He called me Sarah

Chapter two

The next morning, my alarm dragged me out of the kind of sleep that isn’t really sleep—just lying there with your eyes closed, replaying everything. I sat down remembering His face, His voice and His certainty.

You can’t erase what you were, even if you don’t remember it.

I lay there staring at the ceiling.

“I am not Sarah,” I whispered to nobody.

Saying it out loud didn’t make it feel any truer.

I forced myself up, showered, dressed, and made coffee stronger than my will to live, then walked to the window on instinct.

His car was already outside.

Parked too neatly. Too still. Like it had been there all night, watching with its dark windshield eyes.

“Great,” I muttered. “We’re doing this now.”

I grabbed my bag and documents and headed out, locking the door behind me. As I turned, I almost bumped into a broad chest.

Again.

I staggered back. “Oh my God—”

A familiar hand caught my elbow before I could fall.

John.

“Careful,” he said.

His voice was calm, steady. Like we did this every day.

“I’m starting to think you’re doing this on purpose,” I said, pulling my arm back.

A corner of his mouth lifted. Not a real smile. Just the idea of one.

“If I wanted to bump into you, Avery, you wouldn’t call it an accident,” he said.

My heart did a weird little flip.

Holy God.

“Right,” I said, looking away. “I’m late for work again, oh no no no , not again , oh my God ”

“I know,” he said.

My head snapped up. “You know?”

“You leave at the same time every day. You lock your door twice. You always check your bag twice at the corner.” His gaze flicked to my hand. “And you forget to zip it up when you’re rushing.”

I looked down.

My bag was open.

I zipped it quickly, cheeks burning. “That’s… specific.”

He didn’t apologize.

“It’s not illegal to notice,” he said quietly. “Especially when I’ve been looking for you for five years.”

“I’m not her,” I repeated, softer this time.

He didn’t argue.

He just stepped aside and opened his palm toward the street. “I’ll walk you.”

“I don’t need—”

“That wasn’t a question.”

Our eyes clashed.

And for a second, I saw it—

The man beneath the suit.

The control.

The power.

The part of him that built an empire that made grown men tremble.

I should have refused instantly, but Instead, I walked with him.

He fell into step beside me, matching my pace like he’d done it a thousand times before.

We walked in silence for half the route.

Then he said suddenly, “Do you feel anything when you look at me?”

My pulse jumped. “Excuse me?”

“Anything,” he said. “Recognition. Discomfort. Anger. Fear.”

“What kind of question is that?”

“A necessary one.”

I swallowed. “You’re my patient. That’s all.”

He stopped walking.

So did I, because his hand came up and gently caught my wrist—not tight, but firm enough that I couldn’t ignore it.

“Avery,” he said.

“What?”

“Don’t lie to me.”

The street noise faded for a moment.

It was just his eyes and my heartbeat in my ears.

“I feel…” I forced my voice steady. “Uncomfortable. Because you say things a psychiatrist hears from unstable people. But you don’t look unstable. That’s what scares me.”

His gaze darkened with something unreadable.

“Good,” he said softly.

“Good?” I repeated.

“If you’re scared,” he murmured, “you’ll be more careful. And right now, you need to be very, very careful.”

A chill slid down my spine.

“Careful of who?” I asked.

He let go of my wrist.

“Of the people who took you once,” he answered. “And might want to take you again.”

“I was never taken—”

He tilted his head. “You woke up with no past in a hospital and never asked who paid all your bills until then?”

I froze.

He’d just torn open a part of my life I didn’t let anyone see.

“How do you even know that?” I asked quietly.

He shrugged. “I don’t like guessing when I can pay people to find answers.”

My stomach twisted. “You investigated me.”

“Of course I did.”

“You had no right—”

“I had every right,” he cut in, not raising his voice once. “If someone rebuilt a life for my wife, changed her name, buried her records, and dropped her in a quiet job on the other side of the city, I want to know why.”

I stared at him.

There it was again.

Not madness but Strategy and Obsession.

“You can report me if you want,” he said calmly. “But that won’t change the truth.”

“I don’t even know what the truth is,” I shot back.

He gave me a look that made my chest tighten.

“You will,” he said. “Whether you’re ready or not.”

We reached the hospital door.

I exhaled, suddenly exhausted. “Your session is in one hour. Try to be… less terrifying by then.”

“No promises,” he replied.

His second session was worse.

Not because he shouted.

He didn’t.

He didn’t raise his voice once.

But everything he said slid under my skin.

“Tell me more about Sarah,” I said, pen in hand.

“No,” he replied.

I blinked. “No?”

“You don’t remember her,” he said. “So why should I remind you how she laughed, how she fought with me, how she always stole the blanket at night? You don’t remember that you hated cucumbers and loved rainy days. You don’t remember the mark on your left thigh from when you fell off a bicycle at twelve. You don’t remember the way you cried when your mother threw away your favorite book.”

My pen stopped moving.

“Those are very specific details,” I said, fighting the tremor in my voice.

“They’re my life,” he said flatly. “They were our life.”

“You’re projecting,” I said automatically. “You’re attaching me to unprocessed grief.”

“If that helps you sleep at night, Doctor, keep telling yourself that.”

I swallowed.

“John,” I said carefully, “whether I’m Sarah or not, you have to accept that the person in front of you is Avery.”

He leaned forward, eyes locked on mine.

“I don’t,” he said. “I don’t have to accept anything that isn’t true.”

“And what if you’re wrong?” I whispered.

His jaw clenched.

“Then I’ll live with that sin,” he answered. “But I’d rather be wrong and protect you… than be right and lose you again.”

The silence that followed was thick and suffocating.

I looked down at my notepad.

My hand was shaking.

By the time his session ended, my head was pounding.

“Same time next week,” I said, forcing professionalism. “Try to write down any thoughts or dreams you have about Sarah. It might help us understand what you’re holding onto.”

He stood.

“Avery?”

“Yes?”

“If someone leaves anything strange at your door… anything at all…” He paused. “Don’t ignore it.”

I frowned. “Why would you say that?”

“Because last time,” he said quietly, “we both ignored the signs.”

Then he left.

Leaving that sentence behind like a c***k in the floor.

I didn’t expect anything to be at my door that evening.

But there it was.

A plain white envelope on the floor when I reached my apartment hallway.

Just sitting there.

No stamp. No name.

The building was quiet. The corridor empty.

I hesitated for a full thirty seconds before I picked it up.

My fingers trembled a little.

Inside was a single folded piece of paper with

Just black ink and a shaky handwriting.

STOP DIGGING.

YOU WON’T LIKE WHAT YOU FIND.

My heart dropped into my stomach.

I read it again.

And again.

And again, as if the words would somehow change if I blinked enough times.

They didn’t.

I swallowed.

“This is stupid,” I whispered to myself. “Probably just some prank.”

Except no one knew I was digging into anything.

No one except me.

And John.

I turned slowly.

His door was closed.

No sound. No movement.

I stood there in the hallway holding the letter and tried to think logically.

Option one: This was a sick joke.

Option two: It was him, trying to scare me into confronting my past.

Option three: Someone else was watching.

My skin prickled.

I unlocked my door and went inside, locking it twice, then three times.

For a long moment, I just stood there in the middle of my living room, holding that letter.

My training told me to document it, to report it, to analyze handwriting, to be rational.

My fear told me to burn it and pretend I never saw it.

I ended up doing the third thing.

I folded it carefully, slid it into a file, and dropped that file into the bottom drawer of my desk.

Not gone.

But hidden.

Just like my life.

I made dinner and barely ate it , then I went to take a shower and for some reason I didn’t even feel the water running down my skin, I wiped my body after taking the shower and went straight to bed trying to cry my way to sleep , but my anxiety wouldn’t let me . As I was finally sliding off into sleep world. I heard a car door slam . At first I thought it was John . But then I heard someone tempering with my door knot , they were trying to be silent about it . I immediately got scared and reached out for my phone , trying to call 911 . But it was off, I was thinking too much to the extent that I forgot to charge my phone . I panicked immediately and went downstairs, just then a man in all black attire broke in aggressively from the front door and attacked me . I struggled with him for a long time , he was trying to cover my nose with a handkerchief. We struggled for almost 5 minutes and I succeeded in overpowering him . I run to the basement and locked the door , trying to hold back my soft sobs . I could hear him turning things over , breaking things all in search of me . After a few hours , there was silence . It was as if he had left . But I didn’t dare come out of my hiding spot . I held my breath throughout the night till morning out of fear. And when morning came , I heard John’s voice aggressively calling my name from upstairs . With my legs trembling, I stood up and went upstairs to meet him . When I saw him, I broke into tears inside his arms .