He Forgot Me for His Childhood Sweetheart

The first thing Callum said when he woke was, "Get her away from me."

He looked through me as if our seven years together had been erased.

For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.

The private hospital room smelled of antiseptic, wilted lilies, and the chicken broth cooling in the thermos beside me. I had made a fresh batch every morning since the crash because Callum always wanted it when he was sick. I had also washed his hair with a plastic basin, changed his sweat-soaked shirts, rubbed circulation back into his fingers, and slept with my cheek against the rail of his bed.

None of that existed in his eyes.

"Callum?" I whispered.

His fingers tightened around Iris's. She had arrived less than an hour earlier in a cream dress and perfect makeup, carrying flowers she handed to a nurse before taking the chair I had barely left all week.

"Who is she?" Callum asked.

The question split something inside me.

His mother, Eleanor, pressed both hands to her mouth. Richard Lancaster turned sharply toward the neurologist. "Doctor, what does this mean?"

Dr. Hale stepped to the foot of the bed, keeping his voice calm. "Memory disruption after a traumatic brain injury can be temporary. We need to avoid overwhelming him. Familiar faces may return in fragments. Pressure can make the confusion worse."

"I'm familiar," I said. My engagement ring felt suddenly too heavy. "I'm his fiancée."

Callum's expression hardened. "No."

I tried to smile even as tears burned behind my eyes. "We've been together seven years. Our wedding is in October. You chose the vineyard yourself because you said—"

"Stop." He winced and touched the bandage at his temple. "I don't know you. Don't stand there telling me what I chose."

I took one step closer. "It's me, Cal. Audrey."

"I said get her away from me."

Iris rose at once and leaned over him. "You're safe. Don't strain yourself."

His shoulders loosened at the sound of her voice. He let her smooth the hair from his forehead, then accepted water from the cup she held to his lips. The intimacy of it was quiet, effortless, and far more painful than shouting would have been.

Eleanor touched my elbow. "Audrey, darling, perhaps you should give him a little time."

"I've given him every minute since the paramedics brought him in."

Her face crumpled with guilt. "I know. We all know."

Richard cleared his throat. "Callum, Audrey has handled everything while you were unconscious. The doctors, the insurance company, the board—"

"Then thank her and let her go home," Callum said.

Iris lowered her eyes, but I saw the tiny curve at the corner of her mouth before she hid it.

I left because Dr. Hale asked me to. In the bathroom, I locked myself in a stall and cried into my hands until my ribs hurt. Then I washed my face, wrapped gauze around the raw skin where my ring had dug into my palm, and returned before visiting hours ended.

For the next two days, I obeyed every medical instruction. I did not mention the wedding. I did not show Callum our photographs. I stayed near the window and answered only when he asked a question.

He never asked me one.

He asked Iris what music he liked. He asked Iris which side he slept on. He asked Iris whether he hated peas and whether the scar on his knee came from soccer. She answered with stories from their childhood, laughing softly while he watched her as if she were guiding him home.

I knew those stories too. I knew what he drank after nightmares, how he loosened his cuff links when he lied, and why thunderstorms made him check every lock in the house. But each time I opened my mouth, his face closed.

On the third morning, I arrived with broth simmering in a steel flask. Callum was sitting upright, color finally returning to his face. Iris perched on the edge of his mattress in one of his shirts.

My steps faltered. "Why are you wearing that?"

"She spilled coffee," Callum said. "Don't start."

"I wasn't starting anything." I set the tray down with careful hands. "You haven't eaten. I made this the way you like it."

He stared at the bowl I poured for him. "I don't want it."

"Try a little. The nurse said you need protein before your medication."

"I said no."

"Callum, please. You always—"

His hand struck the tray.

The bowl spun off the table. Broth splashed across my wrist and hand, hot enough to make me cry out. Ceramic shattered on the floor. A red stain rose instantly over my skin.

Eleanor jumped from the sofa. "Audrey!"

I clutched my wrist against my chest. Callum did not apologize. He looked at me with open disgust.

"Stop using that word," he said.

"What word?"

"Always. You keep telling me what I always do, what I always feel, who I always loved. I don't belong to you because our parents signed contracts."

"Our relationship was not a contract."

"Then why is everyone trying to force it down my throat?" His voice rose. "Don't use the fiancée title to pressure me. Looking at you makes me sick."

The room went silent except for broth dripping from the table.

I wanted to tell him about the nights we had drawn plans for our first house across paper napkins. I wanted to remind him that he had proposed without either family present, kneeling in wet grass because he could not wait until dinner. Instead, I crouched to pick up the broken bowl with my uninjured hand.

A nurse hurried in and stopped me. "Leave that. Your hand needs treatment."

Iris moved closer to Callum. "You shouldn't upset him, Audrey. He needs peace."

I looked at her. "And you think sleeping here in his clothes gives him that?"

Her lower lip trembled on command. "I only stayed because he panicked when I tried to leave."

"She stays," Callum said. "You go."

I walked out with my burn wrapped in white gauze and my dignity held together by habit.

At the hospital entrance, rain hissed against the pavement. My driver opened the car door, but I could not make myself get in. What if Callum woke confused in the night? What if his headache worsened? What if Iris did not know he was allergic to codeine or that he sometimes stopped breathing when sedatives were too strong?

Love dragged me back through the revolving doors.

The lights on the private floor had been dimmed. I carried a list of his medications in my unburned hand and followed the corridor toward his room. Before I reached it, I heard Iris laugh.

The door stood partly open.

"We shouldn't," she whispered, though nothing in her voice asked him to stop.

"I want you," Callum answered.

I pushed the door wider.

Iris sat sideways in his lap, her blouse unbuttoned at the throat, both arms wound around his neck. Callum's hand rested beneath the hem of her skirt. His mouth was on hers.

For one suspended second, nobody moved.

Then Iris slowly lifted her face. Callum turned toward the doorway, his arm still locked around her waist.

Their eyes met mine.