The Bouquet

Chapter 6

Your husband was an amazing cook, apparently. You were thoroughly surprised when you awoke the next morning to a homemade breakfast in bed and the blinding smile of the stranger at the foot of the bed. That one night of sleep beside you had appeared to do wonders for him.

You had ended up spending most of the morning learning about yourself over breakfast. It was still strange to you, to not know anything about yourself and have Jin be your direct source of knowledge about your life. You weren't sure if you liked that.

"How old are you?" You asked through a mouth full of eggs.

"I just turned twenty-eight." He responded from his place beside you.

"Twenty-eight? That's young for a doctor, how can I be sure you're a good physician if you barely have any practice?" You chuckled.

"For your information, I'm as much a genius as I am attractive." He replied, shaking his head at your words.

"Mmhm," You hummed. "And how old am I?"

"Twenty." He replied nonchalantly.

"That's an eight-year difference, you cradle robber! How can you say that so casually!" You cried in surprise.

"Cradle robber?!" He choked. "For your information, you were the one that chased after me! You fell for my good looks and incredible sense of humor."

"Yeah, sure thing old man." You replied, rolling your eyes as you heard him sputter beside you in disbelief.

Once you had finished eating he quickly took your plate from your hands and disappeared from the room. He wasn't gone for long, but when he returned he had something else in his hands. It looked like a photo album, it was fairly thick and looked rather new.

"What's that?" You asked curiously, shuffling up the bed so your back rested against the headboard.

"Something to jog your memory." He replied, settling himself into the empty space on the right side of the bed.

He shuffled a little closer to you before opening up the cover of the album. On the very first page, there was a document nestled in the plastic sleeve. The title at the top of the document was large and bold in an elegant font, it was a marriage license. Your eyes flitted over the page, taking in every piece of information you could. Your maiden name was listed there as well as your married name. The date appeared to match up to what Jin had been telling you as well. If that wasn't proof that he was telling the truth then you didn't know what was.

The next page was a picture of you, it looked like a candid shot in black and white. It was you seated at a grand piano with large floor-to-ceiling windows behind you displaying a city landscape. This photo did seem familiar somehow, it felt like it was something you had seen before but it had been such a long time you were unsure if it had ever really happened. Your face scrunched up in confusion as you took a closer look at the photograph. To anyone else, the look on your face in the picture would have been one of intense concentration, but it felt wrong to see it in that manner. In fact, you looked angry. But not the hot adrenaline-fueled anger that was so common, it was a weathered and aged anger. One that had set your face into a frigid calm that challenged anyone to speak to you. You didn't like this picture, so instead of looking at it any longer you frantically flipped the page.

For the most part, the rest of the album was filled with photographs you had no memory of, as expected. There were countless pictures of you and Jin, some of the two of you on dates, others random shots of the two of you, and even some strips of photos you would get from photobooths.

It was when you got the wedding photos that something began to feel wrong. Everything looked normal, from what you understood, but something just felt off. There was this voice in the back of your head, something that was resonating throughout you that was telling you this wasn't correct. That feeling came down on you even harder when you saw some of your solo shots.