I woke up crying.
Not the pretty kind of crying, where you look like a sad K drama heroine with a single perfect tear rolling down your cheek. No, this was the ugly kind. My face was completely wet, my eyes were swollen shut, and my nose was so stuffed that I had to breathe through my mouth like a dying goldfish on the side of a tank.
And I had absolutely no idea why.
I tried to blink, but my eyelids felt like sandpaper against my eyes. Where was I? I was lying in a bed. A huge bed, stupidly huge, the kind of bed that makes you wonder if the person who owns it is compensating for something. The ceiling above me stretched at least twenty feet high with a crystal chandelier and fancy moldings that looked expensive just to look at. The walls were floor to ceiling windows showing a skyline I didn't recognize at all.
I sat up slowly, and my head throbbed in protest. My chest ached too, like someone had reached inside me, grabbed my heart, and squeezed it hard. Why did my heart hurt so much? I looked down at the silk sheets and the blanket that probably cost more than a month of my old rent, and I spotted a nightstand with a single photo frame lying facedown.
I reached for it and turned it over.
The photo showed a woman in a sharp blazer, standing in front of a massive building. She wasn't smiling. Her face was cold and distant, like she had never laughed a single day in her entire life. I stared at her face, then looked at my reflection in the dark TV screen across the room. Same sharp jaw, same dark hair, same cold eyes.
That was me? I touched my cheek, and the woman in the reflection touched hers. Okay, so that was me. But I didn't feel like her. I felt like someone had scooped out everything inside me and left nothing but emptiness behind.
A knock on the door made me jump.
"Miss Vivian?" The voice was deep and careful, like a man approaching a wild animal that might bite him at any moment. I opened my mouth to answer, but nothing came out. My throat was raw, and I wondered if I had been screaming in my sleep.
The door opened slowly, and a man stepped inside. He was tall with broad shoulders and a sharp suit that was neatly pressed within an inch of its life. His face was completely blank, but his eyes were not blank at all. His eyes were scanning the room, cataloging everything, checking for threats. Then his eyes landed on me, and for a split second, something cracked in his expression. Worry or pain? I could not tell, because it disappeared so fast that I almost missed it entirely.
"You're awake," he said.
I nodded, then immediately regretted it because nodding made my head pound even harder. "Who are you?" My voice came out hoarse, like I had swallowed broken glass.
He stiffened, just barely, almost invisible. "I'm Lucas," he said slowly. "Your assistant."
Lucas. The name did not ring any bells at all, but when I said it in my head, something in my chest tightened anyway. "What happened to me?" I asked.
He did not answer right away. Instead, he walked to the window and stood with his back to me, looking down at the city below. "What do you remember?" he asked.
I thought about it. I really tried to think. But there was nothing there. "I woke up crying," I said. "That is all I remember. I do not remember anything before that."
Silence filled the room. Then Lucas turned around, and even though his face was still blank, his hands were clenched at his sides.
"Nothing at all?" he asked.
I shook my head. "I do not even know my own name. You said Vivian? Is that my name?"
He stared at me for a long moment. His jaw tightened. Then he did something I did not expect at all. He smiled. It was a small smile, sad almost, but it reached his eyes.
"Yes," he said quietly. "You are Vivian."
"Vivian," I repeated, trying to feel the name on my tongue. "It sounds expensive."
That got a reaction from him. His smile twitched, almost like he wanted to laugh, but he caught himself quickly. I saw it anyway.
"You could say that," he said.
I looked around the room again. The massive bed, the chandelier, the skyline view. "Am I rich?"
Lucas hesitated. He looked at me, really looked at me, like he was trying to decide something important. Then he walked to the nightstand and picked up the photo frame I had been staring at, the one with the cold faced woman in the blazer. He turned it facedown again.
"You are comfortable," he said carefully. "Do not worry about money right now."
I frowned. That was a strange answer, but my head hurt too much to question it further. "Lucas," I said.
He flinched. I saw it clearly this time, a tiny jerk of his shoulder like he expected me to yell at him. "Did I used to yell at you?" I asked.
He did not answer.
"Did I used to be mean to you?"
Still no answer, but his silence was louder than any words. I suddenly felt terrible. I did not remember anything about this man, but my gut told me that I had not been kind to him. And yet here he was, standing in my room, looking at me with those careful eyes.
"I am sorry," I said.
He went completely still, like I had said something in a language he did not understand. "What?"
"I am sorry," I repeated. "For whatever I did. I do not remember it, but I am sorry."
Lucas stared at me for a long, long time. Then he turned away and walked to the window again, but this time I saw his hand come up to his face. He was scrubbing, like he was wiping something away.
"You should rest," he said. His voice was rough. "I will bring you breakfast."
He was at the door when I called out. "Lucas?"
He stopped but did not turn around.
"One more thing," I said. "My heart hurts. I do not know why, but it feels like someone broke it."
His hand tightened on the door handle.
"Do you know who did this to me?"
The silence stretched between us. I could see his reflection in the glass door of a cabinet. His jaw was tight, and his eyes were closed.
Then he opened the door. "Get some rest, Miss Vivian," he said quietly. "You have a long way to go."
And he left.
I lay back in my giant bed, staring at the ceiling. I did not remember anything. Not my name, not my life, not the face of whoever made my chest ache like this.
But I remembered one thing.
When Lucas said Miss Vivian, it sounded like goodbye.