Chapter 81: blackout?

Ethan stood in front of the mirror, hands gripping the edge of the sink. He stared at his reflection as if willing it to answer the questions he didn’t dare speak out loud. The words kept forming in his mind, rehearsed and discarded, over and over again. “Adelyn… we need to talk.” No, too direct. “I saw you with Lucas. I need to know what happened.”Too accusatory. Each version sounded weak, fumbling, inadequate.

He ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. He hated that he felt so tense, so small, when she hadn’t even spoken a word yet. He practiced again, his mouth moving silently. He could almost hear her voice in his head, sharp, mocking, patient. “Really, Ethan? You’re accusing me?”

His reflection stared back, the man he thought he knew — strong, composed, in control — now trembling, uncertain. The room seemed to press in on him. Shadows pooled in the corners, and the mirror reflected an image that wasn’t entirely his own. His own eyes looked too wide, too alert, too guilty.

Ethan began pacing. Step. Step. Step. The floorboards creaked. He could hear the faint hum of the air conditioner, the distant sound of traffic outside, but all he noticed were the imagined footsteps of someone behind him, the imagined whisper of her voice. “You think you can confront me? You think you can control this?”

He rehearsed aloud now, the words shaky but determined. “I… I need to know what you’re doing with Lucas.” His voice cracked. He swallowed hard. “You’re crossing a line. I won’t— I can’t let this go.”

He stopped and stared at the mirror again. The man in front of him seemed almost foreign. Who was this person rehearsing threats and confessions in his own bathroom? He had loved her. He had adored her. And yet, the jealousy, the suspicion, the anger bubbling inside him… it made him unrecognizable.

He tried another approach. Softer. Vulnerable. “Adelyn, I… I just don’t understand. I need you to tell me what’s happening.” The words sounded hollow even to him. His reflection didn’t respond. It never would.

Ethan’s knees grew weak. The floor beneath him seemed to shift imperceptibly. His breaths came unevenly. He rubbed his face with both hands and muttered to himself, pacing in circles like a caged animal. He was dizzy. He felt the first prickles of nausea. His rehearsed words started to slur together, blending into one incomprehensible knot of thought.

“Say it… say it… no, don’t say it like that… she’ll laugh… she’ll hate you…”

The tension in his body grew unbearable. His hands began trembling, and the mirror seemed to distort, reflecting a version of him that was too small, too frail, too panicked. He tried to take a deep breath, tried to steady himself. Tried to imagine the confrontation one last time — the words flowing perfectly, the responses anticipated, the conversation resolved. But the image crumbled in his mind like sand through his fingers.

His vision blurred. His legs gave way, barely holding him upright. The room spun slowly, then faster, faster, until he couldn’t tell up from down. He sank onto the bed, clutching the sheets, muttering fragments of arguments he would never actually say:

“You… you can’t do this… I won’t let you… tell me…”

The exhaustion hit him like a wave. The tension, the jealousy, the confusion — it all collapsed into a crushing weight. He felt himself slipping, the room tilting, the floor falling away beneath him. His last conscious thought was a frantic, desperate hope that he would somehow wake up and find it was only a rehearsal, only a practice, and that the confrontation could wait.

And then everything went black.

When he awoke, the sunlight was slanting through the blinds, sharp and intrusive, highlighting every crease of the room. His head throbbed faintly. He blinked rapidly, trying to adjust. The first thing he registered was the weight beside him.

Adelyn.

She was lying there, seemingly peaceful, her chest rising and falling in even, gentle rhythm. Her hair spilled across the pillow like dark silk, her hand resting casually near hers. There was an almost surreal calmness to her presence, as if nothing had happened in the past hours.

And then, the creeping realization: he was naked.

Panic spiked through him, electrifying every nerve. His pulse skyrocketed, and he bolted upright. The sheets twisted around him in confusion, the room a mess of shadows and half-light. His mind raced, piecing together the fragmented memories of the previous night — and coming up blank.

His hand reached for his phone on the bedside table. The screen lit up, revealing a time that made his stomach twist into knots: nearly ten hours had passed. Ten hours had vanished without a trace.

And then he saw the notifications. His chest tightened further. Messages from Jonathan.

“You slept with her? After everything you promised me? After saying you were done?”

“I can’t believe you would do this to me, Ethan. You said you were mine!”

The words hit him like a physical blow. His mouth went dry, his hands trembling. A cold sweat prickled at his temples. How… how had this happened? How could ten hours have gone by without him remembering, and why — why would Jonathan have known?

Ethan’s eyes darted to Adelyn. She stirred slightly, blinking slowly, her expression clouded with mild confusion. “Ethan?” she asked, her voice soft but alert.

He stared at her, struggling to form words. “What… what happened? I… I don’t remember.”

She frowned slightly, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “When I lay down beside you, you… you initiated everything,” she said carefully, almost hesitantly. Her tone carried no malice, only a matter-of-fact calm.

Ethan’s mind whirled. Initiated? Him? That didn’t make sense. “I… I don’t… I couldn’t…”

“Look around,” she said, gesturing vaguely toward the floor. Several empty alcohol bottles glinted in the weak morning light. “You were drinking. You… must have passed out. I didn’t… I just stayed beside you.”

His stomach twisted. The room suddenly seemed claustrophobic, closing in from every angle. His thoughts collided in chaotic spirals: the drowsiness, the black-out, the ten-hour gap, the alcohol. He couldn’t trust his own memory. He couldn’t trust his own perception. And Jonathan… Jonathan must have heard something. Somehow.

Ethan sat on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. Every nerve in his body screamed at him. How could he have let this happen? How could he have been so careless, so utterly vulnerable, that he woke up in a position that made no sense?

Adelyn leaned over slightly, placing a hand on his shoulder. Her touch was soft, but the calm authority in her eyes unnerved him further. “You’re panicking,” she said quietly. “You need to breathe.”

He did not breathe. He could feel the anger, the betrayal, and the deep confusion all mixing inside him. A sense of guilt gnawed at him, despite the fact that he had no memory of doing anything consciously. And yet… the evidence of the bottles, the lapse in time, her calm insistence — it all pointed to something he could not fully claim as his own.

He swallowed hard. “I… I need answers,” he whispered, more to himself than to her.

Adelyn tilted her head, her dark eyes curious, but patient. “You have answers, Ethan. Just not the ones you want to admit.”

He felt his chest tighten. The ten-hour gap was unexplainable, the messages from Jonathan were accusatory, and Adelyn… she remained unnervingly calm, almost as if she had orchestrated it all. He wanted to trust her, to believe her explanation. But the doubt had planted itself firmly, like a parasite feeding on his nerves.

He tried to stand, to regain some semblance of control, but his legs trembled. The alcohol — or perhaps the fatigue — made them weak. His body protested, and he sank back onto the mattress, frustration and confusion coiling inside him like a living thing.

Adelyn watched silently, letting him stew, her hand retreating but her gaze never leaving him. “You have to remember, Ethan,” she said softly. “I didn’t force anything. You chose this. You… you wanted it.”

Ethan shook his head, panic rising again. “I don’t remember choosing anything! I… I couldn’t have…”

“You were tired. You were… indisposed,” she said, her voice almost teasing, but calm. “I didn’t do this. You did.”

The accusation — soft though it was — sent a wave of guilt crashing through him. He couldn’t reconcile the man he knew himself to be with the events unfolding around him. The ten hours, the black-out, the bottles, Jonathan’s fury, Adelyn’s serene explanation… it all pointed toward some shadowed truth he could not grasp.

Ethan’s mind began to spiral, thoughts piling over one another like stones in a landslide. Was he losing his mind? Had he really done this? Or had something else… something beyond his control… caused this situation to manifest?

He looked at Adelyn again. She was still there, peaceful, almost expectant. And in that moment, Ethan realized he had no ground to stand on. He could no longer trust his memory, his instincts, or even his own body. He was adrift, surrounded by confusion and suspicion, the lines between victim and participant blurred beyond recognition.

His gaze fell to the floor, where the bottles lay scattered. The faint smell of alcohol lingered in the air. He touched one lightly, feeling the cold glass, as if it could give him some clue, some anchor in the storm of uncertainty. But it offered nothing.

Finally, he sank back fully into the bed, the weight of exhaustion, guilt, and bewilderment pressing down like a physical force. His eyes closed briefly, trying to shut out the chaos of the room. But in his mind, the images kept replaying: Adelyn’s calm face, Jonathan’s angry messages, the blackness of ten lost hours.

He was trapped in a psychological maze with no exit.

And as he lay there, helpless, a small part of him wondered… had he really gone back to his old ways of having blackouts?