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ARI

I wake up from the anesthesia surrounded by a handful of nurses and doctors.

“The procedure went perfectly,” one of them says from behind a light-blue medical face mask. “I’m gonna help you get off this bed and into this wheelchair. Then I’ll bring you right back to your boyfriend.”

Things are still fuzzy as I’m wheeled back to the same pre-op room I was in earlier. There, the nurse helps me back into the bed.

“How did it go?” Caleb asks the nurse. He’s stationed on a chair in the corner when he stands to come hold my hand. I offer him a warm smile as our fingers intertwine.

We didn’t plan to get pregnant, but when I told him the news, he was thrilled. We were in the midst of talking through possible names when we got the terrible news that we’d lost our baby.

Since I was already over nine weeks along and the baby wasn’t coming out naturally, I opted for a D and C. Caleb has been supportive and loving throughout this entire experience. He promised he’d treat me to some burgers for dinner since I’ve had a huge craving for fries lately.

“Everything went splendidly,” the nurse says with a bright smile. “Zero issues.”

Caleb gives my hand a light squeeze. “That’s awesome. Thank you so much for taking good care of her.”

The nurse turns back to me. “Remember, you’ll be sore and have some light bleeding down there for about two weeks. After that, your body will return to normal. Do you have any questions before we start the process of discharging you?”

“Nope,” I say as the fuzziness begins to leave my head.

“Great. You rest up then. I’ll come back in a bit when the anesthesia has fully worn off. After that, we’ll get you up and walking, then you’ll be ready to head home.”

The nurse is right, I am a little sore down there.

I feel slightly more at ease by the time Caleb and I are back home. Together, we sit on the couch to enjoy our dinner. Typically, we eat at the kitchen table, but I want to sit somewhere more comfy while I devour my fries.

“It’s been a while since we’ve had In-N-Out,” Caleb says as he unwraps his burger.

“The last time was back when we first met.” I shove some fries into my mouth, then let out a satisfied mmm . “We had In-N-Out on our third date.”

He counts on his fingers. “That was only three months ago. I suppose that’s not that long ago, but it sure feels like it.”

I feel the same about my relationship with this beautiful man.

We haven’t been together for that long, but it sure feels that way.

In only three short months, Caleb and I have gone from being strangers on the side of a highway, to going on a few dates after he helped me fix my flat tire, to falling madly in love, to finding out we were going to be parents, to losing our baby.

I can’t imagine going through all of that with anyone else.

Knock-knock-knock.

Caleb eyes me with his mouth full. “Are we expecting anyone?”

“It’s probably Javina,” I say as I wipe my fingers off on some napkins. “She texted me before my surgery, saying she’d stop by after she gets off work.”

When I open the door, it’s not Javina. Instead, a man with dark chocolate hair and a stubbly beard stares back at me. He lets out a tiny breath of relief as our eyes lock. Relief from what? I don’t know. I’m about to tell him that we aren’t interested in whatever he’s selling when he says my name.

“Arella.” It comes out breathless. In a flash, he wraps his arms around me and clutches me against his firm chest.

I freeze. How does this man know my name? And it’s my full name too. Everyone calls me Ari. Barely anyone even knows that Arella is my full name.

“I’ve been so worried about you.” The snug way he wraps his muscular arms around me sends a warmth down my spine. His hold feels desperate, possessive, and protective—three things I don’t expect to feel when being hugged by a man I’ve never seen before. “Are you okay? Please tell me you’re okay.”

It takes me a second to regain myself. When I do, I push the man away and step back. “Um, yeah? I’m okay.”

His gaze skims my body up and down. “Did they hurt you?”

Did who hurt me? The doctors who performed my surgery? How does this man know that I just had surgery? “Um, no?”

He slaps a hand over his chest and lets out a breath. “Oh, thank fuck. I’m so glad you’re?—”

Behind me, Caleb must move, because the man’s eyes dart away from me. Then his entire face crinkles together. With a thumb pointed at Caleb, he says, “Who the fuck is he?”

This guy sure has a potty mouth. “Better question: Who are you ?”

The strange man drops his jaw. It takes him a second to say, “W-w-what?”

I don’t think I stuttered, but I repeat myself anyway. “I said, who are you?”

His eyebrows press together so hard, it makes his forehead wrinkle. “What do you mean?”

I feel like who are you? is a pretty straightforward question. What does he mean by what do I mean?

“Arella, it’s me, Trey.”

“I’m sorry. You must have the wrong apartment.

” Even as I say that, I know it’s not true.

This guy is staring at me like he can’t comprehend why I would ask who he is, and he just held me like he’s been desperate to for days.

Plus, he knows my full name. This man is exactly where he thinks he should be.

Caleb steps up behind me and places an arm around my shoulders, protectively pulling me back. “Who are you?”

He has barely gotten the words out when this Trey guy leaps into our apartment and shoves Caleb away so hard, he’s launched backward several steps. Even more protectively than Caleb just did, Trey pulls me behind him and stands in front of me like a shield.

“Don’t you dare touch her.”

Caleb throws his arms up in surrender. “Hey, now. No need to get violent, okay? We’ll give you whatever you want. Just don’t hurt my girlfriend.”

“Your girlfriend ?”

I step away from the crazy man. “Who are you?”

The man whips his attention back to me. “Baby, it’s me, Trey. Trey Grant.” He points at his chest. “ I’m your boyfriend, not him.”

I keep my voice calm so I don’t aggravate this man any further. “I’m sorry, but I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

“What?” At first, he stares at me with his mouth slack. Then I see it in his eyes the moment something clicks for him. He gasps with his entire body jerking backward. “You’ve been scrubbed.”

Scrubbed? Am I supposed to know what that means? I flick my eyes up to Caleb. The look on his face tells me he doesn’t know what scrubbed means either.

Trey closes the distance between us in two large steps. With rough hands, he grabs my face. “Baby, look at me. We can beat this, okay? Whatever they did to you, you can fight it. Look into my eyes. Try to remember me.”

My body stills. I don’t want to move, because I’m afraid of what’s going to happen if I do. I don’t know what this man’s intentions are, nor do I know what he’s capable of. He’s built like he could fight off truckloads of soldiers. “Um, could you, please, take your hands off me? You’re scaring me.”

Trey gazes into my eyes as if he’s trying to figure out if I’m serious. When he realizes I am, his shoulders droop and his arms fall to his sides. “Arella, please. Try to remember me. If there’s anyone who can do it, it’s you.”

Caleb still has his hands up in surrender. “Look, buddy. I think you should leave.”

Trey ignores Caleb and keeps his attention trained on me with a desperate look on his face. “Arella, come on. You can fight this. We met on the side of a highway, remember? You had a flat tire, and I helped you put a new one on.”

How does this guy know how Caleb and I met? And why is he claiming that’s how I met him ? Now he’s really scaring me.

He keeps talking. “We started dating after that and?—”

Caleb cuts him off by rushing to my side and pulling me behind him. “Ari, go call the cops. This guy is a psycho.”

“I’m not a psycho!” Trey shouts. “I’m telling the truth!”

Caleb scoffs. “You’re the literal definition of a psycho. Unstable and aggressive.”

What is Caleb doing? When someone is being crazy, the last thing you should do is call them crazy. It only makes them more crazy.

“Arella, will you just look at me? You know me. Deep in there somewhere, you know me.”

I eye the man up and down, trying to entertain the idea that I might know him. Tall, light skin, dark hair, broad shoulders, a leather jacket. The more I stare at him, the more I’m certain I’ve never seen him before. He’s got a gorgeous face that was carved by gods. I’d remember a face like that.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know who you are.”

“What happened after that?” Javina asks. She showed up barely ten minutes after that Trey guy left. We’re sitting in the living room with Caleb as I finish telling her the whole story.

“Caleb told him to leave before we called the cops,” I say. “Without another word, the guy got right back into his car and left.”

Javina shakes her head, huffing. “Why do the weirdest and worst things always happen to you, Ari? As if your abusive ex isn’t enough, last month, you got into a bad car accident. Then this week, you lost your baby. Did you piss off the karma gods or something?”

After my car accident, I was sent to the hospital by ambulance. I came out with some whiplash, stitches, and bruises. My parents were killed in a car accident. I’d pick wearing a neck brace for two weeks over death any day.

While I was away from work, Caleb took good care of me. He brought me food, cleaned for me, and treated me like a queen. I don’t know how I could have gotten through it without him.

“That man was a psycho,” Caleb says from the floor.

Javina and I are taking up my small couch, so there’s no room for him up here.

He always says he prefers to sit on the floor, but I know he’s just being gracious.

He never sits on the floor when it’s just us.

“He kept grabbing you. I was afraid he was going to hurt you.”

I wasn’t. Trey’s tight grasp on me felt too protective for me to think he had intentions to hurt me. Yes, the man scared me, but mostly because he claimed to have met me the same way I had met Caleb.

“What did you say his name was?” Javina asks.

“Trey Grant,” Caleb says.

Javina thinks, then gasps. “Oh my god! I know him!”

I blanch. “You do?”

“Yes! I mean, not personally, but I know of him.” From the coffee table, Javina grabs her phone. A few seconds later, she shows me a Google image page. “Is this him?”

The blue-gray eyes that stared at me earlier look back at me from Javina’s screen. “That’s him.”

Caleb pushes off the floor and leans closer to Javina. “Lemme see.”

Javina shows him her screen.

Caleb points a finger at her phone. “Yeah, that’s the guy. Who is he?”

“He’s a musician,” Javina says. “He’s in a band called Flames in the Night. They play at a bar in downtown LA every weekend. Rachel and I were there a few months ago for the first time. I’ve been watching all their music videos on YouTube ever since.”

“Okay...” Caleb pretzels his legs back together. “That doesn’t explain why he showed up here, claiming that my girlfriend is his girlfriend.”

“Yeah, that’s weird.” Javina shrugs. “At least now you know who he is.”

Later that night, after Javina heads home, Caleb leaves for his night shift as a security guard at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The alone time gives me freedom to do my own Googling.

Trey Grant’s Wikipedia page is the first link that pops up when I type his name in.

I read the entire thing word for word. What I gather from the limited information is that Trey seems to be a normal guy who loves music.

He’s been with his band for four years, and they released a few cover albums together before releasing an original album.

They’re known for being a diverse group of talented individuals who went viral on YouTube with their music.

He even has a foundation that supports children with deceased parents, in honor of his parents passing away when he was young.

There’s nothing on his Wiki page that suggests he’s an escapee from a mental hospital.

Naturally, my research gravitates toward the next best thing: social media. Because of my ex, I deleted all my social media accounts when we broke up, so I have to create new ones to be able to continue my research. Once I do, under a made-up name, I scroll through Trey Grant’s platforms.

At first glance, it doesn’t look like he manages his own accounts.

He must pay someone to run his pages for him, because the content is full of candid pictures of him playing guitar, sitting behind a piano, or singing to a large crowd.

As for his other band members, their content is a little more personal, with pictures of the things they’re eating and videos of them doing silly dances.

I head to YouTube next. It only takes me one video to become captivated by Trey’s sultry singing voice. It sounds familiar, but at the same time, so new. Still, I don’t find anything that suggests he’s a weirdo.

Judging from the video comments, Trey’s fans think he and the half-Hispanic woman in his band are dating—or, at the very least, friends with benefits. It also sounds like he has a reputation for being a bit of a bad boy.

That triggers me to take my research back to Google, where I type, Trey Grant criminal record.

My heart thumps wildly as I pull up his past charges: two counts of disorderly conduct and one charge for fleeing the police.

Obviously, this man has a history of being violent and doing things he shouldn’t.

Knowing that, I’m surprised he left as willingly as he did.

However, that probably means he’s bound to reappear soon.