eyes on me as I bolted down the stairs toward the back gate leading to the dock. I pulled on it, but it was locked.
“Mackenzie, I know things have been hectic for you, what with the opening of the restaurant and the eighty-hour work weeks…”
I reeled around and met his sympathetic eyes. “How do you know who I am?”
“It’s me,” he said, urging me to recognize him. I prayed this was all a dream and I would wake up, open my eyes, and see Tyler standing in front of me. “Jeremiah. I own a club on the island. You reached out to me for advice about opening up your own place several months ago.”
“But how do I remember this house? And I know I’ve been on that yacht.” I gestured toward the beautiful vessel anchored behind me, certain I had spent one of the best nights of my life on it just a few weeks ago.
“You’ve been here,” he said. “Hell, last fall, you were here at least once a week to pick my brain.”
“I was?” I asked, my breathing growing more ragged. I searched my brain for a memory of this man, but it just wouldn’t come. The last six months seemed to be a puzzle. Nothing of significance stood out in my mind…except meeting Tyler Burnham. And I was certain I had met him and that he lived here.
All the blood rushed from my face and I couldn’t help but feel as if the world was giving out from beneath me.
“Hey, hey,” he soothed, rushing toward me as I struggled to maintain my balance. “Let me call someone for you.” He placed his arm around my waist in an attempt to usher me back into the house.
The feel of his flesh on mine scalded me, setting me off. “Don’t touch me!” I bellowed, pushing him away. “And stop with the games! It’s not funny! Tell me where he is!”
“I’m not playing any games,” he insisted. “This is my house. I’ve lived here for years with my partner. There’s no one named Tyler here.”
Frantic, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and flipped through it, searching for proof I wasn’t crazy. “We met a few weeks ago! I just got back from Boston, where he’s from!”
“Then why are you here?” he asked, his gaze narrowed as he studied me with concern.
“Because he lives here!” I exclaimed. “Don’t you see?!” I continued searching my phone, my chin quivering as I scanned through photo after photo of me in Boston, on the waterfront, in the Commons, in the North End, eating oysters… But where Tyler was once in those photos, there was nothing. It was as if he had been erased.
The air was thick as I tried to make sense of it all. I was living in some sort of alternate reality. I prayed I would wake up and everything would turn out to have simply been a nightmare, that Tyler didn’t just date me to gather information about my father. I had always relied on what I knew to be real and true, and I thought Tyler was. Now, I felt as if I couldn’t trust any of my senses. Not sight, not sound, not touch…and I certainly couldn’t trust my heart.
Staring at the yacht on which I thought Tyler and I had spent our “one night”, I slowly turned around, my head fuzzy.
“Are you sure there’s no one I can call for you?” the man asked once more.
I raised my head and stared into his blue eyes, wishing I could see proof this was all part of some fucked up plan to mess with my memory, but they were stone cold, impenetrable.
Sighing, I shook my head. “No. I’m sorry,” I apologized flatly, my voice barely audible. “You’re right. I’ve been working too much. I must have…” I fought back the lump in my throat. “My mistake.”
My expression void of any emotion, I climbed the steps and walked back down the hallway, a lone tear falling down my cheek. I didn’t think I could ever feel any more pain than I did after learning the truth of who Tyler was and what he wanted from me, but I was wrong. This was the worst pain imaginable.
In a daze, I couldn’t remember getting in my car and driving back to my condo. All I could remember was questioning what was real and what wasn’t. Things I thought I touched and saw were now being presented to me as fake. It