He Took the Memory Potion Instead of Me Chapter 08

He Took the Memory Potion Instead of Me Chapter 08

The next morning, Callum came down with breakfast.

This time, the door was locked. He had the key.

It hadn’t been locked the day before.

Callum had thought the madness of the last seven years was finally coming to an end.

It had all started with his investigation.

The company had paid the Caldwell family a settlement.

But when Callum dug deeper, he found out what their lives were really like. Just a regular family,

scraping by.

The parents had scraped together every penny to send their son to a private school.

Their daughter was stuck at the local public school.

Not a dime of that settlement would go to her.

And she was exactly Callum’s age.

The thought landed like a fist.

If his brother wouldn’t pay what he owed, Callum would pay it himself.

The day he transferred, he spotted her immediately.

Hair pulled back in a ponytail, the line of her neck bare.

When she turned to talk to the person next to her, her smile was easy. Unguarded.

She looked like nothing bad had ever touched her.

Nothing like the broken girl he’d pictured.

Callum stood outside the classroom and couldn’t look away.

Later, when the teacher pulled him aside about the “love letter,” he couldn’t stop laughing.

He didn’t even know why.

Maybe it was the image of her marching right up to the teacher with his note in her fist.

Back straight. Chin high. She didn’t need anyone’s sympathy.

He told himself that wasn’t love.

Then one day she grabbed his arm and screamed at those guys, “This is my boyfriend!”

His heart went wild.

But that feeling was wrong.

His brother’s hands were stained, and that stain sat between them like a wall.

He didn’t deserve her.

So he crushed whatever was growing in his chest and buried it under guilt.

He just needed to help her through the worst of it. Get her to the other side.

Then he could disappear, with a clear conscience.

But every time he broke up with her, the anxiety got worse.

The same questions, looping: What if she cried? What if she did something to herself?

So the next day, he’d go crawling back, begging her to take him back.

At least then he had a reason to stay.

He’d been right to worry.

She’d been sick for a long time.

Sometimes he’d say her name and seconds would pass before she responded.

She started hearing things. Conversations he’d never had. Words he swore he’d never said.

The only words that snapped her back were “break up,”

The second he said them, she’d crash back into the present.

Those empty eyes would find him again.

Like she’d been waiting for it the whole time.

Like being abandoned was the only thing that made her feel safe.

But he had never meant it. Not once.

Then she was the one who said it first.

That was when he learned that it didn’t matter whether a breakup was real. The words alone were

enough to tear him apart.

And this time, it was for real.

She’d probably forgotten, but he never uninstalled the tracking app.

One sleepless night, tossing in the dark, he noticed something in her purchase history.

Two hundred milliliters of weedkiller-pure paraquat.

Her twenty-fourth birthday was coming.

Her brother had been twenty-four when he died.

She’d chosen her last stop.

He didn’t even know whether he’d been what pushed her over the edge.

So he tore everything apart looking for answers.

His perfect brother had leaked the engagement rumor-Callum and Sienna, two powerful families joining forces-to drive up the company’s stock.

The story was everywhere. A merger of dynasties, practically a done deal.

The rage hit again, white-hot.

But underneath the anger was terror so sharp it almost broke him. He had to stop her.

So he came up with something insane.

A memory-wipe potion. Drink it together, forget each other, walk away clean.

He said he was tired. Said he just wanted to forget her.

What he actually wanted to say was: I love you.

“Guilt stopped being the reason I stayed a long time ago.”

He prayed.

He prayed that knowing she was loved might be enough to make her want to stay.

So he “locked her up.” Made sure she couldn’t hurt herself.

He just needed her to stay alive.

Just alive. That was all that mattered.