Amnesia: Married to My Enemy

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The sweat hadn't even cooled on my skin before she turned her back to me. She snatched the tangled silk sheets, wrapping them tightly around her naked body. The scorching air between us plummeted to freezing in a single heartbeat.

We're done.

The girl Id spent all four years of college obsessing over stared at me, her eyes like shattered ice.

Back when her heart first got broken, she was the one who dragged me out to the bars to drown her misery. Like an absolute idiot, I thought my chance had finally arrived. But the truth was, she only used my body as a cheap painkiller.

We tore at each other all night. By the next morning, we were officially together.

Now that graduation was here, she simply dropped the act. Without tossing me a single damn excuse, she grabbed her clothes, let the front door click shut behind her, and walked right out of my life.

Chapter 1

It wasn't until five years later that we unexpectedly crossed paths again.

The former medical prodigy had climbed even higher, becoming an internationally renowned surgeon. Inside the conference room, she wore wire-rimmed glasses and a pristine white coat, her expression as icy and untouchable as ever.

"Hello, everyone. I'm Maeve." Her striking features commanded the room the second she walked in, pulling the gaze of every doctor and nurse at the table.

The Chief of Surgery pointed a pen in my direction. "This is Colton, our top attending surgeon. He's the golden boy of this hospital."

He smiled between the two of us. "You're both young, brilliant talents. You should get to know each other."

It was the first time I had seen her since our breakup five years ago. My throat felt like a scalpel had precisely severed my vocal nerves. All the furious questions and biting remarks Id rehearsed during countless sleepless nights were now lodged like shards of glass in my dry windpipe.

She followed the Chief's gaze and looked right at me. The raw, guarded girl from college had evolved into someone entirely polished. Her long hair was pinned back in a sleek twist, radiating clinical professionalism.

Neither of us moved a muscle. The air in the conference room thickened, a heavy, suffocating awkwardness settling over the long mahogany table.

Finally, the Chief broke the dead silence. "It's great having Maeve back. Looks like our hospital just snagged a power couple." He said it because, whether in the OR or out of it, the two of us left everyone else in our age bracket eating dust.

My pulse hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs. But Maeve's face remained a blank slate. She looked at me the way you look at a total stranger on the subway.

"Please, Chief," she said, her tone even. "I'm already engaged."

Engaged?

The word hit me like a defibrillator to the chest. The blood rushed out of my head, leaving nothing but a ringing white noise. I couldn't even tell you how or when that meeting ended.

I drifted through the rest of my shift like a ghost. When I finally dragged myself home, I threw my keys on the counter and opened my phone. A group message from my med school days that had been dead for years was blowing up.

Naturally, the main event was Maeve.

[I heard Maeve was already pulling an attending salary overseas. Why the hell did she come back?]

[For love, obviously.]

[Word is, her fianc moved his business back to the States, so she followed him.]

The chat was feeding on the gossip like vultures.

[Maeve was always an absolute ice queen. Who the hell managed to put a ring on that?]

[Wait, didn't Colton use to hang around her a lot back in the day?]

Then, my name got tagged. [Hey man, do you know who the lucky guy is? Spill the details.]

How the hell would I know? Just like nobody knew we spent our senior year tearing the sheets off my bed. I let out a harsh breath, tossed the phone face-down onto the kitchen island, and pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes.

The sudden sharp buzz of the intercom made my muscles twitch. I figured it was an Amazon delivery I forgot about. But when I swung the door open, a courier was standing in the hallway.

"Colton? I've got a package here from a Ms. Maeve. Just need your signature."

Maeve? My brow furrowed. I scrawled my name, hauled the heavy cardboard box inside, and grabbed a kitchen knife to slice through the tape.

But the second I pulled the flaps back, the breath was knocked clean out of my lungs.

Staring back at me was every single thing I had ever given her. Inside lay a messy pile of all the genuine heart I had once bled out for herfaded Polaroid photos, the plaster statue we painted together in Central Park, a thick stack of ink-stained love letters, and that plain silver band I had polished with my own hands.

My fingers dug into the corrugated cardboard, my hands shaking so hard the box rattled against the granite counter. I don't know how long I stood there, staring into the grave of my own past, before my grip finally gave out.

Chapter 2

I grabbed my phone and pulled up her contact. Maeve's thread was still pinned to the top of my messages, an empty digital wasteland.

I wanted to demand answers. My thumb hovered over the keyboard, typing a few letters, backspacing, typing again. The blinking cursor mocked my inability to form a coherent sentence.

The very first thing she did upon returning to the States was box up my past and ship it back to me. It was a surgical excision. She was cutting me out. Pressing send on a pathetic text wasn't going to change that.

A bitter laugh scraped up my throat as I shook my head, but my thumb slipped against the screen, firing off a string of meaningless gibberish. Panic spiked. I jabbed the glass to immediately unsend it, but a harsh red "Not Delivered" warning popped up below the text.

That tiny red error message burned into my retinas. I thought I had buried it all, but the memories of Maeve tore through the dirt and dragged themselves back to the surface.

Back in our junior year, she got an early acceptance offer from Harvard Medical School. But I was stuck finishing my premed requirements at our state university, so she planned to turn it down. Her parents only agreed to let her stay if she secured first place in the National Surgical Clinical Competition.

When her academic advisor found out, he called me directly. "How can you be so damn selfish?" he barked through the receiver.

"You're ruining her career! A talent like Maeve doesn't belong stuck in this mediocre town!"

Soon after, the firing squad lined up. Her parents, her friendseveryone pinned the blame squarely on my chest. They were right, and I knew it.

I couldn't let her flush her future down the drain for me. So, I pulled some strings with a senior resident running the competition committee and quietly had her name scrubbed from the registration list.

When she found out what I did, all hell broke loose. We had a massive, explosive fight. That was the last time I saw her, five years ago.

The harsh buzz of my fridge pulled me back to the present. I gave the cardboard coffin of our memories one last look before shoving it deep into the hall closet.

Over the next few weeks, the atmosphere in the surgery department turned suffocating. We shared the same damn floor, yet we existed in different universes. But being in the same rotation meant inevitable overlap. I tried, multiple times, to break the ice and inject some professional normalcy into the air.

Maeve looked right through me every single time, treating me like a piece of defective medical equipment. It got so toxic I actually started drafting a transfer request to Orthopedics. Maybe cutting contact was the only way we'd both survive.

Friday evening rolled around. Maeve booked a dinner reservation and invited every single attending and resident who wasn't on call. Naturally, I planned to skip it.

But Jasper gripped my shoulder and refused to let me walk to the parking garage. "Come on, man. She booked out the Cloud Creek Club."

"It's a strictly members-only joint. You can't even get past the gate without serious connections." He practically hauled me toward his car.

"Us working-class peasants never get a shot at a place like this. Dr. Maeve is dropping some serious cash tonight."

I couldn't shake him off, so I reluctantly threw myself into his passenger seat.

The Cloud Creek Club was dripping with old money. I ended up slotted right across the long mahogany table from Maeve. Every time I lifted my gaze, it hit her impeccably sharp, stoic profile. It was the first time since she returned that I could actually sit and observe her without the pressure of a scalpel in our hands.

A few minutes later, the heavy oak doors swung open. A guy in a razor-sharp tailored suit strode into the private dining room. He moved with aggressive purpose, heading straight for Maeve. His large hand clamped down onto her shoulder, a casual but unmistakable claim of ownership.

"Good evening, everyone," Sinclair announced, his voice smooth and commanding. "I'm Maeve's fianc. This high-end private club happens to be one of my properties. Everything is on my tab tonight, so please, enjoy yourselves to the fullest."

Chapter 3

Seeing the intimate way Sinclair touched her, a sharp, bitter ache gnawed at my stomach. I immediately dropped my gaze, staring hard at the table, afraid that if I kept looking, something inside me would fracture.

But I couldn't shut out the chatter of the other doctors filtering into my ears.

"Mr. Sinclair is absolutely brilliant, and he looks like a damn model. He and Dr. Maeve are a total power couple!"

"Seriously, a perfect match."

The dinner felt more like a lively engagement party, yet I felt like I was drowning at the bottom of an icy trench. All I wanted was to escape.

"Sorry, I just remembered an urgent issue. I have to go," I muttered low to Jasper, already pushing my chair back.

Just as I stood up, someone called my name. Instinctively, I looked up and met Sinclair's sharp gaze. I scoured my memory, but I drew a blank. I had never seen this guy in my life.

Before I could say a word, one of the senior residents asked, "Mr. Sinclair, do you know Dr. Colton?"

Instantly, the entire room went silent, all eyes locked on Sinclair.

He let out a smooth, easy laugh. "He's Maeve's ex-boyfriend. Naturally, I know of him."

I froze, the blood icing over in my veins.

The attention of the entire table snapped toward me. Their curious, probing stares felt like a barrage of hypodermic needles piercing my skin.

"Wait, seriously? Dr. Colton, you and Dr. Maeve actually dated?"

My throat clamped shut. I didn't know what the hell to say. Ever since Maeve transferred back, she had vehemently denied any connection to me. I kept my mouth tightly shut, leaving the doctors to shift their interrogating glances toward her.

"Dr. Maeve, is that true?"

My eyes followed theirs, locking onto her. My hands were buried in my pockets, my fingernails digging so hard into my palms they stung.

Maeve didn't even look in my direction. She casually pulled Sinclair down into the empty chair beside her before replying, her voice cold and flat: "It's ancient history."

Everyone at the table could read the room; she clearly had zero interest in digging up the past, so they all nervously laughed and quickly changed the subject.

But after that dinner, whether it was paranoia or reality, it felt like the entire department was looking at me like I was a diseased specimen. Whenever I approached a nurses' station or the breakroom, the whispering would abruptly stop, and everyone would scatter.

It wasn't until a few days later, while I was washing my hands in a bathroom stall, that I caught the unfiltered gossip drifting over the tile walls.

"I asked around. Did you know Dr. Colton is basically a stage-five clinger? Apparently, he harassed Dr. Maeve all through med school."

"Yeah, no matter how many times she rejected him, he just wouldn't quit. And he's still doing it."

"Crazy, right? Dr. Colton is gorgeous, I never figured him for a desperate stalker."

"I mean, Dr. Maeve is stunning, so you can kind of see why he lost his mind, right? Hahaha."

"But she's getting married now! Isn't he basically trying to be the other man?"

Hearing that, it felt like a grenade went off inside my skull.

I stood paralyzed as the voices echoed and then faded out into the hallway. Staring at the empty row of sinks, a suffocating weight crushed my chest. It took several long minutes before I could force my legs to move, stumbling numbly back toward my office.

But as I walked past Maeve's closed door, I caught the muffled sound of another woman's voice.

"I literally just transferred to this hospital, and already I hear the entire nursing staff dragging your name and Colton's through the mud. It's getting really ugly."

The voice triggered a distant memory. It sounded exactly like Maeve's college roommate, Ruby.

As I processed that, I heard Maeve offer a quiet, indifferent murmur of acknowledgment.

Then, Ruby's voice rose again. "So why don't you just explain it to them? Set the record straight and shut it down."

Chapter 4

Hearing Rubys words yanked me right back to five years ago. I had begged Maeve to listen, to let me explain the misunderstanding, only to be met with that exact same wall of chilling indifference.

I drew in a sharp breath, my knuckles inches from the frosted glass. But then Rubys voice drifted through the gap. "You already know the truth about what happened back then, don't you?"

A phantom sledgehammer slammed into my ribs. The oxygen evaporated from my lungs, leaving a burning ache in my chest. I had spent years convincing myself that her hatred was built on a lie, a tragic misunderstanding.

But she knew. She knew the entire time.

Staring at the heavy wooden door, I forced my rigid arm forward and shoved it open. Inside the office, two pairs of eyes snapped toward me.

I dug my nails into my palms, locking down the hurricane tearing through my head to keep my face blank. Ruby let out a dry, nervous laugh. Reading the suffocating tension in the room, she instantly muttered a pathetic excuse and slipped past me into the hallway.

The door clicked shut behind her. The dull, mechanical hum of the AC unit suddenly sounded deafening.

I slammed the medical file down onto her mahogany desk. The sharp slap of the manila folder and the rustle of loose papers echoed in the dead-silent room. I planted both hands on the edge of the desk, leaning in close, my eyes boring directly into hers. "What happened back then you actually knew the truth the entire time, didn't you?"

Maeve didn't even blink. She sidestepped the question, her voice dripping with clinical detachment. "Dr. Colton. Is there a medical reason you're in my office?"

Just like that. An airtight seal over the past. For five years, I fed myself the delusion that she was acting out of ignorance, that I deserved every ounce of her toxic hatred. But she knew exactly what I sacrificed for her.

My chest heaved, pulling in ragged breaths, until the sharp plastic edge of my clipboard dug into my skin, snapping me back to reality.

Maybe this was just karma. A hell I had custom-built for myself.

I dropped my gaze, swallowing down the bitter ash coating my throat, and nudged the patient file toward her. When I spoke again, my voice was stripped of all emotion, a hollow, mechanical hum. "I have a surgery that requires your hands."

Her perfectly manicured fingernail tapped against the surgical plan. "You're more than capable of handling this procedure yourself."

"The patient is a high-risk severe diabetic with a history of hypertension," I stated, sticking to the cold, hard facts. "With you assisting, the survival rate jumps significantly."

Maeve fell silent. A tight, sickening knot twisted in my gut as the seconds ticked by.

"Leave the charts. Page me with the exact OR schedule." She gave a curt nod.

The knot in my stomach loosened just a fraction. "Thanks."

Surgery day arrived in a blur. Maeve took the lead as the primary surgeon, while I stood across the table, acting as her first assist. The rhythm between us was terrifyingly flawless, just like it had always been. A seamless, wordless dance over an open incision.

It wasn't until the final sutures were tied off that I allowed my eyes to flick up to her profile. The sterile OR vanished, throwing me right back to our med school simulation labs. We used to tie for first place on every single practical exam. Back then, the second she peeled off her bloody gloves, she would flash me a brilliant, exhausted smilethe kind of smile that could thaw out the morgue.

But now? We were just two highly efficient, mechanized strangers. The only words exchanged over the operating table were clipped, frozen surgical commands.

"Sponge and instrument counts are correct," the circulating nurse called out.

Maeve immediately turned on her heel and headed for the scrub room. I followed a few paces behind, my eyes locked on the back of her blue surgical scrubs. I let the silence stretch before forcing the word out.

"Thanks."

"It's my job." Her voice drifted back over her shoulder, devoid of warmth. She didn't even bother to look back.

I froze in the middle of the hallway. I wanted to grab her arm, to demand answers, to ask if treating me like a biohazard was truly necessary. But my jaw locked shut.

A heavy hand slapped my shoulder. It was Jasper. "Hey, Chief is handing out sign-up sheets. Massive flooding down in the southern tri-state area."

"The hospital is deploying an emergency medical relief team. You in?"

I looked back toward the empty scrub room. Maybe putting a few hundred miles and a natural disaster between us was the only way I could finally kill this pathetic hope inside me.

I gave him a hard nod. "I'm in."

Chapter 5

Before shipping out, I went home to see my dad. Hearing I was joining the disaster relief team, he cooked up my favorite meal. At the dinner table, sensing my dark mood, he finally broke the silence.

"Colton, I heard Maeve moved back to the States. Is she at your hospital?"

"Are you two"

I hadn't expected him to know. I forced a stiff, practiced smile. "It's nothing, Dad. We're just colleagues now."

Seeing my jaw clench, he took the hint and steered the conversation elsewhere.

The day of deployment arrived under a sky bruised with heavy gray clouds. A diesel relief bus idled outside the ER doors, spewing black exhaust. I hauled my duffel bag up the metal steps, scanning the aisle for an empty seat.

Suddenly, my boots glued to the rubber floor mats. Sitting in the back row, pressed against the rain-streaked window, was the exact woman I had joined this damn mission to avoid: Maeve.

Since I was the last one aboard, the only empty seat left on the entire bus was right beside her. I stood paralyzed in the aisle until the driver barked an impatient curse. Left with zero options, I dropped heavily into the seat next to her.

She kept her head turned toward the glass, treating my existence like static noise. The bus jerked into motion.

I glued myself to the cold metal wall of the bus, my muscles locked up like stone. I was terrified that even a millimeter of fabric brushing against her would set off a damn powder keg. Yet my peripheral vision felt cursed, obsessively tracking the subtle rise and fall of her chest with every breath.

With her face turned away, the sharp, clinical frost in her expression softened. Staring at her profile, my mind violently dragged me back to our first road trip down the Pacific Coast Highway. Back then, her fingers had stayed tightly interlaced with mine the entire drive. The golden hour sun had spilled over her, giving her a soft, glowing halo.

We had stood on the Santa Monica Pier, holding each other tight. We wandered through those neon-lit alleyways, making out against brick walls like two kids drunk on each other

"Colton."

Her freezing voice shattered the memory. I snapped out of it, colliding with her hazel eyes. There was nothing but absolute zero indifference in them.

"Get off."

Ripped back to reality, I swallowed the bitter lump in my throat, dropped my gaze, and practically bolted down the bus steps.

Torrential rain had triggered massive flash floods, completely washing out the dirt road leading into the valley. No vehicles could make it through. I yanked on a yellow rain slicker and trudged behind the disaster response team on foot. The rain lashed down, turning the ground into a treacherous mud pit.

I struggled forward under the weight of a heavy medical supply crate. Suddenly, my boot slipped on a slick rock, and I lost my balance. Instinctively, I reached out to grab the person next to me to break my fall.

Maeve twisted her body sharply away from me, a visceral reflex to avoid my touch.

My fingers clawed empty air. Just as I was about to faceplant into the mud, a strong grip clamped onto my bicep, yanking me upright.

It was Victor, the rescue captain. He yelled over the pouring rain, "You good, Dr. Colton? Watch your step, it's slick as hell out here."

"I'm good. Thanks," I grunted, shaking off his hand.

I turned my head and looked at Maeve. She was already staring right back at me. Locking eyes with her, the sickening realization of her knee-jerk reactiontreating me like a contagious diseaseburned like acid in my chest. I quickly ducked my head.

Then, her voice sliced cleanly through the torrential rain, sharp and merciless. "Don't drag the rest of the team down. This relief op can function perfectly fine without you."

Every single head in the squad swiveled toward me. My fingers dug into the plastic handles of the medical crate until my knuckles turned bone-white. But I didn't say a damn word. I just kept my head down, pushed past her, and kept walking into the storm.

The rain pounded harder against my hood, turning the narrow, broken trail into a living nightmare.

Chapter 6

Half an hour later, we reached the temporary staging area. Without a second to catch her breath, Maeve fell right into the role of team captain, barking out assignments.

Right then, a rescue worker sprinted over. "We've got a family trapped in a low-lying section of the valley. Evacuation is impossible right now. One of them is running a dangerously high fever."

"Tylenol isn't doing a damn thing, and they need emergency medical attention. Who's willing to go with me?"

"I'm in." I didn't hesitate. I grabbed a trauma kit and started toward the tent flap.

A resident yanked my arm back. "Are you insane? The rain is coming down in sheets.

"The trail is nothing but mud slides and drop-offs. It's basically suicide out there right now."

Instantly, the medical tent erupted into an argument. Half the team backed me up, arguing we couldn't miss the golden window for treatment. The other half doubled down, insisting that sending doctors out into a blind storm was a reckless risk. The chaotic screaming match locked the room in a dead stalemate.

"What's the call, Dr. Maeve?" I demanded when she stayed completely silent.

She shot me a single, flat look before making the final decision. "Protocol dictates we secure the safety of our medical staff first."

"And the patient?" The words tasted like ash. I stared at her in disbelief. I couldn't fathom that she was making this call.

Maeve didn't bother to answer. She just turned on her heel and marched out of the tent. The sky darkened into an ugly bruise, the freezing drizzle soaking the muddy ground.

I charged out into the rain and grabbed the back of her waterproof jacket. "Maeve, did you forget the Hippocratic Oath the second you put on that name tag?" I yelled over the storm.

"Our only job is to save lives! What the hell are you doing right now?"

"Let go of me!" Maeve snapped, a rare flash of panic flickering in her eyes.

Instead of backing down, I stepped closer, gripping her wrist like a vice. In the violent struggle, with a sharp clack, a bright silver chain slipped out from the collar of her scrubs, catching a harsh glint in the dark, pouring rain. And right there dangling from the metal links was the exact ring I had crafted for her all those years ago!

Every ounce of my anger evaporated instantly. I opened my mouth, desperate to ask why she kept it close to her heart after all this time.

But before a single syllable left my throat, her hand shot up. She ripped the chain off her neck and hurled it straight into the churning floodwaters. The silver caught one last sliver of gray light before arching through the air.

Instinct hijacked my brain. I lunged forward toward the edge to grab it