I Pretended To Be His Crush For Three Years Chapter 19

I Pretended To Be His Crush For Three Years Chapter 19

“Nora.”

Reid’s voice came from the direction of the bedroom.

Nora turned. He stood in the bedroom doorway, phone in hand, his face ashen.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“The system just sent me new instructions.” His voice was tight. “It says my ‘target, Nyssa, is leaving Milan

tomorrow to return to New York. It wants me to go see her one last time before then. Otherwise…”

“Otherwise what?”

“Otherwise it’ll initiate a second memory wipe.” He looked at her, his eyes dark and unreadable.

Nora’s heart sank.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

He was silent for a long time. Then he said something that made her entire body go rigid.

“I think… I should go see her.”

Nora froze.

Not because of what he’d said. Because of how he’d said it. That wasn’t Reid’s voice. It was the system’s.

Cold. Emotionless. Like a pre-programmed machine stating an inevitable outcome.

“Reid?” Nora said his name carefully, testing.

He blinked, as if he’d just come back from somewhere else, his eyes refocusing on her face.

“What?”

“Just now, you…”

“What did I just do?”

Nora looked into his eyes. The warmth from the past few days had returned-not hot, but at least no longer

ice-cold.

She’d seen someone else in there a moment ago, she said to herself.

But she didn’t say it out loud.

Ele busca um anel perdido. Ela, bêbada, foge de assédio e cai nos…

“Nothing.” She let it go. “You said you wanted to go see Nyssa?”

He frowned. “When did I say that?”

“Just now.”

He went silent. His fingers moved unconsciously across his phone screen-unlock, lock, unlock, lock, over

and over.

“Nora,” he finally spoke, his voice low. “Did I… did I say something strange just now?”

“You said, ‘I should go see her.”

His expression shifted.

“I felt like…” He flipped his phone over and placed it face-down on the coffee table. “For a moment just now, I

felt like I wasn’t here.”

“Where were you?”

“In a very dark place. No sound. No light. Someone was speaking to me, a voice repeating over and over

-Your mission isn’t her. Your mission is Nyssa.”

He looked up at Nora, the rims of his eyes reddening.

“Nora… am I turning into someone who isn’t me?”

Nora walked over and took his hand.

His hand was cold.

“No, you’re not,” she said.

“How do you know?”

Because I’m here, she said in her heart.

I won’t let the system turn you into someone else. Because you’re Reid. You’re the one who filled three

hundred and sixty-five pages of a notebook with everything about me. The one who stood before the system

and said, “I choose her.”

You told me once-love isn’t memory. Love is instinct.

Then let me tell you this too-

I won’t let anyone take you away from me. Including you.

“I’ll go with you tomorrow,” Nora said.

“Go where?”

“To see Nyssa.”

He looked at her, something indefinable in his eyes.

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll-” He didn’t finish.

“Afraid.” Nora answered honestly. “But I’m not afraid of her. I’m afraid of you.”

“Of me? Why?”

“Afraid you’ll forget who you are.”

He looked down at their clasped hands.

Ten o’clock at night, Milan time.

Nora left Reid’s apartment and walked along the Navigli canal.

The water glittered silver under the moonlight. From a distant bar came the muffled noise of music and

laughter.

Her phone buzzed.

A message from Hailey: “Nora, I just got an update. Nyssa’s flight tomorrow isn’t to New York. It’s to Zurich.”

“Also… Reid’s agent booked him on the same flight.”

Nora stopped in her tracks.

Same flight?

Was Reid going to follow Nyssa away? But hadn’t he said the system only wanted him to see her one last

time?