memory?

memory?
Ethan sat at the edge of his bed, the phone pressed so hard to his ear that it hurt. He’d been calling Jonathan for the past hour—texting, leaving voicemails, begging him to pick up. Every ring that ended in silence deepened the pit in his chest.

“Jonathan,” he whispered when the line went dead again. “Please. Just… talk to me.”
The phone screen dimmed, and for a moment he just stared at his reflection in the black glass. His eyes were red and hollow, his stubble uneven, his expression one of a man barely holding himself together. He threw the phone onto the bed and rubbed his temples.
Everything felt wrong lately—his thoughts, his memories, even the feel of his own body. He couldn’t tell if it was guilt, exhaustion, or something worse. He hadn’t been sleeping well since Claire’s death. Since Mark’s. Since… everything.
The apartment was quiet except for the faint hum of the refrigerator. It should have been comforting, but it wasn’t. It only made the silence sharper, heavier, like something was pressing against his lungs.
He picked up the phone again and opened the chat with Jonathan. The last message was from that morning:
I heard you with her. Don’t ever contact me again.

He swallowed hard. He didn’t know what to think anymore. He remembered lying down, feeling tired, maybe dizzy. Then—nothing. A blur. When he woke up, Adelyn was beside him. He didn’t remember touching her. He didn’t remember wanting to.
But the evidence—the empty bottles, the way she’d looked at him—was all there.
He pressed the call button again, desperation making his fingers shake. It rang once, twice—then went to voicemail.
He wanted to scream.
Instead, he just sat there, running his hand through his hair, trying to breathe.
That was when Adelyn appeared in the doorway.
Her silhouette was soft against the hallway light, her hair loose, the oversized sweater swallowing her frame. For a moment, he almost thought she looked fragile. But then she stepped inside, and the air changed.
“You’re still calling him?” she asked quietly.
Ethan looked up, startled. “I—he’s not picking up. I just need to explain what happened.”
Adelyn crossed her arms. “Explain? What’s there to explain, Ethan? He heard you.”
Her tone wasn’t angry. It was calm. Too calm. That kind of calm that made his stomach twist.
“I didn’t do anything,” he said. “I told you already. I don’t remember—”
“Of course you don’t,” she cut in, her voice sharp now. “You never remember anything when it comes to me.”
He blinked. “What?”
“You don’t remember falling asleep beside me, you don’t remember touching me, you don’t remember telling me everything about him.”
Ethan froze. “What are you talking about?”
Adelyn tilted her head, a strange smile tugging at her lips. “You told me about Jonathan. About the affair. About how you thought I’d never find out.”
“I—what? No, I didn’t—”
“You did.” Her voice wavered, eyes glistening as though on cue. “You said you felt guilty. You said you wanted to make things right with me. You said you wanted to try again.”
He shook his head violently. “No. I didn’t. I never—”
Her expression hardened. “Then what, Ethan? Are you saying I’m lying?”
He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
She stepped closer. “You were drunk that night. You were so drunk you couldn’t even stand straight. I helped you to bed, remember? You looked at me and said you missed me. That you wanted to forget everything and start over.”
He stared at her, the words tumbling around in his head like broken glass. He remembered lying down. He remembered the dizziness. The bottles. The room spinning. But not her words. Not what she was describing.
Still, it sounded possible.
“I wasn’t drunk,” he said weakly.
“Yes, you were.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Ethan, you’ve been drinking every night for weeks. You barely talk to me anymore. You stay locked in your room and drown yourself in guilt. You think I don’t notice?”
He clenched his fists. “That’s not true.”
“It is true!” she shouted suddenly, and her voice cracked on the last word.
The sound echoed through the apartment.
For a second, she stood there shaking, and he thought she might collapse. Then she whispered, “You don’t love me anymore.”
The accusation hit harder than he expected.
He swallowed. “Adelyn, it’s not like that—”
“Then what is it?” Her voice trembled. “Because you’re here, calling him like he’s the only thing that matters. You lost me a long time ago, Ethan. Maybe you never really loved me to begin with.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s true. You were never mine, were you? You were always his.”
He felt his chest tighten. “Stop twisting this—”
“Twisting?” she said, laughing bitterly through her tears. “Do you even hear yourself? You’re angry that he won’t talk to you, not because of what we did, but because he’s gone. Because you lost him.”
Her voice softened suddenly, the way it always did before she broke him down. “You think I don’t see it? The way you look at your phone like it’s oxygen? The way you flinch when I touch you? You never loved me. You loved what I gave you—a home, a reason to pretend you weren’t falling apart.”
“Adelyn, please,” he said, his voice cracking. “I don’t remember that night. I don’t remember telling you anything about Jonathan. I think something’s wrong with me. Maybe—maybe someone drugged me or—”
She looked at him with pity. “You’re scaring me, Ethan.”
He froze. “What?”
She stepped back, tears spilling down her cheeks. “You’re drunk again, aren’t you? You don’t even realize how bad it’s gotten. You need help.”
“I’m not drunk!”
“Then why can’t you remember anything?”
Her words sliced through him. He wanted to argue, to shout, to prove her wrong—but he couldn’t. Because she was right about one thing: he couldn’t remember. Not clearly.
The night was a blur, like fog wrapped around his mind.
“I…” He rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know.”
Adelyn sighed, looking exhausted. “You don’t know anything anymore, Ethan. I don’t even recognize you.”
He watched helplessly as she turned toward the door.
“I thought you loved me,” she whispered, voice trembling. “I thought maybe we could fix this. But you don’t even know what you want, do you?”
“Adelyn—”
She opened the door. “You should sleep this off. Maybe when you wake up, you’ll remember who you are.”
Then she was gone.
The door clicked shut behind her, and the silence that followed felt like suffocation.
Ethan sank onto the floor, his head in his hands. His mind wouldn’t stop spinning. Had he really said those things? Had he really confessed everything? Or was she lying?
He wanted to believe she was. He needed to. But every time he tried to reconstruct the night, it slipped away like smoke between his fingers.
The more he tried to remember, the less certain he became.
Maybe he had been drunk. Maybe he had told her. Maybe he really was losing it.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and stared at the blank screen. No new messages. No missed calls.
Just silence.
His reflection in the glass looked unfamiliar—haunted, trembling, desperate.
He closed his eyes, trying to steady his breathing, but his thoughts kept spiraling, looping back to the same terrible question:
What if she’s right?
What if I don’t remember because I don’t want to?
The thought chilled him.
He looked around the room, scanning the walls, the empty bottles, the half-drawn curtains. Everything looked the same as it had the night before—but it all felt wrong, like a stage set for someone else’s story.
He pressed his palms against his eyes until colors bloomed behind the lids. He could still hear her voice, soft and trembling, echoing in his head: You told me everything.
Did he?
He didn’t know anymore.
When he finally looked up, the room seemed darker. Quieter.
The clock on the nightstand ticked loudly in the silence.
Ethan reached for his phone again and typed another message to Jonathan. Then deleted it. Then typed it again.
I don’t remember what happened.

He hovered over “send,” but his finger wouldn’t move.
Outside, a faint sound—a door closing, a creak in the hallway.
He froze.
It could have been nothing. It probably was nothing.
But the way the silence returned afterward made him feel like someone was listening.
He turned off the phone and stared into the darkness, unsure if he was more afraid of what he’d forgotten—or of what he might still remember.