Ruin & Rule

Memories twisted and collided.

“Ah, so you want me to call you Cleo now? What happens if I want to continue calling you Buttercup?” My father poked me in the ribs, trying to make me laugh but only annoying me further.

“I’m not a kid anymore, Dad. Call me Cleo.”

I swirled deeper and deeper into my hidden past.

“Cleo Price, I love you with all my heart and soul. You’re my Sagittarius and I’ll always be your Libran.” Art stole my cheeks in his warm hands and kissed me with sweetness, adoration, and most of all, the soul mate kind of love that’d blossomed from a lifetime of learning about each other.

Tears trickled down my cheeks.

My name is Cleo…

I blinked, slamming back into the present. “I’m Cleo Price. My father’s name was Paul ‘Thorn’ Price, my mother Sandra Price. I don’t have any brothers or sisters. You were my entire childhood. You were my first and only crush. You were my reason for living and I’ve found you.”

The wall barring my family broke away, washing like a broken dam through the valley of my thoughts, sweeping away the blackness.

I remember them!

I couldn’t contain my shiver of happiness.

Kill sat frozen. He didn’t breathe or blink.

Sitting up, I wrapped my arms around him. “Speak to me.”

He took a very long minute to thaw but finally his back sagged and his arms wrapped around me in the tightest embrace. “I’ve lived the last eight years believing you were dead. I’m struggling to come to terms with everything I’ve done—how I treated you—how I fucked you with no emotion. Fuck, it’s doing my head in to think how I used you. Shit!”

He trembled in my arms and I nuzzled into his neck. “You didn’t know. We’ve both lived with enough torture. Let the past stay where it belongs.”

“No, see, that’s the thing. The moment I saw you, I hated you. You looked so much like her but I convinced myself it couldn’t be. I couldn’t see how it would be possible you were still alive after all this time. So many times in the past, I’ve looked at women and seen you there. Seen you hiding in their eyes. It fucking ripped my heart out every time—so to see you… looking so like—”

He grabbed his hair. “Ugh, this hurts to get straight. I’m repeating myself yet it doesn’t make it any easier.”

My fingers went to his nape, massaging gently.

“To love as much as I loved you—it decimated me when you’d gone. I didn’t want anyone else. I didn’t want anything but for you to be alive again.”

My heart hurt with my next question. “Did you?”

“Did I what?”

I couldn’t voice it.

Did you do what they said and kill me?

His face tightened, understanding my unsaid question.

He grabbed my hand, linking our fingers. “I swear to you on our love that I didn’t. I don’t know what happened.” Fear filled his voice. “I didn’t, Cleo. You have to believe me.”

I squeezed his fingers. “I believe you.”

The relief ebbing from his muscles scared me. “Why didn’t you tell the police? Why did you go to prison for a crime you didn’t commit?”

The room went icy as Kill sucked up everything he’d let go. Hiding. Blocking answers that I needed. “Please… It relates to the past that I can’t talk about just yet.” His face twisted with torture. “Give me time. That’s all I ask and I’ll tell you—I promise.”

I sat still. Would he ever tell me? Wouldn’t it be best to rip off the Band-Aid quickly and deal with the consequences now? But I couldn’t do that to him. I’d already destroyed the world he knew; I couldn’t demand more.

“Okay. Time.”

He reached up, kissing me sweetly. “Thank you. I’ll tell you everything… soon.” A cloud passed over his face. “That goes for you, too. I need to know where you’ve been. How you lost every memory of your past and me.”

Nervousness filled me at telling him everything—things I still hadn’t recalled. My mind was Swiss cheese with too many holes. Deflecting a little, I smiled. “I’m hoping you can get it straight for both of us. I remember what my parents look like. I remember my bedroom with the yellow walls and my favorite quote from The Princess Bride stenciled on my ceiling. But I don’t remember anything else. I don’t remember what happened after my fourteenth birthday, and I don’t remember how I became Sarah or lived overseas or even how I became a vet.”

Kill looked away anxiously. “There’s so much you’ve forgotten. So much we don’t know if you’ll remember.” His shoulders bunched. “Shit, Cleo. There’s so much I want to tell you and so much I hope you never—” Cutting himself off, he sighed. “It all hurts too damn much. I have too much inside my head… I’m such an asshole.” Pulling away, he looked deep into my eyes. “Can you ever forgive me?”

Tears tickled my spine at the thought of him being so broken. So upside down and inside out from finally seeing me. “I already have. I understand.”

He sniffed. “I’m so damn sorry.”

I wanted to stroke away his pain. My consolation wasn’t enough to save him. Directing the conversation to easier topics, I asked, “What finally made you see?”

Smiling quickly, he crushed me to him. “It was the equation. Our equation. The stupid geek thing that you giggled over when I showed you how awesome math could be.”