Unknowing Him ✔️

19 - What's love without tragedy?

Incoming call from Noah Thompson

Taking a deep, meditative breath, I answered the call and put it on loudspeaker. It felt so surreal having his contact displayed on my screen again. Being able to call his name out loud again. Having him back in my life again, be it unconventionally.

It had been two weeks since my world was turned inside out. Two weeks since Noah showed up in the parking lot bearing a tragic story to tell and a war wound to show. Two weeks since we had started getting to know each other all over again.

"Hey, Noah." I said, dragging my words between an eye-watering yawn.

Noah chuckled—just like old times—before he cleared his throat and replied. "Hey... May."

"What's up?" a rush of tingly hormones flooded my insides, causing uneasiness to leak out from my full lips that were stretched in a thin line from ear to ear. I called it the Noah effect. He triggered my fight-or-flight response. My body had these specific hyperbolic reactions reserved for only him. Regardless of the situation we were in, the status of our relationship, or how much time had passed without seeing each other, my body tumbled in anxiety as soon as I spoke to or thought about him.

Which had been quite often lately.

That night, two weeks ago, after he dropped the A-bomb on me, he unblocked my number and we parted ways with the promise of calling each other soon. Soon came soon enough and before I even made it to my apartment, he was spamming my line, calling and texting me with countless questions.

"Who was I to you? How did we meet? What was I like? What were you like? What did we do? Where did we go? Did we love each other? How did we break up? Why did we break up? ..."

I couldn't blame him for his keen inquisitiveness. After being blatantly lied to for seven years, he was eager to know—desperate to finally find out the right answers to his questions. I couldn't deny him knowledge, especially about us. I was more than willing to fill the gaps in his memory and insert myself back into the part of his life I was missing from.

If I couldn't get his future, I was going to make sure I had his past.

But I couldn't give him the answers he was looking for all at once. How was I supposed to answer his plethora of questions in one breath? How was I supposed to do our tragic love story justice over a single phone call? How was I supposed to recap months' worth of history in just a few words? How was I supposed to say hi and goodbye to him on the same day?

Besides, I had learned enough about all forms of amnesia over the course of my education and career to know better than to bombard him with too much information. He shouldn't be overwhelmed with memories he didn't remember. Not only would it not do him good, but it could also be detrimental to his health by triggering a seizure.

After explaining to him how complicated and long our history was, I had agreed to answer his questions one at a time. The only way we could navigate through the web of deceit we had found ourselves tangled in was through a piecemeal approach. In stages. Bit-by-bit.

With that, we had begun our journey down memory lane. Every day, he would call and ask me what time I'd be off work. Then he would wait for me in the hospital parking lot, leaning against my car with my favorite coffee in his hand and questions in his head. And every day, I would rub salt in my wounds just so I could spend more time with him. Just so I could relive the best months of my life.

"Nothing much. I just wanted to ask what time you'd be off work. Uh... We're still on for today, right?"

"Right." I glanced at my watch and freed my hair from my ponytail. "I'll be done in thirty minutes. Are you going to wait for me?" I said, massaging my head with my fingers.