they’d wanted a son. So he had adorned the white feather with a dazzling array of colorful jewels.
Back then, admiring his own artwork, he had grinned, showing a row of perfect white teeth. “Rhea, I’m going to give you all the
most precious things in this world.”
Now, as I tossed it into the dumpster, Evan’s car was slowly pulling away from the curb behind me.
It was all over.
From now on, he would get his wish and let the mistake be. And I would start anew.
