“I’d like for you to live with me. Nothing would make me happier than to have you someplace where I know you’re safe. Where I can take care of you and give you the life you deserve.”
Logically, she knew what he was asking of her was foolish. They’d only known each other for a few weeks, and very few relationships that moved as quickly as he was suggesting lasted long. However, what she felt for him couldn’t be denied and, on her own, she wasn’t in the best position to decline any assistance he could offer.
She’d already screwed up so much of her life by remaining distant and reclusive from the world. Perhaps if she broke free of the shell she’d created for herself after leaving her childhood home, she could finally find a small part of the happiness she sought.
Decision made, her lips pulled up into a shy smile. “I can’t make any promises, Max. But I’ll go with you to take a look. Anything has to be better than this place, right?”
He grinned. “I’m not just offering you a new home, Alice. I’m offering you the entire package. A new life. A new love. A new family. Keep that in mind tonight. Nothing would make me more proud than to call you my wife.”
Gripping her chin gently between his thumb and finger, he lifted her face to his.
“Are you ready?” He asked, his eyes alight with some emotion Alice couldn't name.
Shaking her head of the emotions that were a wave of confusion crashing inside her, she asked, "For what?"
"Your new life. The life you've dreamed of having."
12:36 p.m.
Gray walls.
Black table.
Plastic, fake red roses.
"Alice? ... Ms. Beaumont? ... Alice Beaumont?"
"Yes, doctor."
Taking her usual place on the couch, Alice didn’t feel the need to curl over herself for protection. The nightmares and confusion were slowly fading, the truth of the life she’d lived coming back in haunting pieces that slowly stitched themselves together to form the full picture she wished could be different than it was.
Guilt rode her shoulders with a weight that couldn’t be ignored or forgotten, her heart breaking with every new shadowed secret her mind brought into full light.
“Shall we simply jump into this, Alice? I think the formalities and pleasantries are long past us at this point.”
Nodding her head, she drew in a steadying breath, her eyes unable to meet the doctor’s stare because her shame was far too much for her to face.
“It’s all starting to come together for me, Doc, and I’m terrified to go further. I don’t understand the reasons why I didn’t remember any of this until now, why my mind seemed to wrap it all into another reality.”
His pen scribbled quietly over his notebook, his focus more on his written thoughts than on her. “The mind is an interesting place, Alice. You know that as well as me. When something tragic happens that we’re not ready to face or deal with, the mind has the unique ability to transform it into something else. For some, their personality fractures and, in their head, they’re two different people entirely. For others, they sink into themselves so deep that they become a shell of what they were before that tragedy struck. It appears that in your case, your mind conjured a storyline that contained elements of the truth, but disguised it in a way that you could accept. At least until you were ready to face what really happened.”
Wringing her hands over themselves in her lap, she stared at a ring on her finger that she’d neglected to notice until her memory had pieced itself back into place. Until that moment in the garden when reality had slammed against her like a runaway train.
“He never abducted me, did he? I wasn’t a prisoner to Max. I was his wife.”
Her eyes stung from the tears that seemed like they would never stop falling. She was so sick of crying, but it was the only way the wave of emotions inside her could find their release.
“He told me, Doc. Over and over again in the dreams, and I didn’t listen.”
…drip…
With a voice as quiet as it was solemn, Dr. Chance tapped his pen against the notebook once before letting out a gentle sigh and saying, “Perhaps it was easier for you to believe that you were forced to live that life instead of having chosen to stay there. Or, perhaps these dreams are a jumble of all the memories coming together, but not in the proper circumstance or order. Whatever the reason may be, the story doesn’t end there, Alice. And you can’t move past what happened until you face the entire truth.”
The ticking clock beat down the seconds of silence that fell between them, Alice huffing out a shaky breath because she knew the doctor was hurrying her forward.
Time was of the essence, it seemed, but she didn’t know what would occur when it finally ran out.
“Keep going, Alice. Walk me though the entirety of your life with him so that I can help you find all the pieces you need in order to put the broken parts back together.”