After my shift, my doctor, Leo Aversa, was waiting for me outside the restaurant.

He drove me to his private clinic to start our daily log.

"Let's start from the moment you woke up," he said.

"I had a sandwich and went to the restaurant. Then, a couple came in. The man said a lot of things I didn't understand, and the woman seemed hostile. And then… then it gets fuzzy."

Leo watched me handle my phone and suddenly asked, "Elena, do you know what that passcode you just entered represents?"

I looked at him, confused. "It's just a string of numbers. 1018."

Leo paused and let out a long, heavy breath. "October 18th. That's Nico's birthday."

Nico? The man from the restaurant was named Nico, too.

"Leo, who is he exactly?"

Leo didn't answer. He just stared at my screen. "Elena, your brain right now is like a house that's been through an earthquake. Everything inside has collapsed. Some things are buried very deep. If you try to force your way in to dig them up, the whole thing might cave in."

I looked at him, not fully grasping the metaphor. I just stared down at those four digits—1018—and felt a sudden ache in my chest.

Leo handed me a couple of pills and set a glass of water by my hand. "Take your medicine. Let's stop here for today. We'll talk about the rest later."

I swallowed the pills, my fingertips brushing the cold glass. My head was a mess, filled with the memory of Nico's angry, resentful face from earlier.

I couldn't help asking again, "That man, Nico… Was I really involved with him?"

Leo was silent for a long time before he reached out and patted my head. His voice was barely a whisper. "Don't worry about that now. Just get some sleep. Everything will be fine tomorrow."

I gripped the strap of my bag and didn't push further. I said my goodbyes and left the clinic.

The evening breeze carried the salty tang of the sea.

While waiting for the bus, I couldn't resist checking my memo app again. That pinned note stared back at me. "You have a boyfriend. His name is Niccolo. Never forget him."

Niccolo. Nico.

Could they be the same person?

The buried fragments of memory felt like they were shifting, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't catch them.

The next morning, I went to work as usual.

As soon as we opened, a man entered.

He looked familiar, like the same man—Nico—from yesterday.

He walked straight to the table I was wiping and tapped the surface. "We need to talk."

"Good morning, Signore. Are you ready to order?"

He curled his lip. "Let's settle the debt for you pushing me into the ocean first. Then we'll talk about ordering."

I stood there, frozen.

When I didn't move, he continued, "Three years ago, on the Pediterranean, why did you push me overboard during the shootout between the Mancuso and Moretti families?"

A shootout? Pushed overboard?

A sharp, stabbing pain shot through my temples. I had to lean against the table with both hands just to keep from collapsing.

Flashes of imagery flickered through my mind.

Deep blue water. Someone struggling in the waves. The images were disconnected, but they felt terrifyingly real.

"I'm sorry," I blurted out instinctively.

Nico's expression shifted. He abruptly stood and grabbed my arm. "So you admit it? But what good is an apology? When you pushed me, did you even care that I couldn't swim? Did you want me to drown?"

Terrified, I stammered, "I-I'm sorry, Signore. I really… don't remember."

Nico shoved me back and slammed his fist onto the table. "You're still acting?"

He began pacing the restaurant until he stopped at my workstation.

He stared at the counter, which was covered in sticky notes. There were instructions for the register, guides for the espresso machine, and a small chalkboard with polite phrases to use with customers.

Above the sink, a note read, "Put clean plates on the left rack, and dirty ones on the right. Don't mix them up."

The one on the fridge read, "Milk on the second shelf. Vegetables on the bottom. Eggs in the door. Check the dates."

There was also one on the microwave. "Press open, put the food in, then press the button."

Nico stared at the notes for a long time. "Did you write all these?"

"Sì."

He turned to look at me with that same suffocating intensity from yesterday. I felt like shrinking away.

"Why bother writing all this down?"

I lowered my gaze. "My memory isn't good. If I write it down, I can follow the steps and do my job without being a burden to my boss."

Nico searched my face for a crack in the mask, but found nothing.

A second later, he swept the bag of coffee beans off my counter.

The coffee beans scattered everywhere, but Nico offered nothing but a cold, remorseless smile. "Oops. My hand slipped. Please clean that up, Ms. Mancuso."

I didn't argue. I went to the back, grabbed a broom, and began to sweep.

Just as I was about to push a pile into the dustpan, Nico kicked them, sending the beans rolling even further across the floor.

I looked up, confused. "Signore, please. If you could just take a seat, I can finish cleaning this up quickly."

He scrutinized me again, but this time, a flicker of pity softened his gaze. "Elena, this isn't you. The woman I knew was sharp and vibrant, and wouldn't stand for even a hint of disrespect. If someone had done this to you back then, you would have flipped the table on them without a second thought. Yet, you don't even get angry now? Why?"

My fingers tightened around the broom handle.

He was talking about the past again.

I looked at him in confusion. "Signore, do you know me?"

Nico paused, his throat bobbing as he looked at me with a searing intensity.

"The first time we spoke was at your birthday ball. You were wearing a dark green dress and that pearl necklace your mamma left you. When you walked down those stairs, every eye in the room was on you. But you only had eyes for me.

"After we got together, we started planning our escape. You said your family would never allow us to be together, and you couldn't stand the war between our families anymore. You told me you wanted to go somewhere where there was no gunfire, and we chose a town in Alpen."

Small town. Fresh flowers. Laughter.

I didn't know where the images were coming from, but they surfaced in my mind, blurry and fleeting.

Nico watched me closely, searching my face for an answer. "Do you remember any of that?"

The harder I tried to grab the memories, the harder the eraser in my head worked to wipe them away. The pain in my skull intensified.

I had to give up. "I'm sorry. I really don't."

Nico stared at me, his eyes swirling with hatred and mockery, yet something beneath the surface seemed to be breaking.

He whispered, almost to himself, "It's been three years. When I woke up in that hospital bed, Bianca told me you had run away."

Bianca? Was that the woman holding his arms yesterday?

His gaze lingered on my face for a moment before he looked away. "I thought about looking for you."

He swallowed hard. "But I asked myself, if I found you, would I kill you? Or would I take you back to make your life a living hell?"

Nico let out a short, hollow laugh that sounded more like a sob. "Then I thought… you knew I couldn't swim, yet you pushed me overboard anyway. You must have loathed me. I thought that it would be better for both of us if you stayed hidden forever. Yet here I am, standing right in front of you. Fate is a cruel joke!"

He began to clap slowly and laugh loudly. "Elena, I won't forgive you. Since you want to play this game, let's see how long you can keep up the act."

He turned and stormed out of the restaurant, leaving me to finish sweeping in a daze.

During my break, I opened my memo app and typed, "The man named Nico seems to know me from a long time ago."

I was in the middle of sweeping when the restaurant door was flung open.

It was Bianca, the woman who had been clinging to Nico's arm yesterday.

"Elena."

She marched in on her high heels, her voice sharp and menacing. "Nico was just here, wasn't he?"

"Signora, would you like to—"

Before I could finish speaking, Bianca snatched the broom from my hands and hurled it onto the floor. "Nico isn't here anymore. Who are you putting on this amnesia act for?"

She strode over to my workstation and began ripping off the sticky notes I used for my daily routines. She read them aloud, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Is this your new trick for seducing Nico? Playing the helpless amnesiac?

"Do you honestly think if you play pretend and say you don't remember, he'll just pity you and come crawling back? Don't be pathetic. He just thinks you're disgusting."

Bianca shredded the notes into tiny pieces and let the scraps flutter from her fingers.

"Please, stop it," I said, my voice trembling.

But she didn't stop. With every note she tore, she spat out another insult.

My body moved faster than my mind. I rushed to her side. "Please, stop! I need those notes to do my job."

Bianca shoved me hard, sending me sprawling onto the floor. She looked down at me like I was a stray dog. "Oh, now you're begging? Too late! When you pushed Nico into the sea three years ago, did you ever imagine you'd end up like this?"

She crouched and gripped my chin, forcing me to look her in the eye. "Nico is mine. If you ever see him again, I'll tear up more than just paper next time."

Her nails dug into my skin. The pain was so sharp that tears welled up uncontrollably.

Then, a headache set in, and my vision blurred.

Bianca pulled her phone from her pocket and snapped a photo of me. The flash burned into my eyes.

"Look at yourself. What would your family think if they saw you now? Oh, I forgot. The Mancuso family doesn't even exist anymore, do they?" She laughed out loud.

Suddenly, she let go of me, and her tone shifted. She sounded gentle, almost concerned. "Elena, if you're in trouble, just say so. You know Nico. He's always had a soft spot for you."

I looked up, tears streaming down my face.

That was when I heard a second voice. "Bianca, what's going on here?"

Nico looked at us.

Bianca's expression instantly changed. Her eyes turned red as if she were about to cry. "Nico, I just came by to see if I could help. But she didn't seem to want me here. She even tried to call the police on us for causing a scene."

I looked down at the phone in my hand.

In the chaos, I had somehow dialed the emergency number Leo had set up for me.

Bianca walked over to Nico and took his arm, her voice hitching. "Let's just go. She clearly doesn't want to see us."

Nico gave me a long look, said nothing, and followed her out.

As they reached the door, the police arrived, asking who had called and what the problem was.

I opened my mouth to speak, but I couldn't remember the details of the last few minutes.

Bianca took the opportunity to spin the story. She told the officers that I was the one who had pushed Nico into the sea years ago and that she was his savior.

She claimed they had just come for a meal and happened to run into me. They didn't do anything to me, and it was all a misunderstanding on my part.

She stepped close to me and pinched my arm hard.

The pain in my head became unbearable, and I couldn't force out a single word.

By the time I woke up again, the air was thick with the salty scent of the sea.