The Lover My Brain Chose to Forget

Three years ago, I've pushed my boyfriend, Niccolo Moretti, into the sea even though he doesn't know how to swim. Then, I leave the scene with my new beau. Niccolo is lucky enough to survive the ordeal. After he gets saved by the Greco family, he's quick to get betrothed to the principessa of the family, Bianca Greco. Everyone claims that I'm a heartless woman who's capable of killing her ex-boyfriend just to be with her new lover. But what they don't know is that I've gotten diagnosed with anterograde amnesia. It feels as though there's an eraser that has erased everything about Niccolo in my mind. Three years later, Niccolo and Bianca bump into me at a restaurant. He gazes at me haughtily, though immense hatred can be seen burning in his eyes. "Elena Mancuso, when you pushed me into the sea and left with another man, did you ever think that your family would get annihilated one day, leaving you without any protection? "To think that the principessa of the Mancuso family is now working at a restaurant as a pathetic waitress!" I don't remember having met the man in front of me at all. "Did you mistake me for someone else, sir?" Niccolo continues to mock me. "Oh, so now you're acting, huh? Fine, we'll go along with your performance. Bring me the menu." Upon hearing that the customers want to dine in this restaurant, I glance at the memo app on my phone before passing a menu to them as per the instructions. Chapter 1 "Elena, when did you become such a good actress?" the man asked, his gaze cold and piercing. I could hear his words, but they didn't make sense to me. I tried to steer the conversation back. "Signore, are you ready to order?" He ignored the question and continued with his strange accusations. "Since when do you step foot in a kitchen or do chores? You actually enjoy this kind of grunt work now?" Was that true? I had no memory of it. All I knew was that I had to show up here every day to keep a roof over my head. "I'm sorry, Signore. I'm not sure I follow." The woman beside him let out a cold laugh and leaned into his arm. "Nico, look at her playing the victim. What a performance. She didn't look this pathetic three years ago when she pushed you into the ocean." I watched the expression of the man named Nico darken instantly. Feeling a flicker of fear, I quickly held out the menus and readied my pen and notepad. "Perhaps you'd like to see the menu first." Nico didn't even look at it. "Fettuccine carbonara, a Margherita pizza, Florentine steak, and tiramisu." I scribbled the items down. The woman took her time flipping through the pages, eventually rattling off several appetizers. I struggled to keep up with her pace, and my handwriting became a messy scrawl. "Did you get all that?" she asked, looking up. "What was the third dish I mentioned?" I looked down at my notepad. I could only make out the first few letters of the third item. The rest was a blur. "I'm sorry. I missed that one. Could you repeat it for me?" She burst out laughing, though her eyes remained icy. "Nico, look at her. She can't even take an order, yet she's pretending to be a waitress. She's obviously faking it to get you to soften up and forgive her." Just then, the bell rang at the kitchen window. I instinctively glanced at the chalkboard hanging next to the station and stared at it for a long moment. Nico seemed to notice the chalkboard and realized this restaurant wasn't like the others. "Why are you looking at that board?" he asked. "If I don't, I won't remember what I'm supposed to do." The woman tilted her head at me, then burst into another round of mocking laughter. "Elena, of everyone I know, you had the best memory. You knew every single member of my family by heart." Her voice was sweet. "What's with you now? Pretending you've lost your memory? You're quite convincing. I think you should quit being a waitress and be an actress instead." "I—" Nico cut me off harshly. "Elena, don't think for a second that playing the victim will make me forget what you did. It won't work!" The woman gripped his hand. "Elena, Nico is my fiancé now. I'm warning you—don't have any ideas about him." Seeing their fingers intertwined, I felt a sharp, inexplicable pang in my chest. Nevertheless, I maintained a polite smile. "The two of you make a lovely couple. My best wishes." Nico was livid. "Elena, what the hell am I to you?" The wine glass in his hand shattered, sending shards flying toward my ankles. Fortunately, the restaurant was empty. I immediately knelt to pick up the glass. As I reached for a fragment, I sliced my finger. Nico grabbed my wrist, stopping me. "Answer me!" My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out automatically. The screen lit up, displaying my memo app. The first pinned note read, "You have a boyfriend. His name is Niccolo. Never forget him. He's the love of your life." "I'm sorry, but I already have a boyfriend." I watched the color drain from Nico's face before he forced out three words, "Who is he?" "I only remember that I call him Niccolo." He fell silent for a moment. The next second, he stood and stormed out. The woman shot me a venomous look. "You did that on purpose, didn't you, you bitch?" With that, she chased after him. I watched them disappear into the distance, then opened my memo app to add a new entry. "Two customers came in today who seemed to know me. The man is named Nico, and the woman said she's his fiancée." Chapter 2 After my shift, my doctor, Leo Aversa, was waiting for me outside the restaurant. He drove me to his private clinic to start our daily log. "Let's start from the moment you woke up," he said. "I had a sandwich and went to the restaurant. Then, a couple came in. The man said a lot of things I didn't understand, and the woman seemed hostile. And then… then it gets fuzzy." Leo watched me handle my phone and suddenly asked, "Elena, do you know what that passcode you just entered represents?" I looked at him, confused. "It's just a string of numbers. 1018." Leo paused and let out a long, heavy breath. "October 18th. That's Nico's birthday." Nico? The man from the restaurant was named Nico, too. "Leo, who is he exactly?" Leo didn't answer. He just stared at my screen. "Elena, your brain right now is like a house that's been through an earthquake. Everything inside has collapsed. Some things are buried very deep. If you try to force your way in to dig them up, the whole thing might cave in." I looked at him, not fully grasping the metaphor. I just stared down at those four digits—1018—and felt a sudden ache in my chest. Leo handed me a couple of pills and set a glass of water by my hand. "Take your medicine. Let's stop here for today. We'll talk about the rest later." I swallowed the pills, my fingertips brushing the cold glass. My head was a mess, filled with the memory of Nico's angry, resentful face from earlier. I couldn't help asking again, "That man, Nico… Was I really involved with him?" Leo was silent for a long time before he reached out and patted my head. His voice was barely a whisper. "Don't worry about that now. Just get some sleep. Everything will be fine tomorrow." I gripped the strap of my bag and didn't push further. I said my goodbyes and left the clinic. The evening breeze carried the salty tang of the sea. While waiting for the bus, I couldn't resist checking my memo app again. That pinned note stared back at me. "You have a boyfriend. His name is Niccolo. Never forget him." Niccolo. Nico. Could they be the same person? The buried fragments of memory felt like they were shifting, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't catch them. The next morning, I went to work as usual. As soon as we opened, a man entered. He looked familiar, like the same man—Nico—from yesterday. He walked straight to the table I was wiping and tapped the surface. "We need to talk." "Good morning, Signore. Are you ready to order?" He curled his lip. "Let's settle the debt for you pushing me into the ocean first. Then we'll talk about ordering." I stood there, frozen. When I didn't move, he continued, "Three years ago, on the Pediterranean, why did you push me overboard during the shootout between the Mancuso and Moretti families?" A shootout? Pushed overboard? A sharp, stabbing pain shot through my temples. I had to lean against the table with both hands just to keep from collapsing. Flashes of imagery flickered through my mind. Deep blue water. Someone struggling in the waves. The images were disconnected, but they felt terrifyingly real. "I'm sorry," I blurted out instinctively. Nico's expression shifted. He abruptly stood and grabbed my arm. "So you admit it? But what good is an apology? When you pushed me, did you even care that I couldn't swim? Did you want me to drown?" Terrified, I stammered, "I-I'm sorry, Signore. I really… don't remember." Nico shoved me back and slammed his fist onto the table. "You're still acting?" He began pacing the restaurant until he stopped at my workstation. He stared at the counter, which was covered in sticky notes. There were instructions for the register, guides for the espresso machine, and a small chalkboard with polite phrases to use with customers. Above the sink, a note read, "Put clean plates on the left rack, and dirty ones on the right. Don't mix them up." The one on the fridge read, "Milk on the second shelf. Vegetables on the bottom. Eggs in the door. Check the dates." There was also one on the microwave. "Press open, put the food in, then press the button." Nico stared at the notes for a long time. "Did you write all these?" "Sì." He turned to look at me with that same suffocating intensity from yesterday. I felt like shrinking away. "Why bother writing all this down?" I lowered my gaze. "My memory isn't good. If I write it down, I can follow the steps and do my job without being a burden to my boss." Nico searched my face for a crack in the mask, but found nothing. A second later, he swept the bag of coffee beans off my counter. Chapter 3 The coffee beans scattered everywhere, but Nico offered nothing but a cold, remorseless smile. "Oops. My hand slipped. Please clean that up, Ms. Mancuso." I didn't argue. I went to the back, grabbed a broom, and began to sweep. Just as I was about to push a pile into the dustpan, Nico kicked them, sending the beans rolling even further across the floor. I looked up, confused. "Signore, please. If you could just take a seat, I can finish cleaning this up quickly." He scrutinized me again, but this time, a flicker of pity softened his gaze. "Elena, this isn't you. The woman I knew was sharp and vibrant, and wouldn't stand for even a hint of disrespect. If someone had done this to you back then, you would have flipped the table on them without a second thought. Yet, you don't even get angry now? Why?" My fingers tightened around the broom handle. He was talking about the past again. I looked at him in confusion. "Signore, do you know me?" Nico paused, his throat bobbing as he looked at me with a searing intensity. "The first time we spoke was at your birthday ball. You were wearing a dark green dress and that pearl necklace your mamma left you. When you walked down those stairs, every eye in the room was on you. But you only had eyes for me. "After we got together, we started planning our escape. You said your family would never allow us to be together, and you couldn't stand the war between our families anymore. You told me you wanted to go somewhere where there was no gunfire, and we chose a town in Alpen." Small town. Fresh flowers. Laughter. I didn't know where the images were coming from, but they surfaced in my mind, blurry and fleeting. Nico watched me closely, searching my face for an answer. "Do you remember any of that?" The harder I tried to grab the memories, the harder the eraser in my head worked to wipe them away. The pain in my skull intensified. I had to give up. "I'm sorry. I really don't." Nico stared at me, his eyes swirling with hatred and mockery, yet something beneath the surface seemed to be breaking. He whispered, almost to himself, "It's been three years. When I woke up in that hospital bed, Bianca told me you had run away." Bianca? Was that the woman holding his arms yesterday? His gaze lingered on my face for a moment before he looked away. "I thought about looking for you." He swallowed hard. "But I asked myself, if I found you, would I kill you? Or would I take you back to make your life a living hell?" Nico let out a short, hollow laugh that sounded more like a sob. "Then I thought… you knew I couldn't swim, yet you pushed me overboard anyway. You must have loathed me. I thought that it would be better for both of us if you stayed hidden forever. Yet here I am, standing right in front of you. Fate is a cruel joke!" He began to clap slowly and laugh loudly. "Elena, I won't forgive you. Since you want to play this game, let's see how long you can keep up the act." He turned and stormed out of the restaurant, leaving me to finish sweeping in a daze. During my break, I opened my memo app and typed, "The man named Nico seems to know me from a long time ago." Chapter 4 I was in the middle of sweeping when the restaurant door was flung open. It was Bianca, the woman who had been clinging to Nico's arm yesterday. "Elena." She marched in on her high heels, her voice sharp and menacing. "Nico was just here, wasn't he?" "Signora, would you like to—" Before I could finish speaking, Bianca snatched the broom from my hands and hurled it onto the floor. "Nico isn't here anymore. Who are you putting on this amnesia act for?" She strode over to my workstation and began ripping off the sticky notes I used for my daily routines. She read them aloud, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Is this your new trick for seducing Nico? Playing the helpless amnesiac? "Do you honestly think if you play pretend and say you don't remember, he'll just pity you and come crawling back? Don't be pathetic. He just thinks you're disgusting." Bianca shredded the notes into tiny pieces and let the scraps flutter from her fingers. "Please, stop it," I said, my voice trembling. But she didn't stop. With every note she tore, she spat out another insult. My body moved faster than my mind. I rushed to her side. "Please, stop! I need those notes to do my job." Bianca shoved me hard, sending me sprawling onto the floor. She looked down at me like I was a stray dog. "Oh, now you're begging? Too late! When you pushed Nico into the sea three years ago, did you ever imagine you'd end up like this?" She crouched and gripped my chin, forcing me to look her in the eye. "Nico is mine. If you ever see him again, I'll tear up more than just paper next time." Her nails dug into my skin. The pain was so sharp that tears welled up uncontrollably. Then, a headache set in, and my vision blurred. Bianca pulled her phone from her pocket and snapped a photo of me. The flash burned into my eyes. "Look at yourself. What would your family think if they saw you now? Oh, I forgot. The Mancuso family doesn't even exist anymore, do they?" She laughed out loud. Suddenly, she let go of me, and her tone shifted. She sounded gentle, almost concerned. "Elena, if you're in trouble, just say so. You know Nico. He's always had a soft spot for you." I looked up, tears streaming down my face. That was when I heard a second voice. "Bianca, what's going on here?" Nico looked at us. Bianca's expression instantly changed. Her eyes turned red as if she were about to cry. "Nico, I just came by to see if I could help. But she didn't seem to want me here. She even tried to call the police on us for causing a scene." I looked down at the phone in my hand. In the chaos, I had somehow dialed the emergency number Leo had set up for me. Bianca walked over to Nico and took his arm, her voice hitching. "Let's just go. She clearly doesn't want to see us." Nico gave me a long look, said nothing, and followed her out. As they reached the door, the police arrived, asking who had called and what the problem was. I opened my mouth to speak, but I couldn't remember the details of the last few minutes. Bianca took the opportunity to spin the story. She told the officers that I was the one who had pushed Nico into the sea years ago and that she was his savior. She claimed they had just come for a meal and happened to run into me. They didn't do anything to me, and it was all a misunderstanding on my part. She stepped close to me and pinched my arm hard. The pain in my head became unbearable, and I couldn't force out a single word. By the time I woke up again, the air was thick with the salty scent of the sea. Chapter 5 I pushed myself up and found myself in the middle of the ocean. "You're awake?" A woman crouched in front of me. Her expression was gentle, almost as if she were tending to a sick friend. I stared at her face, desperately trying to find some shred of information from my mind. "Nico, she's awake." The man glanced at me briefly before looking away. "You passed out," the woman said, tucking a stray lock of hair behind my ear. Her touch was light, like she was soothing a frightened cat. "You didn't look well, so we brought you out here for some fresh air. We thought it might help you remember." I flinched away from her hand. "Why am I on a boat?" She didn't answer. Instead, she walked over to the man named Nico and naturally took his hand. "Nico, I told you. Doctors call this situational reenactment therapy. Bringing her back to the scene of the accident to relive the experience will make her remember." Nico remained silent, and she took his silence as permission. She marched back over, grabbed my wrist, and hauled me up from the deck. The boat swayed beneath my feet. Every step felt like walking on clouds. My body began to shake uncontrollably. "Please, no further. I can't swim." "You used to be a certified diver." Nico's voice drifted from behind me. "I really—" Before I could finish speaking, the world flipped upside down. Water rushed in from every direction, flooding my nose and burning a trail from my throat down into my lungs. I thrashed at the water, kicking and gasping for air. I repeated these instinctive movements until someone hoisted me out of the water, like I was a half-drowned cat. I collapsed on the deck, coughing up seawater. "Maybe that was too sudden," the woman said, her voice laced with a hint of concern. "Let's try again. We'll take it slow this time. It might trigger something." One of her hands hung at my side, just out of Nico's sight. Then a faint prick of pain shot through my arm. Numbness spread from there, slowly creeping up to my shoulder, to my neck, and down to my feet. I was thrown into the sea again. I tried with everything I had to move my limbs, but my body was unresponsive. I felt myself sinking, inch by inch. Eventually, the water closed over the top of my head. The sunlight above became a blurry, wobbling orb of light. As it drifted further and further away, the world grew dark. I tried to scream for help, but opening my mouth only let more water in. I thought I was dying. Just as my consciousness began to slip away, I heard someone shouting. Suddenly, someone was pulling me upward. "Elena! Wake up!" Someone was patting my face. "Look at me! Breathe! Come on!" "Oh, look at the hero saving the damsel in distress," the woman mocked. "Elena, is this the new fiancé you found after dumping Nico? How touching." Leo didn't even look at her. "Shut up." His voice was shaking with rage. "Nico, have you lost your mind? Do you have any idea how sick she is? She isn't acting. She has really forgotten everything!"