Chapter 2

Lauren POV

Richard is the youngest university professor. He has a fiancée with memory decline. That's me.

On the tenth day of my countdown, he brought Erica home late at night.

"Professor, coming over so late... won't we wake Lauren?" Erica's voice was soft, laced with just the right amount of concern.

"It's fine," Richard whispered. "She took her medicine. She'll sleep through anything."

But I hadn't taken my medicine tonight. I lay still in the darkness of the master bedroom, eyes closed, listening to every sound outside the door.

On the nightstand sat today's diagnosis: early-stage Alzheimer's, rapidly deteriorating, irreversible. The doctor said my remaining lucid time could be counted in days. Conservatively.

In the last ten days of my memory, Richard chose to fill them with someone else.

Fine. At least before I forgot everything, I could finally see for myself what this "gifted but troublesome" student of his actually looked like.

The bedroom door eased open.

Richard tiptoed in and grabbed the thin blanket at the foot of the bed. Out of habit, he leaned over to tuck me in, his movements as gentle as always.

But when he got close, the sharp bite of whiskey mixed with some unfamiliar vanilla perfume invaded my lungs without warning. Suffocating. Smothering.

He turned and left, leaving the door ajar behind him.

The warm yellow light from the living room immediately sliced through the crack, falling precisely on the open diagnosis report on the nightstand.

But he didn't see it. His attention, his gaze, even his heart had long been occupied by someone else.

Their conversation drifted in without any restraint.

"I'm hungry..." Erica's voice was sweet and soft, dripping with practiced coquettishness and a familiarity that felt almost natural..

"Make me something to eat, okay?"

But how would Erica know that Richard hadn't cooked in years?

Back in college, we were drowning in student loans. So poor we could barely scrape by. Richard went to class during the day and worked restaurant kitchens at night and on weekends. The dirtiest, most exhausting jobs. He'd come home with his hands bleached white from soap, wrinkled, his palms and fingertips covered in burns and knife cuts.

With those hands, he earned money cent by cent, saving it all to put both of us through our degrees.

I wanted to work part-time at a coffee shop, but Richard refused. Under the dim streetlights, he took my hand and kissed each finger one by one.

"Lauren," his voice was low and hoarse, "we were both struggling before. Now that we're together, I'll bear the hardship alone. You're going to be a painter. You need to take care of your hands."

Throughout those four years of college, my somewhat rough hands were actually nurtured white and delicate by him.

Later, the night he got his doctoral acceptance, we squeezed together on our apartment's narrow balcony, sharing an employee meal sandwich Richard had brought back from the restaurant. Eyes red, he swore that once he became a tenured professor and life got better, he'd never set foot in a kitchen again. Never touch those greasy fumes.

"What do you want to eat?" In the living room, Richard's voice came with a laugh, cutting through my memories. His tone even carried a hint of performative tenderness. "I'm going to show off my skills."

He was casually, almost proudly, dissecting that period of hardship for another girl to hear. The one he'd sworn to bury.

But I still remembered. Not long ago, when my gastritis flared up in the middle of the night and I was drenched in cold sweat from the pain, Richard's eyes went red with worry. He stayed up all night. Weakly, I asked if he could make me some oatmeal. He was quiet for a long time. Finally, he just held me, his voice tired and hollow. "Lauren, I really... don't want to do those things anymore. I've forgotten how."

Forgotten?

From the kitchen came the sounds of efficiency. The pan heating. Butter sliding in with a sizzle.

Every sound was like an ice-tempered blade, precisely piercing my eardrums and heart.

He hadn't forgotten.

He was even still skilled at it.