"... And I don't even need your love, but you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough." Somebody that I used to know by Gotye ft Kimbra.

I was a wonderer... for years I had been wondering why.

Why did he come into my life in the first place if all he was going to do was leave me in the dust? Why did he let me love him so bravely if all he was going to do was hurt me so cowardly? Why did he lather me with bliss if he was planning on rinsing me with misery all along? Why did he build me up from head to toe just to break me down and leave me in the pool of my demise? Why did he choose to absolve her of her sins and make me pay for mine? Why did he hold on to her so tight and let go of me so easily? Why was it always her and never me?

Why was it never me? Why not me?

Caged inside the tiny elevator with the brown-eyed culprit standing mere inches away from my face, I finally had the opportunity to bring my futile wondering to an end. To ask him why? To demand answers. But not a single WH question came out of my gaping mouth. I might have drooled a little as I stood there idly, gazing at Noah, thunderstruck out of my cognizance. Even as he stood a foot away from me, I longed for him.

Butterflies swarmed my lower belly, making me feel like a giddy middle schooler stuck in a closet, playing seven minutes in heaven with her crush. A wave of nostalgia engulfed me like a blanket, coddling the goosebumps roused all over my skin back to sleep. Every emotion I had harbored in my body assembled and filled the cavernous hole in the middle of my heart, urging it to beat again.

It sprang triumphantly.

"Uh..." Noah's shaky voice came out muffled—stifled by his face mask—breaking the awkward silence. Fleeting microseconds blossomed into lingering seconds while I waited for him to follow his filler word with actual, cohesive words.

With his hand that was still clutching my phone extended toward me, Noah watched me watch him for a beat before he uttered a hesitant hi.

Looking up at him from under my lashes, I took my cellphone from his waiting hand and cast him a thankful smile. My cheeks flamed at the quick contact my fingers had with his hand, but my brows furrowed when my eyes took in his appearance.

He was standing awkwardly by the open elevator door with his legs straddling the threshold, one foot in and one foot out. His shoulders were tense, his posture was stiff, and overall, his body language was just way off. It was almost as if he was ready to run away from the impending and unavoidable confrontation we were bound to have someday.

"Wha—where have you been?" before I even had time to pluck the rest of my words out from the jumble in my head, a stern voice I knew so well yelled out my name.

"Dr. Van de Kamp!" It was Dr. Brown, my attending. She was standing outside of the open elevator, casting me a look that could kill. Dragging her eyes up and down and assessing me like I was a delinquent, "What in the world is going on with you? Put your damn mask back on!" she hissed, throwing an apologetic glance toward Noah and someone else standing outside the elevator.

Someone I had failed to see. Someone whose chilling gaze was locked in on me. That someone was Zach Thompson, standing at the entrance of the parking lot, right across the elevators. Our eyes locked and something dark passed through Zach's features before he pulled himself together and threw an inconspicuous wave my way.

Noah's eyes triangulated between us as he stepped out of the elevator, joining his brother and letting Dr. Brown in. Avoiding my attending's punishing gaze, I bowed my head down, muttered an apology, and put my mask back on. As I put one foot in front of the other, ready to follow Noah's retreating steps, Dr. Brown's lanky hand grabbed my elbow, dragging me backward.

I opened my mouth to protest, but the elevator door clamped shut, creating a physical barrier between Noah, Zach, and me.

Everything happened so fast—too fast for my gooey brain to cope with. One minute I was alone in an empty elevator with the Noah, five seconds away from confrontation, and the next minute we were bombarded by people, separated by a metal door and thick hospital floors.

"What the hell was that?" Dr. Brown's loud and condemnatory voice filled the grey elevator, not giving me a second to make sense of what just happened.

Oh my god, what the hell just happened?

"Why were you all up in a person's face with your damn mask off?" she continued, pacing in the minuscule elevator with her hands on her hips. The vertical lines between her eyebrows were so deep and sharp they could cut.

"Do I need to go over the hospital handbook with you? Do I need to email you the CDC guidelines? Do I need to report you to the chief?" she paused, standing in front of my face and letting the last statement linger in the air.

It wasn't like I was beatboxing and spitting all over Noah's face. I literally had my mask off for a second or two, and I was standing at least a foot away from him. She didn't need to be that dramatic. But it was back when Covid was a new virus that was still being studied by scientists. It was spreading super-fast, worldwide cases were rising, and the public was panicking. So, her reaction wasn't far-fetched.

Unmasking was strictly prohibited on the hospital premises. We had gone over that rule many times, received training, and went on countless conferences. I was in the wrong. Besides, she was my attending; she had every right to make my life miserable. It was simply a part of the hospital hierarchy: she was my superior, my teacher, and I was just an intern, a student. She had every reason to scold me with words and punish me with consequences.

I could get in so much trouble if she reported me to the chief. So, I just kept my gaze trained on the floor and took her scolding bravely.

"In the middle of a pandemic, Dr. Van de Kamp?" her voice went down to a whisper, "Inside a hospital with more than half of the country's covid cases? During an Anti-mask protest? What were you thinking?"

She was absolutely right. What the hell was I thinking? My colleague, Dr. Park, was fined for breaching Covid protocols because he took off his mask and didn't practice social distancing. My other colleague, Dr. Smith, was exposed to the virus while working at the hospital and was staying home nursing her symptoms. I was compromising my health and putting other people's health at risk. I knew better. I shouldn't have been so reckless.

"It was just for a second, Dr. Brown. I ran into an old friend and I just took my mask off long enough for him to recognize me." I tried to redeem myself.

"It doesn't matter!" she threw her hands up and yelled, causing me to flinch. "You graduated from medical school. You took Microbiology. I shouldn't tell you how fast viruses spread. You don't take off your mask in the middle of a crowded elevator for a second, let alone leave it down and stare wide mouthed at God knows what. You're putting yourself in danger. You're putting your patients in danger. The ones you vowed to help and protect. Come on. Don't make my job harder than it has to be."

Not able to face my teacher, I kept my eyes glued to my feet and muttered another apology. Dr. Brown shook her head and waved my apology away with her hand. The door opened when we reached the 12th floor. "Get yourself together Dr." She walked out, leaving me behind.

The elevator door closed, swallowing me in. Pressing the underground button, I crouched down on the floor and exhaled loudly. Maybe it was the shock or maybe I was broken, but a loud, static sound blared in my ears and I felt lightheaded as I stared at the changing numbers blankly.

Expecting Noah on the other side of the elevator, I closed my eyes and drew in a calming breath before I walked out, fiddling with my pant strings. To my disappointment, of the three men gathered by the elevator, waiting for it to open, none of them was Noah.

There was a throbbing ache pounding on the left side of my head and neck. I was up and working for 48 hours. I was functioning on a low-fat granola bar I had hours ago. My blood glucose level was probably dangerously low. And my head didn't have enough energy to ponder over what had just happened. I was sleep-deprived, famished, exhausted, and perplexed.

My shoulders slumped in defeat as I walked around the empty parking lot looking for him. I called out his name. I rounded the premises... to no avail. He was gone.

I missed my chance. He left... again. I let him slip away... again. Could this day get any worse?

Finally, giving up on what seemed like a search for waldo, I made a beeline to my parked car and drove away. I didn't have the strength to make the 35-minute drive to my apartment in Jersey. Nick's place was only five minutes away from my hospital and I needed to take an Advil and sleep to be sane enough to comprehend the complete debacle that had just happened.

So, with nothing but silence in my car—my mind was loud enough muttering gibberish in my ears—I drove to my fiancé's place instead.

Pulling into the guest parking lot, I sauntered to Nick's fancy apartment building with a backpack slung over my shoulders and puffed bags assembled under my eyes. I stood in front of Nick's elevator, which opened straight to his penthouse, and typed in his code. Just as I entered the first two digits, I saw Lonnie, the doorman, approach me from my peripheral vision.

Clad in his usual kale-green uniform and matching cap, Lonnie stood next to me, balancing three medium-sized cardboard boxes. "Hi, Lonnie." I smiled as I typed the rest of the code in.

"Hi, Sweetheart." Lonnie replied, putting the boxes down on the floor.

The code declined; a beeping sound accompanied by a flashing red light alerting me to try again.

050194 I typed again confidently, only to be met with the same embarrassing response.

"What's wrong with this, Lonnie?" I turned to face my favorite old man. His worn-out face creased in a grimace, inviting more wrinkles to come out and play. His expression alone was loud. Too loud. Loud enough.

"Darling," He began, his gaze not leaving the pile of cardboard box scattered on the floor, "Mr. Weston had the code changed. He, uh..." Lonnie's sad eyes found mine. "He told me to give you these." He finished, pointing at the boxes.

"What do you mean?" I asked out of habit. I knew exactly what he meant. It meant Nick kicked me out. It meant Nick dumped me. But instead of doing it himself, he had his poor old doorman do his dirty work for him. "I mean, why?" I rectified my question, pointing at the boxes undoubtedly filled with my textbooks and scrubs.

"I don't know, sweetheart. I just know that he wasn't happy either. He was the saddest I've ever seen him. Whatever happened between you two, it must have broken him." Lonnie adjusted his mask and reiterated. "He wasn't himself, darling. He really wasn't himself. Don't take this the wrong way."

"Wow." I shook my head, bewildered beyond expectation. "He kicked me out." I whispered to myself, tasting the words on my tongue, trying to digest it enough to make it make sense.

My life was a strange one. I spent ages living a dull, boring life, and then in a matter of minutes, I lost both my dad and Noah forever. I lived an uneventful, underwhelming life for seven years, and then out of nowhere, I bumped into Noah and Nick dumped me all in a span of half an hour.

Briskly muttering something that sounded like a goodbye to Lonnie, I collected my boxes and did a walk of shame toward my car.

Forty minutes later, I was pulling into my apartment parking lot and walking into my cozy house with the boxes towering in my hands like it was just another day. It wasn't. I was in a disarray inside. I made the drive to my apartment in New Jersey in a daze. My brain was in a puddle. My thoughts were disorganized. I was more confused than angry or heartbroken.

Dropping the boxes by the couch and ignoring the envelope that spilled out of the loosely taped box, I locked my front door, drew my curtains closed, and turned on the Ac. I stripped out of my filthy scrubs, took a quick shower, hoarded some snacks, and locked myself in my bedroom.

Desperate times called for binge eating and binge eating called for regret.

Hours later, I was in bed with my headphones latched onto my ears, effectively tuning out all the voices in my head. Too tired to face the world, I closed my eyes and called for sleep. But sleep wasn't that easy to get a hold of. It didn't answer my call. Despite being up for hours on end, all the shock that had smacked me on the face so early in the morning had me wide awake, binge eating, and realizing what a day, what a year, what a life I've had.

Sunday, June 21st, 2020

8:10 PM

Every bone, every muscle in my body ached as I made my way down the chaotic hospital hallway in search of an unoccupied room. I had just scrubbed out of surgery, a major coronary artery dissection which took a lot longer than it should, and I needed to get a well-deserved ten-minute nap before I embarked on a hectic night of updating a million charts and doing stitches.

I was passing by the nurses' station on my way to the on-call room to check if it was empty when Latanya, the head nurse, called me.

"Yes?" I stopped and turned around to face her.

"I have a message for you, Dr. Van de Kamp." She was hidden behind a large computer that sat on top of the large circular desk in the nurse's station.

"Oh," I rerouted and walked toward her. "What message?" I asked.

Standing behind the desk, she patted her chest before she inserted her hands in her scrub pockets and took out a piece of paper. She studied the hallway slyly and inched closer to me. "Uh, there was a man that came here looking for you yesterday morning."

Handing me the piece of paper, she continued, "we told him you weren't scheduled in and he left. But then he came back again last night and asked me to give you this. He looked really troubled, and I just thought it might be an emergency or he might be someone who really needed to contact you. So, I told him I'd see what I could do." A wry smile creased her eyes and her forehead.

Nick had been calling and texting me since the other night, but he was in Canada. He couldn't have left me a note. Taking the crumbled piece of paper from Latanya's waiting hands, I unfolded it tentatively and read the number and name scribbled on it with black ink.

Confusion and eagerness raced through the finish line inside my body. "Thank you, Latanya." I rushed out and ran to the on-call room, happy to find it vacant.

My phone was already out, my hands frantically typing out the number I knew by heart. I didn't need to read the paper to refresh my memory. After I clicked call, I pressed my phone to my ear and leaned against the wall. I waited for it to ring, but silence was all I could hear. As usual, after a few silent seconds, I was transferred to his voicemail.

My confusion intensified as I dialed again and again and again, only to receive the same response. "You have reached the voice mailbox of Noah. Please leave your message at the tone."

Sitting on the reclining chair in the corner of the room with my elbows on my knees and my head bowed down, I tried to make sense out of all that was happening as more unasked WH questions infested my brain.

Why did Noah come looking for me? Why did he disappear the other day? Why was I still blocked on his phone? Why did he ask for me to contact him on the same number he had me blocked on? What kind of sick game was he playing on me?

My pager vibrated, alerting me I was needed in the orthotics department. Finally, forcing my brain to give up its futile attempt to untangle the tangled tale, I walked out of the on-call room, called the elevator, and went to the second floor, where I was needed.

The rest of the day was uneventful but refreshing. I spent it doing what I knew best—fixing other people's problems and avoiding my own.

Monday, June 22nd, 2020

9:20 PM

The loud siren whales dwindled and stopped as paramedics jumped out of the ambulance, pushing patients strapped in gurneys. They were reading charts out loud and some of my fellow residents were scramming toward them trying to get a hold of the incoming patients.

Another long shift had passed successfully. As much as I wanted to stay and help, I had exceeded my hours and I was hanging by a thread. So, I just walked out of the emergency room and made my way to the elevator. I had lost track of exactly how many hours I had worked for. All I knew was that I was beat—on the verge of passing out. I couldn't wait to get home and sleep like a baby.

Technically, a first-year resident or an intern was required to work no longer than a 16-hour shift. But because of the pandemic and the scarcity of health care workers, we worked until we passed out. (Not really, but kind of.)

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked for missed notifications after I called the elevator. I had several messages and missed calls waiting for me. Some from my mom, some from Topher, a few from Nick, and... you guessed it, none from Noah. I quickly responded to my mom and Topher, telling them I'd call them sometime that week, and opened Nick's text message.

Nick: I heard your voicemail. Fuck, May, why are you doing this to me?

Rolling my eyes and leaving him on read, I walked into the open elevator, greeted the two attendings that were inside, and pressed the button for the underground parking lot. I didn't have the energy to deal with Nick. I was too busy dodging life's surprise slaps to care about his stupid tantrum.

As the elevator descended, taking me to my destination, both hemispheres of my brain worked overtime, synapses sparkling like fireworks. The right half pondered over Nick and his hasty decision to just pack my stuff up and kick me out of his place like I was some kind of charity work he couldn't wait to get rid of. And the left half thought about Noah and why I let him have so much power over me. I knew him for just a fraction of my life, yet he's somehow in the middle of all the pain and heartache I had ever endured.

"Good night, Dr. Sam." I smiled and waved as I walked out of the elevator.

The fluorescent light flickered, welcoming me into the creepy parking lot. The sound of my shoe against the concrete echoed, accentuating the jingling sound coming from my key chain as all the clutters hanging from it warred each other. The tiny Eiffel tower figure and tiny macaroons wrestled with the mini stun gun and my house key, reminding me I needed to upgrade my key chain.

With a click of a button, I unlocked my car and hurried to the passenger's side. I had had that key chain since I was 19. It was one tiny piece of tangible nostalgia I had kept and strung along with me after my life changed drastically. It was my comfort object—it reminded me of the time when life wasn't so complicated. But at my age, having a Paris-themed, rusting key chain was a bit juvenile. I was a 26-year-old doctor, for crying out loud.

Opening the door, I took off my bag, intending to deposit it on the seat, but a shadowy figure emerged from the car parked behind me, causing me to drop my bag on the ground and gasp in alarm. Before my eyes could adjust to the light and make out the face of the shadow, a strained voice came through, startling me.

"Hey."

Immediately aiming my stun gun in the direction of the figure, I squinted my eyes and looked closely. It was Noah. With his hands tucked in his black and gold old-school jacket, he was looking at me cautiously as he approached me at a strange pace.

Holding myself together with my palms pressed to my chest, "You scared the shit out of me." I said, letting out a breath of relief.

He chuckled and raised his hands. "Sorry... Dr. May Van de Kamp." His eyes followed the letters on my name tag, then glimmered as they landed on my face. I couldn't see his mouth, but his eyes were creased in what seemed like a reminiscent smile. I might be wrong, but I could hear the pride in his voice as he said my name out loud.

The thought of him being proud of me made the rousing in my stomach return ten times intensified. Instead of butterflies, it felt like eagles were flapping their wings in my belly, doing a victory dance. As much as it pains me to admit it, I needed his approval so bad. God, I wanted him to be proud of me. I wanted him to think that I had lived up to the name he had given me. I wanted him to regret the day he left me.

It had been the longest seven years without him. I had missed him so much... and maybe I was delusional, but he looked like he had missed me, too. His eyes were shamelessly scouring me from head to toe like he couldn't get enough of me. Like he was looking at me for the first time.

Bending his neck down and letting out a soft chuckle, Noah spoke again in a subdued voice, "So, I was right. You are May from middle school." The fluorescent light shone right above him, making him look like an angel with a halo—my angel with a halo.

He hadn't changed a bit. He looked exactly like the boy I had loved years ago. The boy who stole almost all of my firsts. The boy who looked at me like I was the smartest person on earth. The boy who called me Mer.

"Um," I nodded half-heartedly as sweat prickled my skin, uncomfortable with his choice of words. My brain catapulted to one of our first text messages, inciting a frown on my face.

Noah from middle school, I remember you. What's up?

The stars aligning for Noah and me to cross paths again was inevitable. I knew that day was going to come, and I had been preparing myself for it for seven years. Somewhere in the hippocampus of my brain, there was a folder titled rendezvous I opened whenever I drove, worked, slept, and breathed. In that folder, there were different scenarios of the events that I presumed would unfold the day Noah and I would finally come face to face.

In my version of events, Noah cried and whimpered and sobbed as he told me how sorry he was for putting me through hell. In the scenarios I had created in my head, he confessed to me I was the one that got away. In those versions of events, he didn't look like himself, life didn't treat him well—he was sad and lonely and wasting away.

No amount of daydreaming and making up fake scenarios could prepare me for the moment of truth. Nowhere in my dreams did he refer to me as "May from middle school" like he didn't fuck me breathless. No amount of therapy and self-love could heal me from the gaping wound widening in his presence. No brand of pain medicine could alleviate the ache that came with seeing him alive and existing just fine without me.

"I waited for your call the whole day." Noah spoke again, bringing me out of memory lane. "But you never called." He shrugged; his gaze downcast.

Anger soared through my body, humiliation escalating it just like poured gasoline accelerated fire. I was too busy reminiscing about the good old days, that I had momentarily overlooked the ugly ones. While Noah was my angel with a halo, he was also my devil with horns and a pitchfork. He was also the villain in my story. The one that left me during the time I needed him most and never looked back.

"Well, you never unblocked me." I retaliated after I took a moment to let my rising anger simmer down.

A strange moment of silence passed between us as we gazed into each other's eyes. It was like we were starring in a two-handler play about our tragic love story, written and directed by fate. The parking lot was our stage. The parked cars were our audience. The chirping crickets sang our original soundtrack. And the unsteady, yet bright beam of light shining above us was as a spotlight.

Noah's brows creased as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and performed the first act that called for a round of applause. "I- what?" Too bad our audiences were inanimate objects of different hues and models.

I tilted my head slightly to the side and looked at him with my jaw clenched, trying to decipher his expression from the visible parts of his face. It was very presumptuous of me to even think that I could read his facial expressions after so many years. But... it wasn't like I needed to be a Noah whisperer to discern that he looked very uncomfortable. His strange pose told it all.

It was understandable. I'd be a little uncomfortable if I were to come face to face with a person whose heart I had shamelessly stepped on. But the level of discomfort he was showing felt like it had layers to it. He was standing peculiarly, with one of his hands cupping his neck and the other fiddling with his phone. If I didn't know much better, I'd say he was genuinely distressed.

He didn't seem like he was facing someone he knew, much less alleged to have loved.

It could be because he hadn't seen me in years, or because he didn't love me anymore. But something inside of me stirred causing the sac of anger I had swallowed years ago to spill and circulate in my bloodstream, contaminating it.

"Why are you here, Noah?"

"To apologize."

I felt smaller than an ant at that exact moment. I felt stupid. A fool. A clown he was toying with. Because even though he was seven years too late for an apology, my poor, unkempt heart desired to hear it.

Crossing my arms around my chest—protecting myself, hugging myself—I nodded for him to go on.

"I'm so sorry about the other day. I shouldn't have left after your boss took you away. That was very rude of me. I wanted to wait for you, but my brother was in a hurry and he was my ride." He let out a nervous chuckle.

My head lurched backward, causing my brain to bounce inside my skull. Suddenly I was a bull seeing red everywhere. Rage tied my tongue, rendering me speechless. "Th... That's what you're sorry for?"

"Uh," he chuckled again, shifting uncomfortably. I wanted to smack him on the face for chuckling so much. Nothing that warranted cackling was going on between us. "This is going to sound strange, but is there anything else I should apologize for?"

An amalgam of emotions had my body vibrating. The ground I stood on felt like lava. My skin felt like it was melting away, dripping down. Why must he be so cruel to me? Why must he be so callous with my heart? "Wh- what the fuck is wrong with you?" I spat out, backing away to hide the tears pooling in the corners of my eyes.

"Wh... what do you mean?" Noah stammered, his eyes bulging wide losing the usual glimmer they had when they saw me. They were wide, dark, dull, and searching.

"Stop playing dumb, Noah. You know better."

"I, uh..."

"You, what? What, Noah?" my voice ricocheted. "Cut it out! Cut the sadistic shit you've got going on out and let's get right to the chase. Why the hell are you here after seven years? Why the hell did you never come back? And why the fuck did you leave me in the first place?" Flecks of spit escaped my mouth as I unleashed some of the questions I'd been dying to let out.

Taking my mask off, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and filled my burning lungs with some air. "Some nerve you have to show your face after all that you've done to me and act like you've got nothing to apologize for. Yes, you do have a lot to apologize for, Noah, but I'm not going to stand here and walk you through it I've been through enough."

I was not going to go through the heartache of arguing with Noah in a hospital parking lot again. Anger was gnawing at me, cracking my patched-up heart open and making my old wounds hurt.

I shook my head and made my way to the driver's side of my car, picking up my long-forgotten bag from the ground.

"May. Wait." He caught up to me and grabbed my hand. The contact had shivers running through my body. Not the giddy butterfly ones I used to get, but a real, painful wave of static electricity that had the hairs on the back of my neck stand.

"You. You are so insolent. So disrespectful to me. Wait? You have the audacity to ask me to wait? I waited for you. At my dad's funeral, at my graduation, at our spot in the park... I waited for years. Haven't you made me wait long enough?" I tugged my hand free, shoving him away. "You are unbelievable, Noah."

I didn't even push him that hard, but Noah stumbled backward, lost his balance, and fell on his back. Too much was happening too fast.

The hem of his jeans rolled up a little, exposing a shiny metal they had been hiding underneath. I loud gasp escaped my mouth and my feet stayed glued to the ground as realization struck me in the gut.

He had a prosthesis on his left leg.

I couldn't even offer to help him up. I simply watched him wide-eyed as he struggled to get up and stand on his feet. Carefully studying me as he bent down and covered his prosthetic leg back with his jeans, Noah cleared his throat and backed away from me.

I covered my mouth with my shaky palms and gasped for non-existent air to fill my deflated lungs. Tears spilled from my eyes, my chin quivered, and a sob escaped my mouth. "No... Noah." I spoke between my cries, but Noah turned his back on me and walked away slowly.

"Noah!" I yelled. "What is going on?" more tears spilled down my cheeks as my eyes stayed glued to his leg. "What happened to you?" I bellowed, walking toward him.

He froze with his back to me and bowed his head down. I went around him and stood in front of his face. "What the hell happened to you, Noah?" I cried, grabbing his hand and squeezing it.

Noah stayed silent for a while and let me cry for him. My tears spilled, disregarding my efforts to keep them at bay. Bringing my hand up to his face, Noah looked at my tattoo and inhaled a sharp breath.

"May, I need you to listen to me carefully." He said, peeling his mask off and urging me to look into his eyes. "I need you to listen, because I think I'm finally figuring it out." His voice was unstable, frantic and his eyes were sad, pleading.

"Figuring what out? What's going on, Noah!"

"Just... let me explain."

I nodded and waited for an explanation, but what came out of Noah's mouth next was a pandora's box of twisted tales.

"I was in a car accident seven years ago."

I felt like I was struck by lightning. "Oh my God." I breathed, taking my hand away from him and freeing my face of my mask. I was suffocating. I needed air.

"I woke up from a twenty-one-day coma to find my liver replaced, my left leg missing, and some of my memories gone."

"No." My ears were ringing.

"Wait. Please, let me finish." He said, frustration clear in his voice. "When I woke up from the coma, I remembered my name, my parents, my childhood, the president... I remembered everything up to my freshmen week of college—"

"—No. Noah please, no—" 

"—My life after that was blank."

Noah grabbed my hand and made sure to look me in the eyes when he said his next sentence. "I was diagnosed with post-traumatic retrograde amnesia."

I felt like I was in a nightmare I couldn't wake up from. I needed someone to pinch me. I needed someone to wake me up.

"You- you don't remember me, d-do you? That's what you're trying to tell me, isn't it?" I bawled into my free hand.

He shook his head softly and continued. "The other day, in the elevator, I couldn't place where I knew you from, but I was sure that I knew you. Especially after... the way you looked at me, the way you said my name..." he tipped his head up and drew a deep breath.

Gesturing to my name tag, he went on. "You looked really familiar, and I was pretty sure I've heard your last name before. I was grilling my brother the entirety of our ride to our parents' place, telling him I knew you from somewhere. But he swore I had never seen you before and it just didn't add up. I saw how you looked at my brother. How he looked at you. How he nodded at you. How he dragged me out of there before you came back."

His eyes were wide open, his pupils dilated, turning his brown eyes black. They were roaming my face, studying and searching just like they used to do way back when.

"I spent the entire day going over what was left of my shitty memory, trying to remember where I knew you from. For some fucking reason, my head couldn't let go. My mind was eating at me, telling me to dig deeper. And so... I did. I dug deeper. I, uh, I'm staying at my parents' place for a while and I went to their attic and rummaged the entire room trying to find my year books. Then I saw you. On page 23 of my middle school yearbook, with your big hair and brown freckles. May Van de Kamp. Most likely to become a doctor."

My eyes were wet. My face was wet. My neck was wet. I was inconsolable. People had been coming in and out of the parking lot, some parking their cars and some driving away, casting us strange glances. But Noah and I couldn't care less.

"Despite my shitty amnesia, I remember middle school vividly. I remember it enough to know you didn't even look my way back then. So, I showed the yearbook to my brother and told him that you and I must have known each other after that for you to call my name the way you did. For you to look at me the way you did in the elevator."

I nodded, confirming that we did know each other. We more than knew each other.

"Do you know what he said to me?"

I shook my head and looked at him through my wet lashes.

"He told me to let it go." He ran his thumb over my tattoo and met my teary eyes. "I don't let things go, May."

"Wh- what does that mean?"

"After seeing your reaction to seeing me, after seeing the same exact unexplainable tattoo I have on my hand imprinted on yours, after hearing you ask me where I've been for the past seven years. I'm one hundred percent sure that you're not just the girl I went to middle school with. I think you are somebody that I used to know. And I'm not letting this go until you tell me exactly who you are to me."

...

a/n- Uhh, 👀I come bearing a plot twist. How do we feel about this chapter?

Did you see this coming? Did you pick up on it throughout the chapter? Who remembers the Paris-themed keychain Noah gave May on her 19th birthday? Are we mad at Nick or is he on the right? HOW DO WE FEEL ABOUT NOAH?!!!!! 😭

Thank you for being patient with me. Updating schedule will be on Wednesdays from here on out. So, instead of every Monday, new chapters will be posted every Wednesday. Does that work for you guys?

As always, thank you for reading, voting, commenting, and sharing this story. I appreciate yall so so so much!! 💗💗

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