Despite flinching at the slightest touch from the nurses these past few days, I didn’t recoil from him.
The midday sun was harsh, its heat rising in waves, cutting the world off from everything else.
I stared at him, momentarily dazed, as he took a seat beside me.
Then, our hands moved in unison across the keys.
It had been years since I last thought about what music meant to me.
Once, when I was young, my dream was to become a pianist.
The final notes of the piece faded into silence.
He turned to me with a smile.
His eyes crinkled, and when he smiled, a pair of dimples appeared.
“My name is Julian Scotts. Long time no see, Alice.”
+15 BONUS
I had no memory of anyone named Julian Scotts.
But he kept insisting we had met before.
“It’s okay if you don’t remember me,” he said. “Because one day, you will.”
Not only did he play the piano with me, but he also brought his handheld console to play games with me.
I knew there was something odd about him, maybe even something unsettling.
But I couldn’t bring myself to dislike him because he always smiled at me and he wasn’t like my mother, drowning in endless
tears.
Moreover, he wasn’t like Ethan, standing by my bed in the dead of night like a ghost.
Julian was just Julian, and he was the only one who was kind to me.
There was something strange about this feeling–maybe emotions could be sensed without words.
When he smiled at me, I could forget all the pain for a brief moment.
“Alice, do you want me to take you away?”
One afternoon, he asked me out of nowhere.
I didn’t believe I could ever escape Ethan’s grasp.
+15 BONUS
Chapter li
But against all logic, I still nodded and chose to trust him.
