Part 2: The Empty Apartment and the Call I Never Should Have Made
I stood in the leasing office, struggling to absorb what the property manager had just said. According to him, Lucas and I had lived together for nearly three years before my accident.
For two years, my husband had described himself as a stranger who happened to help me through my recovery. He’d patiently taught me to walk again, offered me a home, and eventually asked me to marry him.
But apparently, he had known me long before any of that.
“Are you absolutely certain it was Lucas?” I asked.
Mr. Palmer adjusted his glasses.
“Of course. Tall fellow, dark hair, worked at the hospital. He was here often enough.”
I showed him a photograph from our wedding.
“That’s him,” he confirmed immediately.
My knees felt unsteady, and I sank into the chair across from his desk.
“Why would he tell me we’d never met?”
Mr. Palmer looked genuinely troubled.
“I couldn’t tell you, Jenna. I thought you two had moved away together.”
I glanced toward the hallway.
“Who lives in our old apartment now?”
“Nobody.”
I frowned.
“Nobody?”
“Unit 3B has been vacant since your accident. The rent keeps getting paid, though.”
I stared at him.
“For two years?”
“Every month. Automated payments, always on time.”
“Who’s paying?”
He checked his computer.
“The account information doesn’t identify anyone I recognize. I’ve never had a reason to question it.”
Someone had spent thousands of dollars keeping an empty apartment that belonged to a life I couldn’t remember.
I thought about Lucas’s comfortable suburban house, the carefully arranged photographs of our relationship, and the way he always changed the subject when I asked about my past.
“Could I see the apartment?” I asked.
Mr. Palmer hesitated, then looked over my old lease information and confirmed that my name was still on the tenancy records.
A few minutes later, we climbed the stairs to the third floor.
When he opened unit 3B, a stale, dusty smell drifted into the hallway.
The living room looked as though its occupants had meant to come back. Half-packed boxes sat beside the couch, books still lined the shelves, and two coffee mugs stood upside down on the kitchen counter.
Mr. Palmer left me alone, asking only that I lock the door when I finished.
I walked slowly through the apartment, touching furniture that should have felt familiar.
Nothing stirred in my memory.
On the mantelpiece, several framed photographs sat under a thin layer of dust.
The first showed me laughing on a beach, my left leg healthy and unscarred. Another captured a holiday dinner with people I couldn’t recognize.
Then I picked up the third photograph.
My breath caught.
Lucas was kneeling on a wooden pier, holding a small black jewelry box. I stood in front of him, both hands covering my mouth in surprise.
A diamond ring sparkled on my finger.
It was the exact engagement ring he’d given me eighteen months earlier.
I turned the frame over.
Someone had written a date on the back.
It was two years before my accident.
I sank onto the couch, staring at the photograph.
Lucas hadn’t fallen in love with me during my recovery. He had already proposed before the crash, then offered me the same ring as if he were asking for the first time.
Why would anyone erase an entire relationship and begin it again?
As I set the photograph back on the mantel, I noticed an old cellphone inside an open envelope.
I found a charging cable in a nearby box and plugged the phone into an outlet.
After several minutes, the screen lit up.
The device opened to an archive of old messages. I scrolled through conversations with coworkers, delivery companies, and unfamiliar friends until one name stopped me.
Hannah.
The same name I had crossed out in my leather notebook without remembering why.
I found her number and called from my own phone.
She answered after four rings.
“Hello?”
“Hannah? It’s Jenna.”
A long silence followed.
Then she whispered, “Oh my God. Jenna?”
“I need to ask you something about Lucas.”
Her breathing changed.
“Does he know you’re calling me?”
“No.”
“Jenna, what do you remember?”
“Almost nothing about the accident. But I found our old apartment, and I know Lucas was my fiancé before it happened.”
Hannah began to cry.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I thought he’d finally told you.”
“Told me what?”
She hesitated.
“Jenna, a few days before your accident, Lucas and I did something terrible.”
I tightened my grip on the phone.
I sat alone in my old apartment with the phone pressed to my ear while Hannah sobbed on the other end. She had just admitted that something terrible had happened between her and Lucas shortly before my accident.
For two years, I’d believed my husband was a kind stranger who helped me recover from a devastating crash. Now I knew we had already lived together, planned a wedding, and shared a life he had deliberately kept from me.
“What did you do, Hannah?” I asked.
She struggled to answer.
“A few nights before your accident, Lucas and I went to a party. We both drank too much, and afterward, we ended up alone in his car.”
My stomach tightened.
“Please tell me you’re not saying what I think you’re saying.”
“I’m sorry, Jenna. We slept together.”
I closed my eyes.
Hannah had been my closest friend before the accident. Even though I couldn’t remember our friendship, I’d kept her name in my notebook until some unexplained feeling made me cross it out.
Now I understood why that name had always troubled me.
“Did I know?”
“Not at first. Lucas and I agreed we would tell you, but neither of us had the courage.”
“Then how did I find out?”
Hannah took a shaky breath.
“You found messages between us on his tablet. He was taking a shower, and you saw everything.”
I looked toward the photograph of Lucas proposing on the pier.
“That was the night of my accident?”
“Yes.”
She explained that I had called her in tears, demanding to know how she could betray me. I’d been devastated, and before Hannah could calm me down, I had packed a bag and left the apartment.
“There was a terrible storm,” she continued. “I begged you not to drive while you were so upset.”
“What did Lucas do?”
“He followed you.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“Followed me where?”
“Onto the highway. He wanted you to pull over so he could explain.”
Suddenly, something stirred in the empty space where my memories should have been.
Rain hammering against a windshield.
Headlights filling my rearview mirror.
A horn sounding behind me.
I pressed my free hand to my forehead.
“Jenna?” Hannah asked. “Are you all right?”
I could almost feel my hands gripping a steering wheel.
There was a dark road, a sharp curve, and a vehicle following too closely behind me. I remembered being frightened, though I couldn’t tell whether the fear came from the road, the weather, or the man chasing me.
Then came a terrible metallic sound.
I gasped and dropped the phone into my lap.
“Jenna!”
I picked it up again.
“I remember headlights,” I whispered. “Someone was behind me.”
