Molly:

“You just missed him,” Bailey says to me. “Ran off without even eating breakfast.”

I laugh nervously. I don’t know how to explain his behavior. It’s not even making sense to me.

“I swear we spend more time together when we’re both home and working full-time than we have on this vacation. That car ride must have really gotten to him.” She pours me a cup of coffee and I lean up against the counter, watching her flip bacon in a pan.

“I’m not bailing on breakfast,” I tell her. “That smells way too good.”

“He called me Suzanne,” she says. “I don’t know if it was a misunderstanding, I mean, we hadn’t met yet so I figured maybe he just heard wrong. But then he started going off on me about being allergic to aspirin and having asthma. Is this normal?”

I shake my head. “Nothing he’s doing right now is normal, Bailey.”

She fixes me a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon and sets it on the long oak table.

“What’d you find out, if I might ask? I’m assuming you did some digging last night. The bags under your eyes look like you didn’t sleep too well.”

“Shit,” I stutter, putting my hands over my eyes. “I want to look nice for my award tonight.”

“We have a girl,” she says. “I’ll call her up here shortly. She can come and do your hair and make-up for you. And you will look nice either way. You’re a very pretty woman.”

“Thanks,” I say, biting into the perfectly crisp bacon. “I started doing a little research last night, but I feel like I’m not getting anywhere. I scoured missing persons reports in Colorado, and nothing is coming up. I tried to dig deeper and find something that has to do with his tattoo. It’s the only real ‘thing’ I can think of that stands out on his body.”

“And?”

“You’d be surprised at how many men have the same one. It’s like the calling card for hot muscular guys with perfect abs.”

She laughs as she raises her eyebrows. “I’m sorry; that’s inappropriate.”

“It’s fine. He has a doctor’s appointment when we get home. I’m sure we’ll find something out.”

“If he doesn’t unravel on his own before then,” she says, shrugging. “You’re a brave woman taking this on. He seems like a decent guy. If he was closer to my age, I’d be all over him, but you must care about him a lot to want to try and make it work with someone who has so many issues.”

“He doesn’t have issues,” I say. The way she’s poking and prodding is starting to wear on me. We were doing so well back at home, living in our ignorant little state of bliss, and now he’s out in the woods doing lord knows what while I’m straining my eyeballs out on my laptop, trying to figure out who the heck he actually is without him knowing.

This vacation is hell.

“He does,” she says.

“You don’t know him,” I tell her.

“Neither do you.”

I get up from the table without saying a word. I’m sure she’s looking out for my best interest, but right now she’s overstepping. Who knows what she even said to him to make him run off. I go back upstairs. I just need to hide out until we can go get this awards ceremony over with and go back to our normal lives.

I need to get out of stress mode. I haven’t felt this way in so long. Not since I was in college, trying to be the perfect student, trying to be the perfect daughter, trying to be everyone’s best friend. I begin to fill up the giant claw-foot bathtub. No sense in letting a romantic weekend go to waste, even if I’m spending it alone. I dig out some bubble bath from under the sink.

I stare in the mirror, waiting for the water to fill the tub.

These bags under my eyes do look like shit.

“Hey,” he whispers, poking his head in the bathroom door.

I didn’t fall asleep in the tub, but I’ve definitely overstayed my welcome. My fingers are shriveled, and the water is about room temperature, bubbles long gone, but I just don’t have it in me to move. I offer him a thin smile.

“Where did you go?” I ask him.

“I wanted to check out the trails behind the house.”

“Why didn’t you take me?” I whisper sadly.

“Molly, you were sleeping. I figured you needed your rest after the long drive. Plus, I could tell you were up all night working by the way you were cuddling with your laptop like it was your dog or something.” He kisses me on the forehead, sticking his hand in the bathwater. “You’re gonna freeze to death if you don’t get out of there,” he warns.

He grabs a towel from the rack and holds it out. It does look warm and inviting. He helps me from the tub and blankets me in the big fluffy towel, helping me dry off.

“Are we going to talk about what’s going on with you, Tucker?” I ask him. “Something isn’t right.”

“Everything is fine,” he insists.

“It’s not,” I remind him. “You’ve been here with me in body, but not in mind. You slept for damn near twenty hours before you ran off into the woods. You called Bailey by the wrong name and told her you had asthma?”

“I’m worried,” he says, hugging my towel covered body to his. “Something about this place is making me crazy.”

“You’re not crazy, Tucker,” I say, pressing my lips to his shoulder. “You’re just not allowing yourself permission to be who you are. You’re trying to suppress something inside of you and it’s not healthy.”

“You have no idea who I am,” he says. “No more than I do. I don’t know what I’m suppressing, but if I let it out, it could change everything. Everything that we have. It’s scary, Molly. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“The only way you can hurt me is if you hide from me. If you leave me. I want to stand beside you and help you fight your demons. I want to be there when you wake up from this… whatever this is. I love you, Tucker, but me keeping you as you are is not fair to you. It’s not fair to the people you left behind.”

“I had a dream about my dad last night,” he says, his face solemn. “I don’t remember much, but I do remember that I love him very much. And he loves me.”

“We have to get you back to him,” I whisper. “He’s probably going nuts. Do you remember anything else?”

“Mary,” he says. “I remember Mary.”

A chill runs down my spine. He called me Mary yesterday, of that I am sure. But who is this girl? Is it his wife? Does he have kids? Am I wrecking a family with my own selfishness?

“Guys?” I hear a woman’s voice in the hallway. “Is everyone decent?”

Tucker hands me a big white fluffy bathrobe hanging from a hook on the wall.

“Hello?”

“We’re in the bathroom,” I say. “Be with you in a minute.” I stare into his eyes. He’s not blinking, but he’s not looking at me. He’s staring far off into space, as if the answers to all of his questions are hovering there behind a screen of smoke.

“Is Mary your wife?”

“No,” he says, point-blank.