This was my forty-ninth suicide attempt in six years.
When I woke up, the doctor told me I had dissociative amnesia. I had forgotten… everything. My name, my past, even who my parents were. My mind was a blank slate.
They said it happens when your brain tries to protect you from too much pain. Funny. It didn’t feel protective. It felt like punishment.
A middle-aged couple sat beside the bed. The moment they saw my eyes open, their expressions hardened.
The woman crossed her arms.
“Oh great. You’re awake again. Aurora, seriously, how long are you planning to keep doing this to everyone? Are you punishing us being your parents?”
Parents.
The man rubbed his forehead. “Do you really think suicide will make Manuel come back to you?” he sneered. “Because it won’t. It never has.”
My chest felt tight, but I didn’t know why.
“You know Manuel never wanted you in the first place. He liked Amber. Everyone knows that. If he hadn’t been drunk that night and walked into the wrong hotel room, none of this would’ve happened. He would’ve married Amber like he planned.”
I blinked at her.
My mom let out a frustrated laugh. “You honestly thought he’d fall in love with you after that? Of course he doesn’t come home. Of course he doesn’t want to see you.”
“And all these suicide attempts?” My dad added quietly, but it didn’t sound kind at all. “Forty-nine times now, Aurora. Tell me something. Has Manuel ever come to the hospital even once?”
Silence filled the room.
Apparently the answer was no.
“You keep hurting yourself just to get his attention, but he’s never shown up. Not once. Don’t you see how pathetic this looks?”
“If you weren’t our biological daughter, we wouldn’t even bother coming here anymore.”
My heart dropped for reasons I couldn’t explain.
He looked at me again and said, “Honestly, Aurora, you’ve never been even half as good as Amber.”
Amber.
Another name I didn’t recognize.
I stayed quiet, just listening, because I had nothing else to hold on to.
Little by little, their complaints pieced together the story of a life that was supposed to be mine.
I was the real daughter of the Moore family.
But when I was a kid, I’d been kidnapped and lost for years.
By the time they found me again, they had already adopted another girl.
Amber Moore.
And apparently everyone loved her more.
The place that was supposed to be mine had already been taken.
Later, I fell in love with a man named Manuel Davenport. Some powerful CEO or something like that.
But Manuel loved Amber too.
Then one night there was a banquet. He got drunk. He walked into the wrong room.
My room.
And everything changed after that.
They slept together. One night. A mistake.
After that scandal, he had no choice but to marry me. But according to my parents, he hated every second of it.
He stayed away. He barely came home. And when he did, it was with nothing but cold looks and disgust.
No love from my parents.
No love from my husband.
And the girl I was before this apparently couldn’t take it anymore.
So she kept trying to die.
My mother suddenly stood up and grabbed her purse. “Alright, we’ve wasted enough time. We all knew you paid that doctor again to fake amnesia. Pathetic.”
My father nodded. “Amber’s waiting at home. We still need to cook dinner.”
She looked down at me like I was some kind of problem she didn’t want to deal with.
“Stay here and think about what you’ve been doing,” she said. “Maybe next time try acting like a normal person instead of pulling these stunts. Useless mutt.”
Then they walked out.
Just like that.
The door clicked shut.
The room went quiet.
A sharp pain spread across my chest, so sudden it made me gasp.
I didn’t remember anything about this life but the sadness inside me felt real. Heavy. Crushing.
Like the whole world had already given up on me.
Why would parents love their adopted daughter more than their real one?
My head hurt when I tried to think about it too much.
I sat there for a long time before slowly getting out of the bed and signed the discharge papers myself.
When I finally stepped outside the hospital, the evening air hit my face.
Cars passed by. People walked around like everything in the world was normal.
I stood there on the steps, holding the thin hospital bag they gave me.
And suddenly a thought hit me.
Where was I supposed to go?
I didn’t remember my parents’ house.I didn’t remember where Manuel lived. I didn’t remember anything.
Things somehow got even worse.
I was still standing outside the hospital entrance, holding that thin plastic bag with my discharge papers, trying to figure out where someone with no memories was supposed to go. Then suddenly people started making noise nearby. Someone gasped, someone else told others to move, and the crowd slowly split apart.
I looked up.
A tall man was walking straight toward the entrance, carrying a woman in his arms.
He moved quickly but carefully, as if the person he was holding was something fragile that could break at any moment. He wore a perfectly fitted black suit, the kind of suit that screamed money and power without trying. His shoulders were straight, his face sharp and handsome enough to make people stare, and there was something heavy in the air around him. The kind of presence that made people instinctively step aside.
But what caught my attention wasn't just him.
It was the way he held the woman.
Her face was pale and pressed against his chest, and his arms tightened around her like he was afraid someone might take her away. Every few steps he glanced down at her with eyes so soft it almost hurt to watch. He even slowed down slightly as he walked, careful not to jostle her.
“Everyone, move!” he said to the crowd and people moved immediately.
Someone behind me whispered in shock, “Wait… that's Manuel Davenport, isn't it?”
Another person answered almost instantly. “Who else would it be? No one else in this city walks around like that. And wow… he's even more handsome up close.”
My chest tightened a little.
Manuel.
So that was him.
My husband. The woman in his arms had to be Amber. The one everyone loved.
The one he loved.
