Alex woke up to a blind panic. His heart is racing a thousand miles a minute.
“Help!” He was startled at the voice that came out of his mouth. He grunted in pain and shut his eyes as he lifted himself up but exhaled and gave up after a second. He was strapped to the bed, and he didn't have the strength to even help himself up. He opened his eyes once again and focused his vision on the white ceiling above him.
After a moment of struggle, he heard a voice approaching, and someone is suddenly at his side, hands on his shoulders, telling him to breathe.
"Let me out of here!" he yelled, desperate for this person to understand him and let him go. "I don’t know you!" He could feel himself passing out from the lack of oxygen as he started to panic.
“Alex, listen to me. Breathe. Just breathe,” Harper urged him.
Alex’s wrapped his long fingers around her arms tightly and did as he was told.
“Breathe in. Breathe out,” Harper whispered close to him. “In. Out. In. Out. You can do it, Alex. Just breathe in, and breathe out again.”
“Just let me go, please.” He tried to make himself as loud as he could, looking so scared.
Harper looked him in the eye with concern while rubbing his shoulders. “You need to calm down, Alex. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.”
Momentarily, Alex kept still. When his breathing found its rhythm again, he sat back on the bed and slowly scanned the room. He tried to focus his eyes on a portrait of an old woman on the wall. She was staring at him with her hooded eyes. Like the woman knew more than he did. And it somehow brought a slight of panic to him again, but he turned to Harper, who was still trying to hold him steady, breathing in and out with him. He frowned and slowly shifted in his bed.
When Harper noticed that he had begun to relax, she quickly let go and dragged a chair from a corner to his bedside.
"You again," Alex said in his raspy voice, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
“Yes. Please don’t scream,” Harper managed to whisper more to herself. “Just try to stay calm. Breathe in, and breathe out.”
“I don’t know you. Why should I listen to you?”
“Look, I’m trying to help you here. Okay?” Harped responded in a slight panic. She was no nurse, but she wasn’t sure why she’s trying to handle the situation by herself. She should really call Libby or one of the nurses while Dr. Miller was away.
So why hadn’t she?
Alex began to open and close his mouth, attempting to talk or scream again. “Let me out! Please! Unstrap me! I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Alex, listen to me!” Harper sort of yelled at him sternly, and it succeeded as he stayed put. “Don’t scream, Okay? We need to have progress here.” When she saw that Alex didn’t say anything else except close his eyes, trying to calm his breathing. She continued, “Good. Now just continue to breathe in and breathe out.”
“I’m so confused…”
“I know it is confusing. But shouting and throwing some tantrums won’t give you any answers. And it’s been almost two weeks. Your wounds are surprisingly fading fast, so I know you’re healing. You gotta stop with the screaming and your outbursts.”
“Where am I?” Alex whispered after a bit.
Harper bit her lower lip, trying to control it from shaking, and forced a smile on her face. "Um-you’re―you’re here."
Alex glared at her for a good second that felt like minutes for her. “Where is here exactly?”
She sucked in a breath, mind racing. Lucas had told her Alex couldn’t know a thing. She had to make something up, some little white lies to feed Alex to keep him still, to buy Lucas some time while he was fixing whatever damage Alex had done.
“Aren’t you going to tell me? Where am I?” Alex asked again.
“Uhh… you’re in a cottage.”
“What happened to me?”
*Shit!*
“Well―uh―um…you had an accident.”
Alex’s mind was blank. Her answers brought him more confusion because nothing she said made sense to him. He sighed and threw his head back. “What accident?”
“Car?”
“Are you asking me, or are you telling me?”
“Telling. Of course.” Harper cleared her throat. “You had a car accident.”
“Where are my parents? Anyone else here other than you?”
“What do you remember about your parents?” Harper asked cautiously instead, scared that he may actually have not forgotten his parents, and any lies she’d chalk up about them may backfire.
Alex couldn't stop a soft but grim laugh from escaping his chest. "Why do I feel like you’re treading a thin line here? You don’t entirely know me, do you?" He thought that the more uncomfortable he made Harper, the more likely he would get his answer.
That's when Harper’s face froze. How could she make up something about his parents? About his family? He must have known he had a family. Parents. Friends. How would she lie about them?
“Where are my parents?” Alex asked again.
Harper looked lost and desperate. Her eyes were searching for something in Alex’s to drop her some hints that he knew nothing so she could cook up something.
When she didn’t respond, Alex’s instincts kicked in, and he couldn’t help the panic that was building up inside him once again. "You don’t know anything! Let me out of here! Now!" he said. His voice raised in utter panic and urgency.
“Alex, trust me! Please! I know your parents! " Harper pleaded.
"Liar! Let me out of here! I don’t know you!" As Alex tried to struggle to set himself free, his vision was fuzzing black around the edges as he wheezed.
Harper took a step back; she, too, was panicking. “No! Alex, please! You will hurt yourself. You can trust me!”
“I can’t breathe…” Alex choked on his voice.
“Oh, no! Alex, please! Don’t do this to yourself!”
“Help me…”
“Shit! Libby!” Harper called out and hurried to Alex’s bedside again. “Alex, you have to stay calm! I will tell you everything you need to know! Just breathe. Breathe, Alex.”
Alex felt uncertain but gave a slight nod and willed his breathing to slow down. And it wasn’t really Harper’s exaggerated demonstration on how he should do it, but it was the woman’s concern in her eyes that helped him feel the relief as his own breathing slowed.
After a few minutes, he was finally breathing normally again, and his heart was no longer racing.
"I’m so sorry for triggering you, Alex," Harper said with fear and guilt.
“Tell me, why do I sense that you’re somehow hiding something from me?” Alex looked her in the eye. Slowly, the confused frown on his face was finally falling into a smirk. Like he was being the old Alex again.
“What? No! I’m not hiding anything from you. Absolutely.” Harper took a deep breath to calm herself. *Breathe in. Breathe out.* She mentally told herself, looking away.
“Is that really my name?”
"Huh?" he said, puzzled. "Alex?"
"Yes, that!” Alex paused. “Is that really my name?”
She finally cleared her throat and looked at him. “Yes.” She nodded.
“And you are?”
“Harper.”
“I know. You told me that already. But who are you? How do I know you?”
She swallowed hard, remembering what Lucas had told her. When she couldn’t provide any answer, his brows tipped up. “You’re not being truthful to me.”
“What?”
“Why can’t you tell me directly who you really are?”
“Alex, you have to trust me, please,” she pleaded.
“Why should I? I don’t know you. Let me out of here,” he yelled.
She could sense his emotions building up again. An outburst would soon follow if she wouldn’t do or say anything to calm him down. “Alex, please!”
“I don’t trust you! I don’t know you!”
“Calm down!”
“Why should I listen to you? Huh? Why?”
“Because…” She was panicking now. Fists clenched by her side. Her body was stiff and tensed. She knew she had to say something.
“You’re trying to cook up some lies, Harper! Now let me go! I don’t trust any of you here! Especially you!” He bellowed and wrestled with setting his hands free from the straps, arching his back. He must have regained back some of his strength because the bed almost lifted from the side when he twisted and turned violently.
“Dammit, Alex, Stop it!” Harper yelled. “Libby! Libby! Help!”
“Let me out!”
“Alex. No! Listen to me! Stop it!”
“No!”
“Please!”
“No! I don’t know you, and I don’t trust you!” Alex screamed.
“You have no choice!”
“Why?”
“Because―”
“What?!”
Harper took a deep breath, controlling her emotions. Then she blurted out, “I’m your fiancée!”
* * *
“You told him what?”
“That I’m his fiancée.” Harper bit her lip, fighting the urge to smack herself in the forehead. After the little big lie she told Alex, she quickly fled to the room she was staying at the cottage and called Kendal, who picked up the call on the second ring as if she had been waiting for Harper’s call.
“But why?”
“He wouldn’t shut up. And I couldn’t tell him the truth. At least for now. That’s what Lucas said I should do,” she replied, frowning and leaning heavily against the door. Her heart was still racing.
“Well, I bet he didn’t specifically tell you to tell Alex you’re his fiancée.”
“What would you have me say? I nearly lost my shit back there,” she countered.
“I don’t know? Something less complicated? I mean, you could have just told him you’re his sister.” The frown on Kendal’s face actually audible through the phone, and Harper, no doubt, felt it.
“We don’t share any resemblance,” Harper said, standing up straight and glaring at an empty bed in front of her, like Kendal was there, sitting with her judgmental look.
“Or his cousin.”
“Trust me, Kendal. If you had seen Alex, you’d be able to tell,” she reasoned out, though there was a waver in her tone that her friend knew way too well.
Kendal sighed as if it was a heavy burden to listen to her reasons. “Or you could have told him you’re his best friend! Or a friend if you want to keep it low key.”
Harper was silent for a moment. “Yes. You’re right. I could have told him that.” She huffed in frustration, rolling her head until it rested on the wooden door, and slumped against it for support. “What have I done?”
There was a slight pause.
“Fucked up a lie?” Kendal simply responded.
Harper chewed on her lips. Closing her eyes, she spoke again. “Shit.”
“Well, at least you no longer work in his company.”
“What do you mean?” she asked timidly.
“Saves you the embarrassment as soon as he remembers everything,” Kendal explained.
“You’re right. Well, it calmed him down, though. When I told him I’m his fiancée.”
Kendal chuckled softly on the other line. “Yeah, right. Convince yourself that what you did was the right thing.”
“Kendal, that was the first thing that popped into my mind. Look, you’re not helping.”
“What?” The laughter from her friend became too loud as if she were now mocking her. “Then, go right ahead and continue being his fiancée, so you don’t have to deal with his outburst. Anyway, the worse thing he could do when he finds out you’re lying when his memory comes back is, I don’t know, laugh at you and tell you that you must be out of your mind?”
“That’s really not helping how I feel right now, but you’re right.”
“Look, as soon as he starts remembering everything, just tell him you had no choice. You panicked, and it was the first and only thing that popped into your mind. And tell him it was his fault for acting up like a bitch.”
Harper nodded. “You’re absolutely right.”