Lost in you.

I woke wrapped in a white light that hurt my eyes.

It wasn't natural light, but the kind they use in clinics-harsh, like in an operating room. The walls gleamed with inhuman cleanliness. Everything smelled of disinfectant. Of confinement.

My body wouldn't respond.

My tongue felt heavy, as if I had slept with stones in my mouth. The metallic taste churned my stomach. I vomited only air.

The silence was so absolute I could hear my own broken breathing.

Where was I? Who was I?

A buzzing drilled into my skull. I reached for my forehead. I didn't make it. Something was holding my wrist-an IV line. My other hand was tied to the side of the bed with a white strap.

Terror climbed my spine like an icy river.

A shadow moved to my left.

"Catalina?" The voice was male. Deep. Soft. Like silk hiding a knife.

I turned my head. I saw him.

His face was chiseled, elegant-a dangerous kind of beauty. Dark hair, a spotless suit, and those eyes... too light to be warm.

I didn't know him. But my body did. My pores recognized him before my mind could. A current rippled across my skin.

His presence was not unfamiliar.

It made me nauseous. And it stirred desire. Both at once.

"Where am I?" I asked, my voice a thread.

"In a rest clinic," he replied without hesitation. "A safe place. By the sea. Italy."

Italy. The word felt absurd, like he'd just made it up.

I looked around. Everything seemed too perfect to be real.

Too luxurious for someone who was sick.

"What happened to me?"

He didn't answer right away. His eyes studied me, like a scientist observing an experiment.

"You hurt yourself, Catalina. Badly."

He swallowed.

"You tried... to disappear."

My fingers trembled. I didn't know if it was fear, rage, or cold.

"Who are you?"

"Vittorio Leone."

He spoke as if that should explain everything.

"Your fiancé."

My heart stopped for a beat.

Fiancé?

The word felt absurd in my mouth.

I didn't remember loving anyone. I didn't remember anything.

But something ached when he said it. As if something lost inside me was crying to come back.

"Why don't I remember you?"

"You've been sedated. Your brain... needed rest. Intense emotions overwhelmed you."

"Did you drug me?"

His lips tightened.

"We're protecting you. From yourself."

The room spun. Cold sweat. Vertigo.

I tried to sit up. Vittorio grabbed my arm quickly. His fingers were warm, strong.

His touch sent a shiver down my spine. I wanted to pull away, but my muscles were limp.

He held me with a mix of tenderness and control.

"Don't push yourself," he murmured. "You've been very sick. It'll take time to adjust."

"Adjust to what?"

Vittorio smiled. It wasn't a happy smile-it was practiced.

"To the truth."

Hours passed. Or days. There were no clocks. Only sun and shadows trading places at the window.

The nurses spoke little. Some avoided my gaze. Others were kind... too kind.

As if I were something fragile that might break on contact.

Vittorio came every day. Always with flowers. Always with that soft voice hiding something else.

One day, he brought photos. Of us.

Smiles. Vacations. A ring on my finger.

"This was in Greece," he said, showing me an image where I smiled next to him.

"That's when you told me you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me."

I didn't recognize myself. It was like looking at pictures of a stranger.

"Why don't I remember any of this?"

"Because your mind blocked what came after. The accident. The breakdown."

"What accident?"

He didn't answer.

Instead, he leaned in and kissed my forehead.

My body responded with a rush of heat. I closed my eyes for a second.

And in that instant...

...a fleeting image tore through my mind:

A room in flames.

A woman screaming my name.

A locked door.

I opened my eyes suddenly, breath ragged.

Vittorio was watching me.

"What did you see?"

"Nothing. A... memory. At least, I think it was."

"Perfect. You're starting to heal."

That night, I didn't sleep.

I sat on the bed, watching the moon reflected on the sea. Everything was too quiet.

I had started writing on the back of a book I found on the nightstand. Random words. Phrases I didn't remember thinking:

Don't trust anyone.

Not everything you feel is real.

Skin can lie too.

I got up. Walked barefoot to the door.

Locked. From the outside.

I turned the knob. Nothing.

Vittorio had said it was for my safety.

But I didn't feel safe.

I felt contained.

On the third day, I found my phone in the nightstand drawer. Someone had left it there. Or wanted me to find it.

It was locked. I tried my fingerprint. It worked.

My heart pounded in my throat. I opened the gallery. Photos. Videos.

A whole life I didn't remember. A smiling Catalina. Tanned. In love.

And yet, I felt disgust.

Something didn't fit.

I found a folder named ONLY IF I FORGET.

I opened it.

One video. Just one.

I hit play.

I appeared on screen.

Messy hair. Dark circles. Panic.

Me-but different.

My voice was broken.

"If you're watching this... it means you forgot."

I swallowed. In the video. And in real life.

"Don't trust Vittorio."

Pause.

"Or yourself."

The video cut.

I froze, phone in hand, feeling the world crumble under my feet.

When Vittorio came back that night, I pretended to be asleep.

I watched him through the slit of my lashes.

He sat beside my bed. Looked at me for a long time.

Then took a small bottle from his pocket. Placed it on the nightstand. Pink pills.

"For your dreams," he whispered.

He caressed my cheek with the back of his hand.

"I don't want to lose you again."

Tears filled my eyes. I didn't know if they were mine... or the other Catalina's from the videos.

That dawn, I had a dream.

I was in a garden. Dark. With black flowers.

There was a woman with her back to me. Long hair. White dress.

She turned.

It was me.

But her eyes were empty.

I woke up screaming.

Vittorio wasn't there. But the door was open.

In the hallway, wet footprints marked the floor.

Small. Barefoot.

I followed them to the end of the corridor, trembling.

A door ajar. Darkness inside.

Someone was breathing. Slow. Deep. As if waiting for me.

A hand touched my shoulder.

I jumped, spinning around.

No one.

When I got back to the room, my phone was gone.

I collapsed onto the bed, shaking.

The door closed again with that same dry click.

I felt like a prisoner.

But the worst part wasn't the cage.

The worst part was that, deep down, a voice said:

You chose this.

And that... terrified me more than any memory.

That night, I didn't sleep. The image from the video kept replaying in my mind like a warning on a loop. "Don't trust Vittorio. Or yourself."

Why would I record myself saying that? What was I protecting myself from? From him? From who I used to be?

The air in the clinic had grown heavier, denser. Every step I took outside my room was measured, monitored. And yet, he moved through the halls as if the place belonged to him.

The next morning, when he walked in wearing a spotless white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, my body reacted before my mind could: my stomach tightened, my skin went taut, and my breathing quickened as if it remembered something my mind had yet to catch up to.

"You didn't sleep much," he said, setting a tray on the side table. Tea, fruit sliced with surgical precision. Toast. Honey. Everything in perfect proportions.

"Are you watching me?"

His smile was faint. Ambiguous.

"I'm taking care of you. That's different."

"And the cameras in the room?"

"Protocols. We can't always predict when you might feel unwell or need something."

"I'm not a child," I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

"No. You're Catalina. And Catalina sometimes breaks."

The way he pronounced my name made me hold my breath. As if he were tasting it.

Three days passed. Or five. I wasn't sure. Time in the clinic wasn't linear-each day felt like a warped repetition of the last. But that day, Vittorio suggested something different.

"Want to go out to the garden? Stretching your legs will do you good."

I agreed. Not because I trusted him, but because I needed to feel the wind. To see if the sea was still real.

He led me down a side hallway I had never seen before. All the doors looked the same, but some had double locks. Others, sensors.

"Is this a clinic or a prison?"

"The difference is in the will, don't you think?" he replied. "You chose to stay."

I didn't remember doing that. But his gaze was so steady, so deep, it almost convinced me I had. That I had begged for it. That I had surrendered to him willingly.

The garden was overflowing-jasmine, bougainvillea, a mature lemon tree. The sea in the distance, hypnotic. Its beauty hit me like a wave.

We walked in silence. Each step brought me closer to a version of myself I didn't know.

Vittorio stopped under a willow tree. Offered me a seat on an iron bench. I didn't sit.

"Who was I before?"

"You were fire," he said without hesitation. "And ice. Unbearable and fascinating. You had a gift for wounding, even without meaning to. But you were mine."

The word mine echoed in my chest like a threat disguised as tenderness.

"And you? What were you to me?"

Vittorio stepped closer. Just enough to invade my space. His scent hit me-sandalwood, soft tobacco, warm skin.

"The man trying to hold you together while you fell apart."

"And you failed?"

"No. I lost you by choice."

"And now you're taking me back by force?"

His eyes darkened.

"You came back on your own."

He was lying. Or he thought he was telling the truth. With him, I never knew.

That night, I had another memory.

I was in a car. It was raining. Vittorio was driving. We were shouting. I was crying. He stopped the car. Told me to get out. I refused. Someone was pounding on the windshield from outside.

I woke drenched in sweat, the sheets clinging to my skin. My heart out of rhythm.

I went to the bathroom. Looked at myself in the mirror-dark circles, cracked lips. A faint bruise on my collarbone I didn't remember seeing before.

My eyes dropped to the sink. Someone had left a small amber bottle with no label.

I opened it. Smelled it. I recognized the scent instantly-it was the same Vittorio used after shaving.

Why was it there?

The next morning, I confronted him.

"Did you come into my bathroom last night?"

"I would never leave without making sure you're okay."

"Are you drugging me?"

His jaw tightened. For the first time, he lost his composure.

"No."

"Then what is this?" I showed him the bottle.

He looked at it. Held it between his fingers.

"Memories. They help rebuild."

"What kind of memories are inhaled?"

"The kind that refuse to be remembered any other way."

I wanted to throw the bottle at him. I wanted to kiss him. I was so close to him I couldn't tell if I hated him or needed to lose myself in his body to understand who I had been.

That afternoon, he took me to the greenhouse. No one else seemed to use it. Tropical flowers. Black orchids. Humid air. The glass walls fogged with condensation.

He showed me one flower in particular. Red. Fleshy. Veined. Almost alive.

"You brought it here. Said it was the only one that survived confinement."

I touched it. It was warm. Like skin.

Vittorio's gaze burned through me. The humidity in the room slid down my thighs. I wanted to pull away. I wanted to touch him.

"Did you love me?" I asked.

"I loved you so much I had to stop so I wouldn't destroy you."

His honesty stole my breath.

He held my face. Brushed my lips with his. It wasn't a kiss-it was a threat. A promise of something lost.

"And now?"

"Now I don't know if I love you or if I'm punishing you for everything you did to me."

My knees weakened. The greenhouse spun slowly. The air was too thick.

"What did I do to you?"

Vittorio smiled. He didn't answer.

That night, another video appeared on my phone. I hadn't searched for it-it was just there.

Me, with red eyes.

"Don't let yourself be convinced. Vittorio's love feels like an embrace... and a noose. If you fall in love with him again, you're lost."

I turned it off. My hands shook.

Outside, footsteps in the hallway were more frequent. Someone whispered behind the walls.

I looked at the door. Locked. From the inside. This time, I had slid the bolt myself.

I had locked myself in.

At dawn, an alarm went off in the north wing. Voices. Shouts. Shoes pounding on the floor.

I went to the window. A stretcher raced across the garden. Someone shouted, "We found her, she was in the gallery!"

And then I saw him.

Vittorio.

Covered in blood.

With a faint smile. As if he had been expecting it.

The revelation wasn't that someone had died.

The revelation was that something in me... smiled too.

I woke up sweating. Not from heat, but from the thick anguish that had nested in my chest like a sleeping, tense animal, ready to bite me from the inside. Outside, dawn hadn't fully broken yet, but a pale bluish light slipped through the cracks of the blinds. My throat was dry, as if I had screamed all night without making a sound.

I'd had a dream. Or a memory. Or something in between.

Vittorio was holding me. His mouth on my neck, warm, as if whispering something I couldn't hear. Then, his hand, firm, at the back of my neck. And an instant later-darkness. A fall. The sound of a lock clicking shut.

I sat up abruptly, and a wave of dizziness forced me to close my eyes. Images floated in my head like shards of glass, reflecting things I couldn't quite reach. My memory ached, as if it were a muscle pushed beyond its limit.

The door opened with that soft click I already knew. Vittorio walked in carrying a breakfast tray. Always the same: coffee, fruit, warm bread. And him, always the same: white shirt, first button undone, an expensive watch on his left wrist. Every detail about him was so precise it was repulsive-like he had rehearsed it a thousand times in front of a mirror.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked sweetly, setting the tray on the table.

"No. I dreamed about you." I looked straight at him. "You were locking me in."

He didn't look surprised. Not a single muscle in his face moved. He came closer and sat beside me on the bed.

"It's normal. The subconscious searches for exits," he whispered, almost brushing against the edge of my thoughts. "But not everything we see in dreams is real."

His closeness stirred a conflicting reaction in me: my skin tightened with fear, yet something inside me... also longed for him. I couldn't help it. It was chemical, visceral-like my body still recognized him even while my mind screamed run.

"Can I show you something?" he asked, pulling a wooden box from the shelf. "It might help you remember who you are."

"Who do you say I am?"

"Catalina Rossetti," he said, kissing my hand. "My future wife."

He opened the box. Inside was a collection of printed photographs. The first ones were of me with him: on the beach, at a café, on what looked like a sailboat. My smile was wide, my eyes bright. Was that me? Really?

One photo made me stop. We were standing in front of a mirror, arms around each other. His lips brushed my cheek. But the reflection in the glass showed something strange-my expression wasn't the same as the one on my body. In the mirror, I looked... afraid.

"Where was this?" I asked.

"In Naples. At the Hotel Excelsior, for your birthday."

"I don't remember."

"You will soon," he said softly, like a spell. Then he pulled out another photo.

My mother.

A woman with black hair and a strong expression. We were together in a kitchen. I was smiling. So was she. But something in that image hurt-hurt like a knife pressed into an old wound.

"Is she alive?"

"No," he said, with feigned sadness. "She died last year. You didn't want to talk about it afterward. It was too much."

A knot formed in my stomach. Tears threatened to surface, but I held them back.

"I don't know if I want to see more."

"You should."

He insisted on showing me a recording. He took out a tablet and played a video where I-supposedly me-was walking through a garden with him, laughing. My voice said: 'I've never been so happy.'

But it didn't sound like me. It was my face, my body... but my soul wasn't there.

"I don't remember saying that."

"You don't remember the accident either. The mind blocks what hurts it," he said, stroking my hair tenderly.

I shivered.

The warmth of his hand on the back of my neck brought the dream scene rushing back with violence: his hand there, pressing... and then the fall.

I pulled away. Got out of bed clumsily.

"I want to leave," I said. "I can't stay locked up here."

He didn't answer right away. He walked to the window and stared at the sea, as if speaking to the horizon.

"If you leave now, you could hurt yourself again. It's not the right time."

"You decide that?"

He turned. For a second, his eyes darkened-a flash of something deeper than love or concern.

"I'm taking care of you. Even if you don't understand."

I moved toward the door. He had locked it without me noticing.

"Are you keeping me here?"

"I'm protecting you."

We looked at each other in silence. A battle without words.

Then, a dull sound. A piece of paper slid under the door.

Vittorio went to pick it up, but I was faster. I opened it with trembling hands.

It only said:

"What you see is not real."

Nothing else.

I looked at him. He looked at me.

The paper shook in my hands.

"What you see is not real."

That phrase buzzed inside my skull, as if someone had written exactly what I felt but didn't dare to say out loud. Vittorio approached slowly, as if afraid to scare me-or afraid of what I might do with that scrap of paper.

"Who left this?" I asked, my voice now dry and sharp, like it had cracked in my throat.

"I don't know," he replied. "No one comes in here who shouldn't. Maybe it's part of your... projections. Could you have written it yourself?"

"Why would I do that?"

He shrugged, wearing an expression of false compassion.

"It wouldn't be the first time."

That sentence made me tremble. What other things had I supposedly done that he could now use as arguments to question my sanity?

I clenched the paper in my fist.

"I want to see the security cameras."

"What cameras?"

"The ones in the hallway. Or in this room. I know they're there."

Vittorio sighed, stepping even closer. His breath brushed my neck. I felt it slide over my skin like a warm liquid-both nauseating and addictive.

"Catalina..." he whispered. "You're upset. You're tired. You're sabotaging yourself, like before. You need to rest. Do you remember what happened the last time you didn't listen to me?"

An image struck me like lightning: the edge of a bathtub, red water, my wrist-or maybe just a flash. But something burned on my skin, as if the blood were still there.

I didn't know if that memory was real.

"I don't remember anything," I said, barely above a whisper.

He hugged me from behind. His chest against my back, his arm across my stomach.

"Then let me take care of you," he murmured.

I didn't resist. But I didn't give in either. I stayed still. Like a statue trapped in time.

That day, I never saw the paper again. Vittorio had made it disappear, like so many other things. But I didn't forget it. The phrase repeated itself:

And then, little by little, the cracks began to widen.

It started with the photos.

I looked at them again that night, while he slept in the armchair. One picture in particular caught my attention: me, in what seemed to be a greenhouse, watering flowers. But there was a mirror behind me. And in it, the reflection was different. Slightly misaligned. As if the woman in the mirror wasn't entirely in sync with me.

Digital editing? A photomontage?

Or worse-what if that woman wasn't me?

I closed my eyes and tried to remember.

The humidity of the greenhouse. The smell of damp earth. The hum of an insect.

And then, a dull sound. A blow. Someone pulling me by the arm.

I opened my eyes. My breathing was ragged. Sweat drenched the back of my neck.

Who was I, beneath all of this?

The next morning, a new routine. Vittorio with breakfast. His calm voice. His gentle questions.

"What did you dream about today?"

"Flowers," I lied.

He looked at me, as if he knew I wasn't telling the truth.

"And me?"

"Always."

He smiled. Kissed my forehead.

"Today you're going to see something special."

He took out a worn, old black leather album and opened it in front of me.

"We haven't looked at this together in a long time."

The photos were different. Not just of us, but of places. Sites I barely recognized.

A field of poppies. An old library. An unmade bed. A wooden cabin.

"We were happy there," he said.

I touched a photo. In it, I wore a white dress. I was barefoot, running down a hallway.

Then, a flash.

A scream.

My own scream.

I looked at the image again. There was something wrong with my face. My smile was too wide. Forced. Like... programmed.

I pulled away from the album.

"These photos are wrong."

"Wrong how?"

"That's not me. Or it's me, but... edited. Manipulated."

"Why would I do that?"

"I don't know. Why would someone slip a note under the door telling me this isn't real?"

Vittorio watched me in silence.

"Because you're sick."

That sick hit me like a bucket of ice water.

"What if I'm not?"

"You are. That's why you tried to kill yourself."

"What if that's a lie too?"

A heavy silence fell between us.

Then he stood, walked to the shelf, took a metal box, and placed it in front of me.

"You want to know the truth? Open it."

I did.

Inside, there was a bottle of pills, a crumpled sheet of paper with my name written in red ink, and a journal.

I opened the journal.

The handwriting was mine.

But it wasn't my voice.

I read meaningless sentences, crossed-out words, torn-out pages. Fragments: "He's killing me slowly," "Today he said he loved me again," "I don't know if it's real or if he just wants to destroy me."

The last page had a handwritten warning:

"If you're reading this, don't trust him. And don't trust yourself either."

The world spun.

I stood up, unsteady.

"What is this?" I asked.

Vittorio stepped closer. His voice was a sharp whisper.

"Your story. The one you wrote."

"Why did you hide it?"

"Because you didn't know what you were doing."

"Or because I did know?"

He looked at me with a strange sadness, as if deep down he regretted something.

"Catalina, I just want you to be happy. Even if you have to forget everything to achieve it."

The sincerity in his voice disarmed me. For a second, I believed him. For a second, I wanted to believe him.

Then-the sound.

A bang.

Something or someone had hit the hallway window.

I ran. Vittorio tried to stop me, but I pushed him away.

The window was cracked. On the floor, a stone. Tied to it, another note.

With clumsy fingers, I untied it.

"You're not crazy. He's making you doubt."

I hid it in my pocket before he could see it.

I turned. He was behind me, wearing an expression I couldn't read.

"What was that?"

"A bird. Nothing."

He believed me. Or pretended to.

That night I didn't sleep. I pretended to until I heard his heavy breathing.

I took the journal, hid it under the mattress. Checked my phone again. The photos. The videos. Some were obvious fabrications-errors like duplicated clocks, mismatched shadows, my face superimposed.

But there was one that was real.

A selfie video.

My voice, my face, my panic.

"I'm recording this in case everything gets erased. If you're watching this... run. He doesn't love you. He needs you broken. If you doubt yourself, you've already lost half the battle. Don't forget what you felt the first time you woke up. The fear. That fear is the key. That's real."

The video cut off with a blow.

I fell back.

And in that moment, I knew I had to leave.

That everything was a painted-over prison.

The next day, Vittorio took me to what he called "the garden of memories." A hidden place behind the house, covered in exotic flowers and marble benches. The air smelled of jasmine-and of lies.

"You used to come here to write," he said. "This was your happy place."

I sat down. Looked at the sky. The same sky I must have seen when I tried to escape.

"Did you lock me up?"

Vittorio tensed. He didn't answer.

"If you really love me, let me remember on my own. Without pushing me. Without controlling me."

He leaned toward me.

"If I leave you alone, you'll break."

"Maybe I need to break," I whispered. "To know who I am."

His expression hardened. For the first time, I saw him as he was. Not as my savior, not as my fiancé.

But as my jailer.

When we returned, my bedroom door was ajar.

Inside, someone had rummaged through the mattress.

The journal was gone.

I turned to him.

"Was it you?"

"No."

But something flickered in his face.

Before he could respond, we heard a sound downstairs.

A door slamming.

Footsteps.

A voice.

"Catalina?"

It was a woman's voice. Young.

I ran to the stairs. Vittorio caught up to me.

"Don't go down!" he shouted, gripping my arm tightly.

"Who's there?!" I screamed, desperate.

"Catalina! Don't believe anything! You were my sister! He erased you!"

And then-

A gunshot.

A scream.

Silence.

Vittorio shoved me back.

"It was an intruder. Doesn't matter who it was. Everything's fine."

My legs buckled.

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't look.

I could only think about what I had just heard:

Sister.

He erased you.

And I knew everything had just changed.