Page 140 of The Echo of Forever

“It made me wonder,” he went on, looking at Alyssa. “It made me wonder what else she’s forgotten and if maybe the memory loss had nothing to do with her accident.”

If I’d forgotten something as recent as last night, what else had slipped away without my notice? How many more holes were there in my mind?

“There could be a pattern to these episodes,” Alyssa said gently. “Maybe—”

My phone vibrated in my pocket, cutting through her words. I pulled it out, grateful for the distraction as I opened Carmen’s text.

Board of Trustees hearing set for the day after tomorrow

I stared at the screen, feeling oddly detached.

With everything else going on, the hearing seemed almost insignificant, but it was all I wanted to focus on at the moment.

Not about what I felt could only be tied to my mother and childhood. It wasn’t lost on me that I barely remembered anything before eleven. Before my ma drugged me.

“I can’t deal with this right now,” I said, shoving the phone back into my pocket. “Whatever happened or didn’t happen to me, I don’t want to know.” I stood abruptly, turning to Demetrius with pleading eyes. “I’m hungry, can we eat now? Dr. Holland said I’m healthy. Everything else will work out how it’s supposed to.”

My husband looked at me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. I could see the debate happening behind his eyes before his shoulders finally dropped.

“Alright, baby,” he said, standing to join me. “We’ll go eat.”

The relief that washed over me was immediate. I knew I was running away from something important, but I couldn’t face it. Not with everything else closing in around me.

“Thank you, Alyssa,” I said, already moving toward the door. “For everything.”

She nodded, though her eyes held concern. “Just think about what I said, okay? And call me if anything else happens.”

As we left the exam room, Demetrius gently gripped my waist and guided me through the corridor in silence.

Unspoken insecurities plagued my mind, no matter how hard I tried to push them away. How could I trust my own mind when it was betraying me at every turn? And what secrets was it hiding from me?

For now, though, I was choosing breakfast. I was choosing normalcy, or at least the illusion of it.

The rest would have to wait until the day after tomorrow. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.

CHAPTER 34

ECHO

There wassome shit you couldn’t brush away with sex and food. I had no problem reassuring my wife she was my everything, but last night really did something to a nigga chest.

That look in her eyes when she finally opened them was embedded in my mind. Her painful cries? Yeah, not easy to forget. No matter how good she took the dick this morning.

I watched Forever take another bite of her French toast, eyes occasionally drifting to meet mine before looking away. She was acting normal, like nothing I told her was more important than breakfast.

This shit felt like a blimp in the fucking matrix.

Before she forgot me, Forever had trust issues that my consistent nature broke through. There were no nightmares that ended in tears and then forgotten by morning.

What was happening now felt like the universe unearthing secrets that might’ve destroyed us before we ever got started.

“You’re staring,” she said, setting her fork down.

I shrugged and leaned back, meeting eyes with the couple at the table next to us until they looked away.

“My wife amazes me. Am I not allowed to stare?”

They’d been staring in our direction since we arrived, and I couldn’t tell if they recognized one or both of us, but having their undivided attention was adding to the drop in my mood.