The answer sounded rehearsed.

“Please do.” He rubbed his face, buying seconds. “I was nearby that night. I heard the crash and got there before the ambulance.”

“You’re a nurse. You helped.”

“Yes.” His voice steadied. “I pulled you out of the car. The chain caught on my sleeve and broke. I kept it. I meant to have it repaired and give it back to you today, as a symbol of the night we met.”

The answer sounded rehearsed.

I found two utility bills.

I wanted to believe him. Instead, I decided to check. “You always told me you first saw me in the hospital,” I said. He blinked once. “I didn’t want to remind you of the accident. You were so fragile when you woke up.” I made myself lean over and kiss his cheek. “Get some sleep. You have a shift at noon.” He exhaled like a man reprieved.

I’d lived there before the crash.

*** A few hours later, Richard’s phone rang. The hospital was short-staffed and needed him to come in early. The moment his car pulled out of the lot, I opened my memory notebook to the pages I kept for documents. Behind the medical statements, I found two utility bills from the months before my accident. Both listed an address I’d never seen.

“You two?”

If I’d lived there before the crash, someone there might remember the life I couldn’t. I put on my coat. *** Forty minutes later, I showed the address to the manager of a brick walk-up on Halsted. He stared at me, then smiled. “Claire? It’s been a minute.” I glanced at the badge on his shirt. “Mr. Alvarez?”

“You were the one I dealt with.”

“Same as always. How’s the new place treating you two?”

“You two?”

His smile faded. “You and the guy you lived with.” A cold feeling moved through my stomach. “What guy?” Mr. Alvarez stared at me for a second. “Claire, are you okay?” “I had an accident,” I said. “I don’t remember living here.”

“You’ve kept paying the rent.”

His expression changed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” “How long did we live here?” “Almost three years. I mostly dealt with you, not him.”

“Do you remember his name?”

Mr. Alvarez thought about it, then shook his head. “Sorry. Rick, Ryan… something like that. As I said, you were the one I dealt with.” “Who lives there now?”

Why had Richard never told me?

Mr. Alvarez frowned. “No one. But you’ve kept paying the rent.” That stopped me. “I have?” “Not you personally. The rent’s been coming from another account every month.”

“Whose?”

Mr. Alvarez shook his head. “I don’t know. As long as it cleared, I never had a reason to check.” Someone had been paying to keep my old life exactly where I’d left it.

I started searching.

I looked toward the stairs.

“Do you still have a spare key?”

Five minutes later, Mr. Alvarez’s spare key turned in the lock of apartment 3B. The apartment looked abandoned in a hurry, but a few boxes remained. Who had I lived with for three years – and why had Richard never told me? I started searching.

Photograph didn’t bring back a memory either.

Photographs. The first showed me on a beach, knee-deep in the surf in a white sundress. My hair was longer. My left leg was whole. I stared at the woman in the photograph, waiting for something to come back. Nothing did.

My engagement ring!

The next photograph didn’t bring back a memory either. It gave me something worse. Someone else had been part of this life.

Then I turned over the third photograph. Richard was on one knee.I was standing in front of him with both hands over my mouth, an engagement ring catching the light on my left hand.

Megan.

My engagement ring! The same ring he’d given me eighteen months ago and claimed he’d chosen himself. On the back, in my handwriting, was a date from two years before the accident. He hadn’t met me in that hospital. I’d already been planning to marry him. Underneath the photographs was an old phone, dead. I plugged it in and waited.

“I need you to tell me.”

When it powered on, I scrolled through old messages until one name stopped me. Megan. The same name I’d crossed out in my notebook. I copied the number into my phone and pressed the call before I could talk myself out of it.

She answered on the fourth ring. “Hello?”

“Megan? It’s Claire.”

Silence.

“I begged you not to drive.”

“Claire? Oh my God. I didn’t think I’d ever hear from you again.” “I don’t remember what happened between us. But I need you to tell me.” “Does Richard know you’re calling?”

“No.”

Megan went quiet again. Then she exhaled. “A few days before the accident, Richard and I got drunk at a party. We were alone, and… it happened once, Claire.” “You slept with him?”

Not a memory exactly. Pieces of one.

“Yes. We were supposed to tell you together, but neither of us did.” Her voice shook. “The night of the accident, you found our messages.” Until that moment, I’d thought the accident was the night my old life ended. Now I understood it was the night Richard’s secret began.