“Mom and Dad didn’t know about Jules. No one did except me and you. I figured it would only hurt them if they knew, and it’s not like Jules was really there anymore anyway.” I flinch at his hard words, but he continues. “When you woke up and didn’t remember her, I didn’t see the point of telling you. Your memory loss solved the problem of your fixation on her. I purposely took her to Memorial so you weren’t close to her. I preferred you forgot about her.”
My eyes fly to Dad’s, needing him to confirm what Theo’s saying is true. At least the part he knew about. Guilt mars his face, and I have my answer.
“We had no fucking clue, Luca,” Dad croaks.
“Why in the fuck didn’t you call the cops and have me arrested?” I grate to Theo.
His eyes flare and his jaw tenses. “Because I wanted to confront you first. I wanted to look in your fucking eyes when you told me you attacked her. You know the cops don’t give a shit around here, so the chances of you paying for what you did were only fifty-fifty. I had planned to exact my own form of punishment. There was no point when you woke up and didn’t remember.”
I feel sick to my stomach, but I push the need to vomit away. The hatred in his eyes is astounding and unmistakable. I don’t blame him. He has every right to hate me and want to nail my ass to the wall.
It’s still hard to believe what he’s telling me is true, but something deep inside me knows it has to be. There would be no reason for him to lie. I’ve always had a volatile temper. It’s saved me numerous times, but it’s also caused a lot of trouble. Even so, the thought of hurting a woman, Theo’s woman, is too much for my mind to grasp. It’s just not something I can comprehend.
An image of Cora with my hand wrapped around her throat comes to mind, and bile rises again. Am I really capable of harming a woman? As far as I can remember, I’ve never been tempted to until Cora pulled the shit she did. But even then, it was easy to push that urge aside because she was a woman, and I wasn’t that type of man. Or so I thought.
I run my hands over my face and dig the heels into my eyes. My vision is blurry when I look back at him.
“Theo.” I stop, because I don’t know what to say. How in the hell do I apologize to my twin brother for doing something so heinous, whether I remember it or not? There are no words to make up for what I did. “I’m sorry,” I finish, my voice raw.
“Just stay away from her,” he rumbles heatedly.
It physically hurts to think about not seeing Jules anymore, but I nod anyway. I’ve got no right to be anywhere near her. I’m fucking a danger to her. Hell, Theo has every right to beat the living shit out of me, and if he were to try, I’d stand there and take every punch. It still wouldn’t be enough. I’m actually surprised he hasn’t already. I know if the situation were reversed, there’s nothing that would hold me back from slaying his ass.
Theo watches me with leery eyes as I get up from the chair. I say nothing as I walk toward the kitchen doorway.
“Son,” Dad calls, and I stop to look back at him. His eyes look pained. “Don’t leave. Stay and talk to your mom and me.”
I shake my head. “I need time. Tell Mom I’ll call her in a few days.”
I can tell he wants to insist, but he gives me a slight nod in understanding. I have a hard time holding Theo’s eyes when I look at him.
“I have no idea what would make me do what I did to you and her, but it fucking guts me that I did. I don’t know what I was thinking at the time, but right now, I’m so fucking sorry, Theo. It makes it worse because I can’t remember it. I deserve for those memories to haunt me forever. I deserve the pain I know they would cause.”
And with that, I walk through the house, closing the front door quietly behind me, get in my truck, and leave.
CHAPTER NINE
Luca
I’M BACK IN THE dark room with the floating twinkling lights. I spin in place, searching through the tiny specks, looking for one that’s brighter than the others. They all look the same, no matter how hard I will my eyes to tell me differently.
A sudden hollowness forms in my chest when I realize she’s not here with me. I feel like all the air in my lungs has been stolen from me. My pulse beats heavily on the side of my neck and my stomach twists into knots.
Loss, unequivocal and indisputable. That’s what I feel. Jules was never mine, but I still feel the loss of her as if she was.
“NOOOO!” a tortured scream comes, and I recognize it’s hers.
“Jules!” I spin around looking for her and see nothing but black space and tiny sparkles.
“Oh, God, no, please!” she sobs brokenly.
I turn back the other way, still looking through the darkness, and don’t see a damn thing. Where the fuck is she?
“Jules! Where are you?”
“Help me,” she yells. “Please, someone help!”
A roar leaves my lips at her agonizing cries. I have no fucking clue where I’m going, but I start running, yelling Jules’s name over and over again.
“Luca! No! Oh, God, please don’t hurt me! NOO! Luca!”
“Goddammit,” I bellow. “Tell me where you are!”
“You don’t have to do this.” She’s crying now with hiccupping sobs, and it’s just as crushing. “No, no. Don’t do this. Please, oh, God, Luca, please!”
Her pleas pierce my ears and slice through my heart, leaving the life-giving organ dead. It still beats, but it’s pointless. I come to a stop and drop to my knees when I realize Jules isn’t screaming for me to save her, she’s crying for me to not hurt her.
Pain, brutal and unforgiving, has me falling to my hands. Remorse, shame, guilt, and grief paralyze me in my hunched position.
Jules isn’t with me right now, but her memories of that day are. The pain she went through, the terror of the unknown, and the despair of being alone. All that angst because of me. I put her through those things. I made her feel helpless and afraid.
I may not have access to my own memories of that day, but having Jules’s are enough to know they’ll haunt me for the rest of my life.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” I whisper to no one.
CHAPTER TEN
Jules
I SIT STIFFLY IN THE hospital bed, the blanket pulled up to just below my chin, and warily watch the man seated in a chair close by. His eyes are just as cautious. My body is poised and ready to jump out of bed if I feel threatened. I’m still debating if I already do feel threatened. His eyes turn watchful, as if he’s trying to climb inside my mind to see what’s within. He wouldn’t find much, as there’s just a bunch of darkness, except for a few fuzzy clips that I’m not even sure are real.
I don’t know who the man is, except what he’s told me. He says we’re married, that we met a little over seven years ago, fell in love, and were married only weeks later. I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know him, but even so, he seems familiar.
My brain is a jumbled mess. I remember my parents and my little sister. I remember my childhood and my teen years. I was a lonely child. Not because my parents kept me sheltered, but because I was just so shy. I met my best and only friend when I was eight. I remember her dying at fifteen in a car accident, along with her parents. After Melanie died, I never made any more friends. By then, my sister, Teresa, was four years old, and it was her that I opted to play with, even though she was just a toddler. I remember graduating high school and being excited about going to Westerly to get my degree in interior design, something that I had dreamed about for years.