Chapter 2

Amelie POV:

I woke up to the gentle, rhythmic beeping of a machine and the soft murmur of a nurse' s voice. The world came back into focus slowly, like a photograph developing in a darkroom. White ceiling. White walls. The faint, clean scent of lavender from a diffuser in the corner.

My mind felt... quiet. Eerily quiet. Like a house after a storm has passed, leaving behind a strange and hollow peace.

I checked my phone, my fingers moving with a sluggishness that felt foreign. The last text from Kalie was from weeks ago, right before the first treatment. It was a link to a ludicrously expensive handbag. "OMG, Amy, this would be PERFECT for my birthday! You' re the best sis ever! Love you! xoxo."

I remembered buying it for her. I remembered the little thrill of seeing her happy, even if it was a happiness I had to purchase. I remembered her silence after the money was transferred, the lack of a thank you.

It didn' t hurt anymore. It was just a fact, like a line item on a ledger.

I scrolled to Alex' s messages. A string of frantic, unanswered texts from my time in the hospital.

"Amelie, where are you? Please answer me."

"I' m worried. The doctors won' t tell me anything."

"We need to talk. This is all a misunderstanding."

The words were just black pixels on a white screen. They held no emotional weight. I felt a distant, academic curiosity about the person who had received them, the person whose heart would have shattered reading them. It felt like reading someone else' s mail.

The confrontation in the studio, the hospital, the gaslighting-it was all a blur, a story I' d read but not lived. I remembered being pushed. I remembered Bailey' s accusing eyes. But the sharp, soul-crushing pain was gone, replaced by a dull, empty space.

I had been in the hospital for a week after the "fall." A week of people-friends I had known for years-coming in not to comfort me, but to plead Kalie' s case.

"She' s just a kid, Amelie."

"She adores you. She would never hurt you intentionally."

"You' ve been under so much stress. Maybe you overreacted."

They looked at me with pity and a touch of fear, as if I were a fragile, unstable thing. As if my quiet nature, my preference for solitude, was a sign of a deeper flaw.

Bailey had been the worst. My best friend since college. She sat by my bed, holding my hand with a grip that felt more like a restraint.

"I know you' re hurting," she' d said, her voice dripping with condescending sympathy. "But you can' t take it out on Kalie. She' s all you have left."

All I have left? I wanted to scream. I raised her. I paid for her private school tuition when our father' s estate ran dry. I gave up a fellowship in Copenhagen so she wouldn' t have to change schools. I built a life for her from the ashes of my own grief.

My childhood was a battlefield. A bitter divorce that left my mother a shell of a woman, who saw my father' s face in mine and resented me for it. "You' re so cold, Amelie," she' d whisper, her breath smelling of stale wine. "Just like him." I learned to be self-sufficient, to build my own walls, to find stability in structure and hard work. I clawed my way into a top architecture program, met Alex, and together we built an empire from scratch.

Then, just as I thought I had finally built a life safe from the chaos of my past, my father died, and a social worker showed up at my door with a fifteen-year-old Kalie in tow. My father' s second wife, Kalie' s mother, had died years earlier. I was her only living relative. My legal responsibility.

I was twenty-two, trying to launch a company and nurture a relationship. Suddenly, I was also a single parent to a teenager who was practically a stranger. A teenager who, with her sunshine-yellow hair and easy charm, effortlessly won over everyone I knew.

"Why can' t you be more like Kalie?" friends would ask, laughing. "Loosen up a little!"

Even Alex, my Alex, was enchanted. He treated her like a favorite niece, buying her gifts, taking her to concerts I was too busy to attend. "She brings so much life into this house," he' d say.

And I, the shadow, had watched it all, a cold dread coiling in my stomach. Watched as the person I loved most started to prefer the sun to the moon.

Now, waking up in the quiet clinic room, those memories felt distant, third-person. The ECT had worked. It had scooped out the core of the trauma, leaving a clean, painless void.

A nurse came in, her smile gentle. "Good morning, Amelie. Feeling okay?"

I nodded. "A little fuzzy."

"That' s normal," she said, handing me a small notepad and a pen. "Your last session was a success. The doctor said you' re cleared to go."

I looked down at the notepad. My own handwriting, from before the final treatment, stared back at me. It was a list, a series of commands to a future self I knew would be a stranger.

1. Sell the firm shares. The documents are in the safe. Lawyer' s number is on the back.

2. Sell the house.

3. Go to Montana. Dad' s cabin. Find Dean Serrano at the Mountain Lodge.

4. Don' t look back.

The last line was underlined. Twice.

Montana. My father had a small, rustic cabin there from before he met my mother. He used to talk about it like a lost paradise. Dean Serrano... the name was vaguely familiar. The son of my father' s old fishing buddy, I think. A name from a life that wasn' t mine.

It was a plan born of desperation, a final act of self-preservation from a woman I no longer knew. But it was the only plan I had.

I dressed, my movements slow and deliberate. I put the notepad in my purse and walked out of the clinic, leaving the ghost of Amelie Hamilton behind.

The city felt different. The noise, the crowds, the towering buildings I had helped design-they no longer felt like a part of me. I was a tourist in my own life.

I took a cab to the house. Our house.

As the cab pulled up, my quiet, hollow peace was shattered. The lawn was crowded with people. Music spilled from the open doors. Colorful balloons were tied to the mailbox. A large banner was strung across the porch: HAPPY 22ND BIRTHDAY, KALIE!

My blood ran cold.

It was her birthday party. The one I had been planning before the world ended. They were celebrating. Here. In my home. While I was in a hospital, having my memories of them burned out of my brain.

I paid the driver and got out, my suitcase feeling like an anchor. As I walked up the path, the laughter and music faltered. People turned, their smiles freezing on their faces. The crowd parted like the Red Sea.

And there he was. Alex. He was holding a glass of champagne, a party hat perched comically on his head. He looked surprised, then relieved, then... annoyed.

He rushed toward me, his voice a low, urgent hiss. "Amelie! What are you doing here? I thought you weren' t being released until tomorrow."

I looked at him, at this man whose face was once the map of my world. Now, he was just a stranger. A handsome, well-dressed stranger who looked vaguely familiar.

"I live here," I said, my voice flat and even.

The simple statement seemed to throw him. He faltered, his eyes darting back toward the party, toward Kalie, who was watching us with wide, innocent eyes from the doorway.

"Of course, I just... I thought..." He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture I recognized from the notepad' s description. He does this when he' s flustered or lying. "We were just having a small get-together for Kalie. We can wrap it up."

I didn' t want to be here. I didn' t want to see these people, these ghosts from a life I didn' t remember loving. I just wanted my things. I wanted to follow the instructions in the notepad and disappear.

Bailey appeared at Alex' s side, her arm linked through his. She was holding a brightly wrapped gift. "Amelie! You' re back! Perfect timing. You can give Kalie her present."

She tried to press the box into my hands, the same garish wrapping paper I had chosen weeks ago. It was the expensive handbag.

I let my hands hang limp at my sides.

The box fell, landing on the manicured lawn with a soft thud.

Kalie let out a theatrical gasp. She rushed forward, her eyes filling with tears. "Oh, Amelie, I' m so sorry! I know you' re still mad at me. I' ve been so worried about you, I couldn' t sleep."

The crowd murmured in sympathy. A few people shot me dirty looks. The wronged sister. The unstable fiancée. The villain of a story I couldn' t even remember writing.

I felt a wave of dizziness. The faces, the noise, the weight of their judgment was too much. The quiet in my head was starting to fray.

"I think," I said, my voice barely a whisper, "I' d like you all to leave now."

Alex stepped forward, his expression hardening. "Amy, don' t start. Kalie is just a kid. Whatever happened, we need to move past it. You two need to learn to get along."

His words, meant to be conciliatory, felt like a slap. He was still protecting her. Still managing me.

I looked from his face to Kalie' s, her tears a performance for the audience she had so masterfully cultivated. I looked at Bailey, my supposed best friend, who was now glaring at me as if I were a monster.

I was done.

"I' m not moving past it," I said, my voice gaining strength. "I' m moving out."