Chapter 5 - Tangible Truths
772 Words
(Adrian’s POV)
The penthouse wasn’t empty—
just too quiet.
Quiet in the way the world holds its breath before lightning strikes, humming with something I couldn’t name.
Eva moved through my space like it was hers. Not intruding—just… fitting. Fingertips brushing a vase. Straightening a cushion. Humming a tune my mind didn’t recognize, but my body did.
And every time she moved, something inside me tugged—sharp, unwanted, relentless.
I hated it.
Hated the flicker of warmth.
Hated the pull.
Hated that some part of me softened at the sight of her, even without remembering a single moment of our supposed life.
She picked up the hospital folder and turned to me with a calm I didn’t deserve.
“I think we should go through this,” she said gently. “You need to see what’s real.”
“I don’t need to see anything.”
Her gaze didn’t harden, didn’t challenge—just softened with unbearable sadness.
“Adrian… you do.”
I opened my mouth to shut it down.
But then she laid the photographs across the table.
And everything stopped.
Smiling.
Laughing.
Holding each other.
A version of me I didn’t know leaned into her in every frame—hands on her waist, her cheek, her neck. Casual intimacy. Familiarity. A man whose walls didn’t exist.
Then came the videos.
Us in the kitchen.
On the couch.
In bed—just talking, breathing, living.
My voice came through the speakers—warm, unguarded, completely in love. Hearing it felt like a punch to the ribs.
I didn’t know that man.
But he knew her.
Her hand brushed mine as she reached for the mouse—soft, warm, electric.
I jerked back.
But the warmth stayed.
“I don’t…” My voice cracked. “I don’t remember any of this.”
“That’s because it was taken from you,” she whispered. “But it was real. Every moment.”
She placed a USB in my hand. “Everything’s here. Our messages. Emails. Finances. Memories.”
Logic—the part of me that clung to cold facts—saw the timestamps. The matching handwriting. The precision. The undeniable truth.
Then she reached into the folder and pulled out something that made my stomach drop.
A leather-bound journal.
Mine.
I stared at it like it might explode.
My journal from the missing year.
My handwriting—messy, emotional—covered every page. Thoughts I couldn’t remember having poured out in frantic ink.
“I can’t live without her.”
“She’s the only peace I have.”
“I would burn my world for her.”
“Eva.”
Her name—written like a confession, a prayer, a promise.
I closed the journal too fast. My pulse hammered. The room grew too warm, too small.
“You see?” she whispered. “You loved me. You chose me.”
Her voice trembled, just barely.
“And I can’t lose you again.”
Before I could speak, a sharp knock sliced through the moment.
Victoria.
Of course.
Her voice cut through the penthouse like a blade.
“Adrian, this ends now. She is not your wife. She is manipulating you, and I won’t allow it.”
Eva didn’t flinch.
Didn’t shrink.
Didn’t look away.
“She’s lying,” she said quietly. “She always has. And you know it—you feel the truth, even if you don’t understand it yet.”
I hated that she was right.
Hated how my heart pounded harder around her.
Hated how my hands shook.
Victoria’s heels clicked a path back to the elevator, each step screaming disapproval.
The silence she left behind felt suffocating.
I opened the journal again—just a fraction—like the truth might burn me if I exposed too much at once.
A photograph slipped out.
Us in the rain.
Wrapped around each other.
Laughing like the world didn’t exist.
A happiness I didn’t remember.
A life I couldn’t deny.
My hand trembled as I picked it up.
Eva stepped close—too close—her breath brushing my cheek.
“Do you feel it, Adrian?” she whispered. “The way your heart remembers me… even if your mind refuses?”
My throat tightened.
My fingers lifted toward her—slow, helpless, drawn by something older than memory.
Then—
my phone lit up.
Victoria.
Again.
Her name glowed on the screen like a threat.
A warning.
A final line I wasn’t ready to cross.
I froze.
Because whatever I chose in the next breath—
her
or Eva—
would change everything.
Forever.
- Writer
