PART 4 — The Truth That Threatened to Tear Us Apart Again That evening,
I sat next to James in the small living room of Thomas' house. No one spoke. The threatening message on his phone still hung between us like a dark cloud. "If you want your past back, you need to stop digging. Otherwise, you'll lose her again." Those words kept spinning through my head. Losing you again. As if someone knew how much pain I had already suffered.
As if someone knew that my greatest fear wasn't discovering the truth... pero losing James one more time. "Emily..." James broke the silence. I looked at him. "I want you to listen to me." His voice trembled. "I've spent three years without my memories. But one thing I'm certain of now." He gently took my hand. "I never want to live another day without you." My eyes filled with tears.
In the past, I would have run to him without hesitation. Pero three years of grief change a person. "James, I still love you." He looked up in surprise. "Pero love doesn't simply undo the pain." He nodded slowly. "I know." "I missed you every single day." My voice broke. "Pero I also learned how to live without you." He looked down at the floor. "I maybe don't deserve for you to let me back in." "Pero I want to try to become the man you lost three years ago." Those words touched me.
Because I knew he meant them. The next morning, we decided to go together to the place where James had been found. Thomas had said there might still be something hidden among the rocks. Something he had never been able to bring back. The road to the coast was quiet. James constantly looked out the window. As if every piece of landscape was waking up a lost memory.
When we arrived, he suddenly stopped. "Here." I looked at him. "What?" He placed his hand against his head. "This place..." 他的 breathing grew faster. "I've been here." I grabbed his arm. "James?" He closed his eyes. And slowly, the images came back. The storm. The ship. The panic. A man shouting at him. A hard blow. And after that, only water. He almost collapsed.
I held him tight. "What did you see?" He looked at me. His face was pale. "I remember who was with me." "Who?" He whispered a name. A name that changed everything. "Richard." I froze. "Richard?" James nodded. "My business partner." I knew that name. Richard used to have dinner at our house often. He was someone James trusted. Someone I never would have suspected.
"Why would he do anything to you?" James looked out at the sea. "Because he knew what I had discovered." We walked further along the coast. After a few minutes, we found something among the rocks. An old metal box. Inside were documents damaged by the water. Pero one paper was still legible. A contract. With Richard's signature. James looked at it and went completely still.
"This proves everything." "What?" "He used the company to siphon off money." I felt anger rise up in me. "And you discovered that?" He nodded. "The day before the storm." Suddenly, we heard footsteps behind us. We turned around. A man was standing there. Older than I remembered. Pero I recognized his face instantly. Richard. He wasn't smiling. "You shouldn't have found this." My heart began to beat faster.
James stepped in front of me to protect me. "Three years ago, you thought you made me disappear." Richard looked cold. "That was the plan." I gasped for air. "You..." He looked at me. "Emily, you should have just moved on with your life." Those words hurt. As if my grief meant nothing at all. As if my lost years were just a minor detail. James clenched his fists.
"Why?" Richard laughed softly. "Because you wanted to destroy everything I had spent years building." "So you let me die?" "I just wanted you to disappear." His gaze turned dark. "Pero apparently, the sea wasn't strong enough." I felt James trembling beside me. Not out of fear. Sondern out of rage. "You made her believe I was dead." Richard looked at me.
"It would have been easier if he had actually died." In that moment, something inside me broke. For three years, I had mourned. For three years, I had blamed myself. And all that time, there had been someone who deliberately destroyed my life. Pero before Richard could say anything else, a sound suddenly echoed behind us. The police. Thomas had alerted them when he noticed we were in danger.
Richard tried to get away, but this time he didn't escape. As he was led away, he threw one last look back at James. "You might have your memory back." He smiled faintly. "Pero you still don't have everything." James looked at him in confusion. "What do you mean?" Richard said nothing more. Yet those final words lingered in the air. Later that evening, James and I sat together by the sea once again.
The very same sea that had once torn us apart. Pero now it felt different. Calmer. James held my hand. "Emily..." "Yes?" "There is still one memory I don't have back." I looked at him. "Which one?" He looked toward the horizon. "The day before I left." "The day you wanted to tell me about the baby." My heart clenched. "I want that memory back." "Why?" He looked at me with tears in his eyes. "Because I don't just want to know how I lost you." He gently squeezed my hand. "I also want to know how happy we were back then." I smiled sadly. Pero deep down inside, I felt something. As if one last piece of the past was waiting for us. A memory that hadn't been lost... merely hidden.
