He Remembered Nothing But My Sister’s Lies

Celeste called me the next morning. Her voice was sweet as syrup.

"The doctors want someone with him around the clock," she said. "I have the gallery reopening, and Mom's no help. You know his routine better than anyone."

I gripped the phone. "Yesterday you told him I was obsessed with him."

"Yesterday I was upset." A soft sigh. "I'm trying to be the bigger person, Loria. Come by at noon."

At noon she met me in the hallway outside Room 512. The sweetness was gone.

She pulled me into the alcove by the vending machines. Her nails pressed into my sleeve, right over the bandage.

I flinched. She didn't let go.

"Let's be clear," she said. "You change his dressings. You bring his meals. You don't talk about the fire. You don't talk about the nights. You don't talk about *anything*."

"Or what?"

"Or I tell him you're unstable. Which isn't hard, after your little scene." She smiled. "He believes me. You saw."

I had seen.

"One week," I said.

Her brow arched.

"I'll stay one week. Then I'm gone, and you can keep your ring."

"*My* ring," she corrected.

I didn't answer. I walked past her and pushed the door open.

One week. Long enough to find out if the man who had whispered my name in the dark was still somewhere inside him. Or if he'd died in that fire after all.

---

Darius didn't say hello. He looked up from his newspaper, then looked back down.

"Celeste said you'd be helping." He flipped a page. "I'd prefer you didn't talk much."

"You used to beg me to talk."

His fingers stopped on the paper.

"I wouldn't know," he said.

So I didn't talk. I refilled his water. I sorted his pills. I read the chart at the foot of his bed and fixed the nurse's math on his pain meds.

On the third day, Dr. Rowan Adeyemi came in to check his burns.

"Loria." Rowan's face lit up. He had treated my arm the night of the fire. "How's the skin graft holding?"

"It itches like hell."

"That means it's healing." He grinned and tipped my wrist toward the window light. "You keep skipping the silicone gel, don't you?"

"Maybe."

"Loria—"

"Doctor."

Darius's voice was sharp enough to slice bread.

Rowan turned. Darius had set down his coffee. His knuckles had gone pale around the cup handle.

"My shoulder," Darius said. "That's why you're here, isn't it?"

Rowan blinked. "Of course."

The exam took four minutes. Darius didn't take his eyes off me once.

When Rowan left, I raised an eyebrow. "That was rude."

"He talks too much." He turned toward the window. "So do you, apparently. With him."

I almost laughed. I didn't.

On the fifth day, I didn't come in until evening. Celeste had made me run her errands, dry cleaning and a florist pickup, petty little tasks meant to remind me who was in charge.

The night nurse caught me at the station.

"Thank God," she whispered. "He's been asking what time it is every twenty minutes. He keeps staring at the door like it owes him money."

"He asked about me?"

"He asked about *the girl*. That's you, right?"

My chest went tight. I didn't let it show.

When I walked in, Darius was sitting up in bed. His gaze shot to me, then away. Too fast.

"You're late," he said.

"I didn't know I had a schedule."

"You do now."

---

That night, I changed the dressing on his shoulder.

The burn ran from his collarbone down to his shoulder blade. I peeled the old gauze back slowly. He sucked in air through his teeth.

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize." His voice had dropped. "Your hands are steady."

"I've done this before."

"On who?"

*On you. Ninety-one nights.*

"Someone," I said.

I dabbed the ointment along the edge of the wound. He went very still under my fingers. I could feel his pulse jumping under the skin of his neck.

"Hum something," he said suddenly.

My hand froze.

"What?"

"I don't know why I said that." He frowned, like the words had come from somewhere else. "Just—hum. Anything."

My throat ached. I started anyway. The same three-note lullaby my grandmother used to sing. The one I'd hummed when his nightmares woke him screaming.

His eyes closed.

Then his hand came up and caught my wrist.

"Darius—"

He pulled me down, and his mouth found mine.

It wasn't gentle. It was hungry and lost, like a man searching a dark room for a light switch. His other hand slid into my hair, cradling the back of my head exactly the way he used to.

Exactly.

I should have pushed him away. I knew that. But my body remembered before my brain caught up. I kissed him back. My fingers curled into the sheet beside his hip.

*You're still in there.*

His hand moved down my arm.

Over my elbow.

Onto the rough, puckered skin of the scar.

The touch was like ice water. I jerked back so fast the chair scraped the tile.

He stared at me. His lips were parted. His eyes were wide and searching, the way they'd been in that first second yesterday, when he caught my wrist.

"Wait," he said hoarsely. "That feels—"

"Darius? Honey, are you awake?"

Celeste's voice. Right outside the door. Her shadow slid across the frosted glass.

Darius dropped my arm like it was burning.

He sat back. Smoothed his hospital gown. His face snapped shut, cool and blank, a stranger again in under a second.

Then he looked at me and said, low and quick, "Tonight. Don't tell her."

I stared at him.

The door handle rattled. Celeste was fumbling with her purse, talking on the phone, saying something about catering.

"Excuse me?" I whispered.

"It was a mistake. She doesn't need to know." He wouldn't meet my eyes. "It'll only hurt her."

*Her.*

Not me. Never me.

Something inside me went quiet. Not broken. Just done.

I stood up. I stepped close to the bed.

And I slapped him.

The crack echoed off the walls. His head turned with the force of it. A red print bloomed across his cheekbone.

He didn't touch it. He just looked up at me, stunned.

"You lost your memory," I said. My voice didn't shake once. "That doesn't mean I agreed to be your dirty little secret."

The door swung open.

Celeste stood in the frame, phone still pressed to her ear. Her eyes went from his reddened cheek to my swollen mouth.

Slowly, she lowered the phone.

"Well," she said softly. "What did I miss?"