He Remembered Ruining My First Life—and Still Asked Me to ...

Daniel watched me as if the right expression would give me away. “What are you trying to do?” “Leave.” He wiped a hand over his face. His fingers were trembling. “I think someone put something in my drink.” “Then you need medical help.” “Don't make a scene.” The old answer rose in me automatically: *Whatever you need.* I swallowed it. “You can call someone, or I can tell the desk on my way out. I'm not staying here alone with you.” “Claire—” “Lydia's address.” He gave it to me with a look of contempt, as if I were being unreasonable about something small. I picked up my phone, the folder Grandpa had given me, and my car keys. In the elevator, I could still feel Daniel's hand around my waist. I kept looking at the doors to make sure he wasn't following. The concierge looked up when I reached the lobby. “Mr. Whitmore may have been drugged,” I told her. “He's conscious and talking. He needs someone to check on him.” Her smile vanished. “Are you all right?” “I need to get his girlfriend.” She called for help while I stood there. Only then did I go to the garage. I drove too fast for the first two blocks. A horn sounded when I changed lanes, and I pulled into a parking lot until my hands stopped shaking. I had just been given back a body that could walk. I wasn't going to throw it away trying to meet one of Daniel's deadlines. Lydia was waiting outside her apartment building when I arrived. She wore a thin cardigan over a pale dress. Her makeup was perfect. When she saw my car, she looked beyond it before she opened the door. “Where is he?” “At his apartment.” She got in. For the first minute, neither of us spoke. Then she turned toward me. “I thought you would have stayed.” I kept my eyes on the road. “Why?” “You always find a reason.” At a red light, I looked at her. She smiled. It was the smile I'd spent my first life pretending not to understand. “He told me about you,” she said. “About what you want. Doesn't it embarrass you?” My foot stayed on the brake. Beyond the windshield, people crossed the street carrying groceries and takeout bags. Their evening hadn't ended and started over. Mine had. “You can have him, Lydia.” She stared. “I'm not competing with you.” The light changed. When we reached Daniel's building, a medic was speaking to him just inside his apartment. The concierge stood in the hall. She stepped aside when Lydia rushed past us. “Daniel! Claire scared me to death. She drove like she wanted to kill us.” I'd barely gone over the speed limit after the parking lot. It was almost comforting, hearing how quickly she could turn anything into my fault. Daniel looked at her, then at me. “You called them?” he asked. “You're welcome.” The medic asked Lydia to give him room. Daniel reached for her hand anyway. She let him take it. I left the folder on the hall console. Nobody stopped me when I stepped back into the corridor. The concierge began to pull the door closed for privacy. For years, I'd thought being shut out of Daniel's life would destroy me. I watched the latch catch. Then I pressed the elevator button.

I didn't go straight home. In the garage, I sat in my car with the engine off and checked my phone. Grandpa had called twice. I sent him a message saying I was on my way. Then I changed the passcode. Lydia knew the old one. I'd given it to her in a library when her battery died and she needed to call a classmate. After that, it had seemed petty to start hiding my screen. There were so many things I'd once considered petty. We'd met in the first year of our master's program at Westbridge University. I was twenty-three then, back in school after a year working and helping with Grandpa's health problems. Lydia had a scholarship and two part-time jobs. At lunch, she bought the cheapest things on the menu. I started ordering too much and asking her to help me finish it. At the time, I'd thought I was sparing her pride. Maybe I should have asked what she wanted. That was a mistake I could own. It wasn't the same as deserving what she did afterward. Over winter break, she told me she had nowhere to go. I brought her home. She learned how Grandpa liked his coffee and which evenings Daniel came for dinner. She got up before the cook and stayed in the kitchen until somebody praised her for helping. I thought she was trying to feel useful in an unfamiliar place. Then a pendant Daniel had given me disappeared. I found it broken in the kitchen. Lydia was the only person I'd told where I kept it, the only person I'd admitted my feelings to. When I confronted her, she said it had been an accident. I asked her to leave. She made it as far as the front steps before Daniel arrived. Barefoot and crying in the cold, she told him she had no one else. He took her side without asking why I'd been angry. Later, when I tried to explain, he said, “You think everything has a price. Some of us care about actual people.” They became a couple. She sent me photographs until I learned to leave her messages unopened. That history had already happened. I couldn't get back to the moment before I'd trusted either of them. But I could keep them from getting another year. I opened the security page on my email account and signed out every device I didn't recognize. I changed the password for the university portal too. I didn't delete Lydia's messages. I saved them somewhere she couldn't reach. In my first life, I'd spent too much time trying to explain myself after evidence had vanished. This time, I didn't need to know what she'd do next to stop handing her the tools. Before I left the garage, I went back to the lobby. The concierge was at her desk again. “Could you ask management to preserve tonight's entry footage?” I said. “From when I arrived until now. There may be a complaint later.” She didn't offer to give it to me. She wrote down my name and the time and said she'd pass the request along. It was enough to start. When I returned to the car, my phone lit with a message from Lydia. *He's fine. He wants me to stay. You can stop worrying about him.* I read it twice. Then I saved that one too.

Grandpa was asleep on the couch when I got home. The television was on, but he'd turned the volume down. One slipper had slipped halfway off his foot. There was a cup of cold tea on the table beside him. I stopped in the doorway. My parents had died in a plane crash when I was a child. Grandpa took me in, but the company kept him away for long days. Daniel was still a teenager then. He sat beside me while I did homework and talked through the ordinary things I couldn't ask my parents anymore. For years, I'd felt safest when he was home. The last time I'd seen him, he'd been in a wheelchair with a blanket over his knees, asking why I hadn't come sooner. Daniel had told the staff I was unstable. They'd started hanging up when they heard my voice. Now Grandpa opened his eyes and pushed himself upright. “Claire? Why didn't you answer?” I crossed the room and knelt beside him. “Sweetheart?” He put a hand on my head. I started crying before I could tell him I was all right. He didn't believe me when I finally said it. “Something happened.” “Daniel wasn't well. I got help. He's with Lydia.” Grandpa's hand went still. He knew I'd been hurt when Daniel started seeing her. He didn't know how far beyond that I'd already been. “Did he do something to you?” I could tell him about the couch. I could tell him Daniel had grabbed me. What I couldn't do was put a dead year's worth of memories on the coffee table and expect him to recognize them. “He frightened me,” I said. “I don't want to be alone with him again.” Grandpa looked at my face for a long time. “Then you won't be.” I wanted it to be that easy. In my first life, he'd tried to protect me with a wedding, then tried to undo it after the damage had already been done. Loving me hadn't made every choice he'd made the right one. “Please don't try to fix things between us,” I said. “I don't want a conversation. I want space.” He nodded slowly. “All right.” I helped him upstairs, walking beside him without touching him more than he wanted. He could climb the steps. He could complain about his knees. I let him complain as long as he liked. In my room, everything was where I'd left it before taking the folder to Daniel. A half-finished paper on the desk. A blue sweater on the chair. A pair of running shoes by the closet. I sat on the floor and put them on. Then I stood. I walked to the window and back. It was ridiculous, but I kept doing it until I could breathe without crying. I slept with the lamp on. *** At six in the morning, I gave up trying to sleep and opened my laptop. There was a boxing gym near campus with classes for beginners and private instruction. I sent an inquiry. I wasn't going to become invincible in a week. I wanted to learn how to get somebody's hands off me and get out of a room. I added the number for campus security to my favorites. Then I did the same with our house manager's number. The changes were small. I needed them small enough to make. Downstairs, somebody laughed. I stopped on the landing. Lydia's cardigan hung on the coat stand. Daniel's shoes were beside it. They were sitting at our breakfast table when I came in. Grandpa sat opposite them, his coffee untouched. Lydia smiled. “Morning, Claire. Did you sleep well?”

“Not particularly,” I said. Her smile wavered. She'd expected me to pretend. Daniel pulled out the chair beside him for her bag. He didn't pull out a chair for me. I sat next to Grandpa. Mrs. Martin, who'd worked for our family since I was a child, brought in oatmeal, eggs, fruit, and the cinnamon toast Grandpa always insisted I liked more than I admitted. Lydia touched nothing. “What's wrong?” Daniel asked her. “It's fine. I'll grab something on campus.” “You haven't eaten.” She glanced at Grandpa before answering. “Some of this doesn't agree with me.” Daniel turned toward the kitchen. “Could you make her something else?” Mrs. Martin stopped with the coffeepot in her hand. “What would you like?” she asked Lydia. “Anything. Really.” “Then perhaps you could name one thing,” Grandpa said. Daniel's jaw tightened. “Everything here is what Claire likes.” “Claire lives here. You were not invited for breakfast. If Lydia needs something different, she can ask Mrs. Martin politely.” “I didn't mean to cause trouble,” Lydia said. She put a small piece of toast on her plate. For the rest of the meal, she looked at it as if eating it would be an act of courage. I drank my coffee. It was hot enough to make my eyes sting. I welcomed having a reason. After breakfast, Grandpa went to take a call from the office. Mrs. Martin followed him out with the empty cups. Daniel put my phone on the table. I'd left it beside my plate. I hadn't even noticed him pick it up. “Don't tell him about last night,” he said. I took it back. “I told him I got you help.” “You know what I mean.” Lydia leaned against his shoulder. “I don't want him worrying about us,” she said. “He already has so much on his mind.” Daniel kept his eyes on me. “And if you ever try anything like that again, I'll make sure everyone knows.” For a second, I couldn't hear the hum of the refrigerator. I was back in the club, trying to say a word clearly enough for somebody to believe it. “You think I put something in your drink.” “Who else was there?” “You had dinner before I arrived.” “Don't.” Just that. One word, and Lydia was safely beyond the edge of his suspicion. I put my hands flat on the table until the room stopped shifting. “I didn't drug you.” “Then tell me you don't want me.” Lydia looked down, hiding the smallest smile. Once, I'd thought the worst thing that could happen was Daniel discovering how I felt. He'd found out anyway. Lydia had opened the private journal on my phone and shown him, calling it an accident. I'd spent months apologizing for thoughts I'd never asked him to return. I wasn't doing it again. “I don't want you,” I said. His expression sharpened. “Don't lie to me.” “I used to love somebody who helped me with homework and came home when he said he would. Somebody who could tell the difference between a person asking for help and a person setting a trap.” My voice shook. I kept going. “You're not him anymore. And I'm done waiting for him to come back.” He straightened away from Lydia. “Claire—” “Leave.” “This is my father's house.” “And I live here. You don't. Breakfast is over.” For a moment, I thought he'd refuse. Then Mrs. Martin appeared in the doorway. She'd heard enough to look at Daniel without smiling. “Mr. Whitmore has asked not to be disturbed,” she said. “Shall I show you out?” I left before I could see whether Daniel would take that as an insult too.