System Erased Her From My Memory novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Woman in the Aisle
Delaney Vanstone drags down the aisle of Wesley's second wedding and begs him to come back; he does not know her, marries Maia anyway, and the silent system speaks again.
A woman in a muddy white dress ran down the aisle of my wedding and dropped to her knees in front of me.
One hundred and twenty guests turned around in their chairs.
Half of them lifted their phones.
I was standing under the flower arch with Maia's hand in mine, and the officiant had just opened his mouth to begin.
"Wesley!"
The woman's voice cracked on my name.
Her heels were in one hand and her mascara was down to her chin.
She grabbed the hem of my jacket with the other.
"Okay, you win," she said. "You made your point. Please stop."
I looked at her.
She had long chestnut hair, brown eyes, and a diamond on her left hand the size of a grape.
I had never seen her before in my life.
"I'm sorry," I said. "Do I know you?"
Somebody in the back row gasped out loud.
Her face went white and then red.
"Stop it. Wes, stop. Everyone knows it's a game now."
"It isn't a game."
"I'm Delaney." She said it as if the name should open a door. "Delaney Vanstone. We were supposed to get married in April."
That was news to nobody.
Finn, my best man, had told me the whole story in the first week after the hospital.
A bride had left a groom at the altar and driven off with her first love.
The groom was me.
I just couldn't remember a single minute of it.
Six months ago, a voice only I could hear had told me I'd failed a mission.
It said every memory of the target was now erased.
That was the entire explanation, and I had never gotten another word out of it.
I turned to Maia.
She was watching Delaney with her chin up and her fingers perfectly steady in mine.
That morning I had set out two coffee mugs on the counter again.
I still couldn't tell you why I kept doing that.
Delaney pulled a phone out of her bag and held it up with both hands.
"Listen to this. Please."
She pressed play.
A man's voice came out of the tiny speaker.
It was mine.
"I'll love you till I'm dead, Dee. You don't have to love me back as much. Just stay."
The guests went completely silent.
I listened to myself say it.
I waited for something to move in my chest.
Nothing did.
It was like hearing a stranger read a speech at a funeral I wasn't attending.
"That's my voice," I said.
"Yes!" Delaney was laughing and crying at once. "Yes, it's you. You said that to me in our kitchen."
"I believe you."
"So you remember."
"No."
Her smile slid off.
"I posted the engagement to Dalton so you'd see it," she said. Her voice dropped. "I booked the honeymoon for this exact weekend. I thought you'd call. I thought you'd crack."
"You called me in June."
"Yes!"
"My friend blocked your number before I ever saw it."
Her mouth fell open.
A man in the third row said, "Oh, wow," and kept filming.
Finn stepped up beside me, wide-shouldered in his rented gray suit.
He kept his voice low and easy.
"It's handled, man. I've got security at the gate. Don't even look at her."
I trusted Finn more than anyone alive.
He'd sat by my hospital bed for nine days.
"Thanks," I said.
Delaney's hands were still wrapped in my jacket.
I could feel them shaking through the fabric.
"Wes, please," she whispered. "Don't do this to me. You'll be sorry. Don't marry her."
The whole lawn waited.
Maia leaned toward me.
She smelled like orange blossom and sunscreen.
"Do you know her?" she asked quietly. "I mean really. Anything at all?"
"Not one thing."
"Then it's your call."
"I know what I want," I said.
I reached down and took Delaney's fingers off my jacket, one at a time.
I did it gently.
"I'm sorry for what happened to you," I told her. "Honestly. I am. But I don't know you, and I'm getting married."
"Wesley."
"Please go."
Two men in black blazers came across the grass.
Delaney didn't wait for them.
She got up off the ground with mud on both knees and stared at Maia.
"He'll come back to me," she said. "You'll see. He always does."
Then she walked out through the rows of guests, still holding her shoes.
I turned to Maia.
Her eyes were wet, but she was smiling.
"Still want to marry me?" she asked.
"More than I did ten minutes ago."
"Good," she said. "Go ahead, Reverend."
So I said I do.
When the officiant told me to kiss the bride, I kissed her and meant it.
The guests burst into applause.
I walked my wife back down the aisle with my arm around her waist.
At the end of the lawn, I heard the voice again, inside my head, for the first time in six months.
"New mission available. Target: Delaney Vanstone."
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