CHAPTER NINE
613 Words
The footsteps outside Amelia’s door did not fade.
They lingered.
Her hand hovered over the doorknob, her pulse racing so loudly she feared it might betray her presence. The words in her notebook burned in her mind:
TRUST NO ONE .NOT EVEN HIM.
Slowly, she opened the door.
The corridor was empty.
Only silence greeted her.
But on the floor, just beyond the threshold, lay a single white envelope.
Her name was written across it in elegant handwriting.
AMELIA HART
She picked it up with trembling fingers and closed the door behind her.
Inside the envelope was a photograph.
Her breath caught.
It showed her and Edward standing together in Oxford — laughing, close, unmistakably intimate. His hand rested lightly on her arm. Her expression was warm, unguarded, almost in love.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written:
YOU FORGOT HIM
HE DID NOT FORGET YOU
The next day, Amelia confronted Edward.
They met in the same courtyard where he had first admitted knowing her. The air was sharp with winter’s approach, and the trees had begun to shed their leaves.
“You lied to me,” she said without greeting.
Edward looked at her steadily.
“I told you what I thought you were ready to hear,” he replied.
She held up the photograph.
“Then tell me this,” she said. “What were we?”
For a long moment, he did not answer.
Then he spoke quietly.
“We were everything.”
The simplicity of his words hurt more than any elaborate confession.
“You loved me,” she said.
“Yes,” he replied.
“And I loved you,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
The truth settled between them like fragile glass.
Amelia took a step back.
“Then why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded. “Why let me believe we were strangers?”
Edward’s voice faltered.
“Because loving you once nearly destroyed us both.”
She stared at him.
“What happened to me, Edward?”
He looked away.
“You made a choice,” he said.
“What choice?”
“To disappear.”
The words echoed through her mind.
Edward exhaled slowly.
“The Custodians found out what you discovered,” he said. “They realised you could not be erased completely. So they gave you an alternative.”
Her heart pounded.
“What alternative?”
Edward met her gaze.
“They offered you forgetfulness.”
Silence fell.
“You could stay alive,” he continued, “but only if you agreed to forget everything you had learned — including us.”
Amelia felt her legs weaken.
“So I chose to forget you,” she said softly.
“Yes,” Edward said.
Tears stung her eyes.
“And you let me.”
His voice was barely audible.
“I had no right to stop you.”
The wind swept through the courtyard, carrying away fallen leaves like fragments of memory.
Amelia felt torn between anger and grief.
“You should have told me,” she said.
Edward stepped closer.
“If I had,” he said, “the Custodians would have finished what they started.”
She looked into his eyes.
For the first time, she saw not mystery, but pain.
Real pain.
That night, Amelia sat alone in her room again.
Her notebook lay open before her.
This time, she did not wait for new words to appear.
She picked up her pen.
And wrote:
I AM TRIED OF FORGETTING.
As she set the pen down, her phone vibrated.
A new message appeared on her screen.
Unknown number.
Only three words:
YOU REMEMBER TOO MUCH
- Writer
