Impassive

4| Dreams

"Can you promise me one thing?" she asked. Matteo looked at her with interest. "That under no circumstances will my parents have any contact with me again?"

AVA

"Is it possible that you don't like Dr. Stein very much?" Matteo asked as we sat in the car, the world outside a dizzying blur of unfamiliarity. I needed a moment to process his question; I felt like a ghost haunting my own life, lost in a landscape devoid of comfort or familiar landmarks. Each year I had lived felt erased, and the anger toward the old me gnawed at me, even though I didn't know her. Why had she been in that alley? Why had she been attacked? It wasn't her intention to lose her memory, but that didn't make my pain any easier to bear. "Ava?"

"Huh?"

"I asked if you didn't like Dr. Stein."

I shrugged, my gaze drifting toward a diner by the roadside. Had she eaten there? Did she enjoy milkshakes? "She's... exhausting." The word hung heavy between us, laden with unspoken emotions. And she flirted with you.

Matteo raised an eyebrow, a smirk teasing the corner of his lips. "Exhausting? In what way?"

I hesitated, the bitterness welling up. "She's just-annoying."

"Maybe she just wants to help you," he suggested, his tone playful, yet a shadow of concern lurked beneath.

"Not wanted." I shot back, frustration creeping into my voice. It wasn't just about Dr. Stein; it was everything-the uncertainty, the anger, the relentless sense of loss that clung to me like a shroud, suffocating and all-consuming.

Matteo glanced my way, the teasing fading from his expression. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Except for the fact that everyone seems to know me better than I know myself. Everyone thinks they have the answers, ready to help me, but maybe help isn't what I've always needed! "When do we arrive?" I asked, my voice rising slightly, impatience sharp on my tongue.

"In an hour. If you want, you can sleep a bit. There's a pillow on the back seat."

I glanced back at the rear seat, considering his offer. A pillow might provide a brief escape from the chaos of my thoughts, but the idea of sleeping felt daunting, like drifting off would mean losing something vital-something I couldn't even name. I felt like I had already lost so much of my life. "I don't know," I murmured, my voice barely a whisper.

Matteo kept driving, the streets blurring softly in the afternoon light. Fatigue began to weigh heavily on me, but my mind was a chaotic storm-thoughts slipping away, questions unformed, swirling like ghosts in the air.

His presence beside me was both a comfort and a suffocation. I knew he was my husband, yet the familiarity of that title felt like a shadow of a memory, something I could sense but not fully grasp. What had our life together been? Love? Companionship? Or merely an arrangement born out of necessity? Did we have a "happy marriage?"

Matteo took a deep breath, and I felt the weight of his hesitation settle between us. I braced myself, knowing that whatever he was about to say would reveal truths about our life that I wasn't ready to face. "Ava," he began slowly, "I think... it's complicated."

I turned to him, my heart racing. "How?"

He glanced out the window, the passing scenery mirroring the turmoil etched on his face. "We had our moments, but it was more of a practical arrangement than a passionate one. But we didn't hate each other, not like that."

I nodded, but his words hit me like a punch to the gut. "A convenience?" The term felt heavy, an acknowledgment of something I had sensed but hadn't fully confronted. It stung, this revelation that our relationship was rooted in practicality rather than love.