His Three-Day Girlfriend novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Script

Elliot takes her to his apartment, where the diary and photos have been rewritten, and she finds the shot kit and a calendar that says she is Dane's on Saturday.

The nurse wheeled me to the lobby, and Elliot walked beside me without touching the chair.

"Home is twenty minutes," he said. "My place. You've lived there since spring."

I had never been inside it.

The last time I had a different "home," Colin called it our little hideaway, and I believed him.

I looked out the car window.

"Is it always this loud?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Do I like it?"

His hands tightened on the wheel.

"You used to say you hated it," he said. "Then you'd go draw it anyway."

That was true.

It was the only true thing anyone had said to me in fourteen months, and I didn't know why it came from him.

His apartment was on the ninth floor.

A doorbell camera blinked red above the mat.

Inside, everything was neat and bare.

A framed photo hung beside the window.

I stepped closer.

It showed me on a pier, laughing, in a yellow sweater, with a man's arm around my shoulders.

The man was Elliot.

I knew that sweater.

I had worn it on the day Colin took me out to the lake for my birthday, and the arm around my shoulders was his.

Somebody had cut Colin out of the picture and put Elliot's face in.

The edges around the new head were blurry.

"We took that in June," Elliot said behind me.

His voice came out strange.

"Did we?" I said sweetly.

"No."

I turned around.

He was staring at the picture.

Then his face closed.

"I mean, yes. Of course we did. You look happy."

"I do," I said.

I smiled at him, empty and sweet.

Colin lied smoothly, every time.

Elliot lied, and I decided that was only a different act.

"Rest," he said. "Everything in here is exactly what it looks like. You can look at anything you want."

That was the smoothest thing he had said all day.

I thanked him, and went to look at everything.

My phone lay on the nightstand with a fresh screen protector.

It held two contacts.

*Elliot (boyfriend)* and *Colin (Elliot's friend, helps out)*.

Fourteen months ago it had held three hundred.

My sister's name was gone.

My mother's old number was gone.

I thought of Bridget, who had taught me to ride a bike and to curse in two languages, and I let my thumb hover over the empty screen.

I could not call her.

I did not have her number written anywhere except in my head.

I put the phone down and kept walking.

The kitchen was clean to the point of silence.

I opened the fridge for a glass of water.

Behind the milk, in the door shelf, sat a white box with a pharmacy label.

Inside, in neat foam slots, lay three glass vials and a row of sealed syringes.

I read the label with the face of a woman who didn't know what the letters meant.

*HARTWELL, M. Memory-blocking injection. 1 mL every 72 hours. Do not exceed.*

My name, typed on a label like a parcel.

The date on each vial was written in blue marker, with a crossbar through the seven.

Only one man I knew crossed his sevens like that, and he had been at my bedside every third morning for fourteen months.

I counted the vials twice.

Three.

On the side of the fridge, held by a magnet shaped like a pineapple, hung a paper calendar.

Today's date was circled in blue.

*Day 1. E.*

The next two days were marked *Day 2. E.* and *Day 3. E.*

On the night of Day 3, in red marker, someone had written *10 PM. RESET.*

The square after it said *SAT. D. (Colin back at 4.)*

D was Dane.

I stood with my hand flat on the cold door of the fridge and counted the hours.

Three days.

Seventy-two hours.

After that came the shot, and everything I knew would be wiped, and Dane Doherty's hands.

Behind me, a floorboard creaked.

"Merry?"

I didn't turn around fast enough.

When I did, my face was the soft, lost face of the woman who needed a glass of water.

"I couldn't find a cup," I said.

Elliot looked at the calendar, and at me, and at the box with its three vials.

He took a long breath.

His phone buzzed on the counter between us.

We both looked at the screen.

*Colin: Don't go soft on her. She is not a person, she is a project. Three days. Then Dane.*

Elliot's thumb came down over the screen and covered it.

"Work," he said.

I smiled, and I watched him lie to my face for the second time that day.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend