Page 42

The Affliction.

TWENTY YEARS LATER

I don’t know when it began or how I stopped remembering. All I know is one day, I woke up and everything around me was different. The people, the island, and even the air seemed different. It’s dry when I try to swallow down the lump in my throat, but the desperate feeling is still there with me. It’s like I’m living in a nightmare as I try to focus on the words. But they feel like they’re being spoken at me instead of to me.

“Signs of early-onset Alzheimer’s,” the voice echoes in my head, fading into the fog constantly waiting for me in the back of my mind. The words don’t make sense, because how can they? It can’t be real.

Everyone’s heard of it, and as much as I hoped I wouldn’t hear them, it was like an ominous fate, waiting for me.

I blink the blurriness away, Dante’s desk slipping in and out of focus. Is it the lighting, or is it me? I’m anxious to know what he said earlier, but the words evade me, scattering into the air like a puzzle missing its pieces.

“Do you understand what this means?” his soft voice, intended to keep me calm, infuriates me.

Of course I understand what it means. I’ve seen it happen to my mother.

My mother. Will I forget her too?

Alzheimer’s .

It can’t be. This can’t be it. I can’t accept it.

I open my mouth and nothing comes out, the fog pressing down on my thoughts, trapping them, making everything in my mind harder to reach. It’s like walking into a room and forgetting what you’re there for but instead of a room, it’s inside my head and I’m supposed to know me. I’ve lived with me. I’ve grown into me.

How is this happening?

I nod instead, unsure if I’m agreeing or if I’m in a trance, like a robot on autopilot.

His lips continue to move, the words floating into the air, landing around me. It must be a dream. I must be inside a nightmare because this can be the only explanation. I pinch myself, desperate to wake up, but I remain seated in this room, the walls slowly closing in on me.

Memory loss.

Gradual decline.

My throat closes up and my chest tightens as my hand is taken in another’s. Frozen, I remain in place, staring at the desk, then up at the doctor, trying to make sense of the sympathy in his eyes.

So what do I do now?

What drugs will help me?

I want to ask him, but my lips refuse to move and even if they did, I’m not sure I want to know the answer, or if I’ll even hear it.

Glancing around the room, I spot a photo of me and Dante, me in a beautiful black dress and him in a suit. I want to remember, to know something for sure, something that will hold me in place, but I struggle to keep the memories locked down.

Why don’t I remember that day?

I know in my heart I enjoyed that day and that it probably held a massive significance for me but the static distorts the images in my head the more I try to focus. I grip the arms of my chair, growing frustrated the more I try to dig into my memories.

I know I’ve been forgetting. It was little things at first, like where I placed my coffee mug or what I had for breakfast. But it wasn’t like this.

It was never like this.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I listen to the deep thumps beneath my chest.

Please, let this be a nightmare.

Wake up.

Please.

Wake. Up!

But I don’t.

When I open my eyes, I want to beg the doctor to help me.

Please. Fix me! Please help me! Don’t let me forget!

“I’m sorry.” His voice fades as he stands, and there’s a sudden wave of frustration. I want to leap from my chair to stop him, to shake him and beg him to do something.

He leaves, his footsteps soft in the hallway outside and if it weren’t for Rafael sitting with me, I would be beside myself.

Shakily, I grip the edge of the chair for support and look down at my hands, with his on mine. For a second, I don’t recognise them. They’re mine, but they’re not. I can’t bear to look him in the eyes, so I stare at my trembling fingers. The memories I try desperately to cling to remain as fragments inside my head. Even those that once would have meant the world to me.

What are you left to do when the world is pulled from beneath you?

How do you move on with your life knowing you’ll forget the things that made you who you are?

How do you accept a fate like this?

“My dream,” I whisper.

“I’ll always remind you, Principessa ,” he says as he clutches my hand tighter. Leaning into my space, he lifts my gaze to his. “In the quietest moments and in the loudest ones.”

RAFAEL

I knew in my heart the moment she uttered those words on the night of our wedding that it was a possibility. I’d never admit it to her, but I knew something was wrong before she even said anything. Her eyes were different.

Distant, like she was looking at me from afar. When she smiled, it didn’t reach her eyes and the tightness of her mouth, I’d seen it before, after she’d had a stressful day, and for a while, it had been permanent. It reminded me of the weight I shouldered when I carried the secret of my birth. A secret too heavy to be burdened with alone.

I felt her body tense the moment those words were spoken and I knew instantly she wasn’t hearing him. I don’t think I even heard him the first time.

I keep my hand on hers, a small touch to remind her I’m never fucking leaving her. She’s my entire world and right now, she’s breaking in a way I’ll never know how to fix.

“I don’t want to forget.” Her voice is vulnerable as she stares back at me, a flicker of something in her eyes. Hope or trust I can’t be too sure, but it’s enough to know we’ll be together in this.

No matter how dark it gets, I’ll remind her.

For her.

For us.

We’ve been through too much.

Too much to let this break us.

I know I have to come to terms with the fact that she’ll forget me because it’s imminent. It’s going to happen.

The silence lingers once again but this time, it doesn’t feel as suffocating. Her hands tremble in mine and as she tries to pull them from me, I don’t let her. I’m not ready to let her go yet.

I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to let her go.

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispers, her voice barely audible, as if she’s afraid to speak the words. “I don’t know how to fight it.”

Breaking my gaze, she stares down at our hands entwined together.

“You’re not going to be fighting it, Principessa . We’re going to live our lives like we vowed we would the day we said I do. I’m going to love you and you’re going to love me.”

When she looks back at me, I see a strength in her eyes that I fell in love with. “I don’t want to forget you.” Her voice cracks, tearing apart my insides.

The thought of her forgetting me, us, and our lives together is one thing that could kill me. But I’m never going to let her know.

“I won’t let you forget me. Ever.” Bringing her knuckles to my lips, I place a chaste kiss on her skin. “I’m going to remind you in every way I know you’ll remember.”

We look at each other for a long moment and the way her eyes soften, even in the slightest, is enough to calm the storm within me. Resting my forehead on hers, I curse whatever fake god sits in his all-mighty chair, looking down on his so-called children in suffering.

“I’ll be here,” I repeat. I want to say it’s for her, but I do it more for me.

She nods, a silent promise, the looming uncertainty now muted and distant, like it doesn’t matter in the face of what we have together.

Maybe tomorrow will bring more hope. Maybe the days ahead of us will be harder than our past, but whatever happens, I know we will endure it together like we’ve done before. Desperate to stop the aching in my chest, I take her lips with mine and it’s different to all the kisses we’ve shared in our past. This is slower, softer, like we are trying to memorise the moment before it slips away.

When we finally pull away, the space between us is equally as painful as it is peaceful. That’s when I see it in her eyes, the quiet acceptance. No matter how much time we have left, we’ll wake up tomorrow and won’t waste a second more worrying about the inevitable.