Part 3Forgotten Vows: The Eight-Year Gap
About 1,719 characters · Part 3 is the last of the three Parts printed here; Part 4 continues in the official app.
Dominic’s accident happened about a month ago, but he only woke up a few days ago.
The board at Vance Tech had kept the news under a total media blackout, terrified of what it would do to the stock price. I suspect that if he hadn't experienced "complications"—namely, forgetting the last decade—his chief of staff wouldn't have called me at all.
He crashed the night I finally agreed to the divorce.
It wasn't because he was distraught over losing me. It was because it was raining in the city, and he was speeding back from a conference in San Francisco, trying to make it home before midnight for Seraphina’s birthday.
He hit a semi-truck that had blown a red light.
Tragic, really. Almost poetic.
His memory had reverted to a point before Seraphina Brooks even existed in his world.
In his mind, there was only me.
Dominic had always been a brilliant man—calculated, composed, and efficient. Even in this bizarre situation, he managed to grasp the basic facts of his current life with startling speed.
But there was one thing he refused to accept.
He could not believe he would stop loving me, choose Seraphina, and demand a divorce.
His inner circle tried to convince him. They showed him photos, messages, and details of his life with Seraphina as "evidence." He didn't believe a word of it. He insisted on seeing me.
That was why they called.
They brought me into that hospital room like a piece of evidence in a cold case, a witness to a dead relationship. They wanted me to prove to him that it wasn't eight years ago anymore.
In the eight years he had deleted, we hadn't been "happily ever after." We had lived through a slow-motion car crash of resentment and hatred.
How he chose to process that was his problem, not mine.