The silence pressed in on her like another weight she couldn't move.
The room still hummed faintly — the monitors, the air vent, the distant shuffle of nurses beyond the door — but beneath it all lay a hollow stillness that filled her chest like ice.
She could still see it — Christy drifting toward Miles, their hands meeting in a gesture too deliberate to be instinct. Zane at the doorway, silent, unreadable, and then that small, traitorous nod. Each image looped through her mind with cruel precision.
She felt suspended between disbelief and understanding, unable to tell which hurt more.
Her pulse pounded in her ears, the monitor beeping in rhythm. The ache in her ribs deepened with every breath. She stared at the white ceiling until the edges of her vision blurred.
It had all unfolded too fast to make sense. Miles — calm, careful, always so composed — taking her confusion and turning it into opportunity. Christy standing by his side like she'd been rehearsing for the part. Zane, the man who had spent years undermining her, sealing the lie with a single nod.
Her throat tightened.
You ended things. You said it was mutual.
She replayed his words again and again, waiting for them to make sense, waiting for some small proof that this wasn't real. But it was. Every calm syllable had been deliberate — a knife disguised as reason.
He'd been cheating. He'd walked away. And now, when she was weakest, he'd made it truth in front of witnesses.
The doctor had smiled, kind but dismissive, and told her not to worry about confusion — as if the lie were just another symptom of her head injury.
She wanted to scream. To sit up and tear off the monitor wires, to tell them all the truth — that she remembered him, remembered everything. That this was no amnesia, just heartbreak turned into theater.
But she didn't.
Because when she looked at Miles's face — the faint pity, the satisfaction he didn't even try to hide — she realized that if she told the truth now, he'd win again. He'd turn it into hysteria, proof that she was unstable.
No. She wouldn't give him that.
Not yet.
She swallowed the scream and instead pressed her lips together until they hurt. The tears burned but refused to fall. The pain was good — it reminded her she still had control over something.
Shock became anger. Anger became focus.
She thought of Zane's nod — small, almost imperceptible, but heavy with implication. He hadn't hesitated. Not even a flicker of doubt. Miles had spoken, and Zane — ever the loyal friend — had followed suit without question.
Her chest tightened. Of course he had. Zane had never liked her. He'd never tried to hide it, either. The sharp remarks at parties, the veiled jokes about "type" and "compatibility," the quiet disapproval in his eyes whenever she reached for Miles's hand. He'd always thought she wasn't right for him — too quiet, too analytical, too… ordinary.
And now, with one nod, he'd confirmed it. He'd helped Miles bury her in that lie, helped him strip her down to some helpless girl who didn't even remember her own life.
He must be thrilled, she thought bitterly. Finally rid of me. Finally got what he wanted.
The realization hurt worse than Miles's betrayal. Because this wasn't just a lover's cruelty — it was humiliation, wrapped in friendship. Zane hadn't just stood by; he'd made the lie real. And in doing so, he'd proven what she'd always suspected — that beneath his sarcasm and disdain, he truly wanted her gone.
She turned her face into the pillow, breathing through the ache, telling herself not to cry. If they wanted to erase her, she wouldn't stop them — not yet. Let them think she was gone, dazed, docile. Let them think the story was theirs to tell.
Because someday, she would rewrite it. Every word. Every name.
The room dimmed. Nurses came and went, their movements rhythmic and indifferent. The fluorescent light flickered above her bed. Somewhere down the hall, a phone rang, was answered, and the world continued as if nothing had happened.
But inside her, something was shifting.
Shock made her hands tremble; rage wanted to claw out of her throat and shred them both raw. She felt the hot, animal urge to stand up, shout, spill everything — the cheating, the lie, the way Miles had handed her a story he'd chosen for her. Instead she forced herself still. Steal yourself, she thought, steadying the heat into a slow, cold focus. Revenge was a dish best eaten cold, the old proverb whispered — and if she was going to do this, she would do it with patience and precision, not fury.
The night stretched on, and with it came a strange, numbing clarity. She lay awake, eyes fixed on the faint glow of the monitor, feeling the seconds pass like drops of water in a sink — slow, relentless, inevitable.
By dawn, her grief had hardened into something clean and terrible.
The pale light cut through the blinds, striping the room in washed-out gold. She lay perfectly still, staring at the ceiling, feeling the shift within her — the moment when heartbreak gives way to resolve.
Miles thought she was weak.
Zane thought she was irrelevant.
Christy thought she was forgotten.
Let them.
Let them all believe the fragile, broken woman with the foggy memory. Let them pat her hand and walk away thinking the story was theirs to write.
They had no idea what they had just created.
She exhaled slowly, letting her tears dry on her cheeks. Her face felt stiff, hollow, controlled.
From this moment forward, she decided, no one would see her break.
Not Miles. Not Zane. Not anyone.
They would see gratitude. Calm. Compliance.
And one day, they would see the reckoning.
Willow closed her eyes, the faint hum of the machines steady beside her. The ache in her chest was still there, but it no longer felt like pain — it felt like promise.
When she finally whispered into the quiet, it was not despair that filled her voice.
It was certainty.
"You'll regret this."