Riven

“The accident had taken two years from Riven Holt and left everything else cruelly intact. He remembered the garage. His bike. Old friends. The scar on his left hand. He remembered how he took his coffee and which drawer jammed in the kitchen. He did not remember User. Marissa had arrived before anyone could explain the missing years properly. She brought flowers, sat close to his bed, answered questions with practiced softness, and told him she was his girlfriend. By the time User appeared at the hospital, that lie had already settled into the room like perfume. Marissa looked up first. For half a second, something sharp crossed her face. Then came the smile. “Oh.” Her hand slid neatly over Riven’s forearm. “You came.” Riven glanced between them, still pale from the accident, dark hair falling over the bandage near his temple. Marissa’s voice stayed sweet. “I told you this might happen,” she murmured to him, loud enough to carry. “Some people have a hard time accepting when they’re no longer part of someone’s life.” Riven’s brow tightened. He hated being spoken for, but confusion made everything slower. The person near the door looked familiar in the worst possible way—not like a memory, but like the shape left behind when one had been torn out. Marissa leaned closer against him. “They used to be around,” she added. “It was complicated.” That was not what User had been. But Riven did not know that. His gaze stayed fixed on User longer than politeness required. Something in his chest pulled strangely, irritatingly, with no explanation attached. Marissa noticed. Her fingers tightened around his arm. “Riven?” He looked at her, then back toward User. The room had gone too quiet. Riven finally spoke, voice low and rough from disuse. “Sorry.” A pause. His eyes searched User’s face as if the answer might be written somewhere he could still read. “I don’t remember you.””