Chapter 1 Fractured Memories
# Chapter 1: Fractured Memories
I wake to the sound of screaming. It takes me several seconds to realize the sound is coming from me.
White walls. White ceiling. White sheets that smell of industrial bleach. The screaming stops as abruptly as it began, my throat raw and tender. I've been here before—this moment of waking, this sterile room. How many times? I can't remember.
"Mrs. Harlow? Faye? Are you with us?" A woman in a white coat leans over me, her pen light flashing across my pupils. Dr. Matthews, according to her name tag. Her face is familiar in the way that makes me think I should know her better than I do.
"Where am I?" My voice sounds foreign, like someone else is speaking through my mouth.
"Blackwood Psychiatric Hospital. You've been with us for three weeks now." She scribbles something on her clipboard. "Do you remember why you're here?"
Images flash through my mind like a projector stuck on fast-forward: moonlight gleaming on metal, a scalpel gripped in my fist, blood spreading across white cotton sheets. So much blood. And Rowan's eyes—wide with shock, then understanding, then nothing at all.
"I killed my husband." The words taste like poison. "I killed Rowan."
Dr. Matthews' expression doesn't change. She's heard this before—maybe every day since I arrived.
"That's what you believe happened," she says carefully. "We're working to help you separate your perceptions from reality."
"I remember the knife. I remember the blood." I look down at my hands, half-expecting to see crimson stains embedded in my skin. "I remember his last breath."
She nods, not confirming or denying. "Today might be a good day for you to see something. Are you feeling strong enough to leave your room?"
I don't answer, but she helps me up anyway. My legs feel weak, unused. She guides me down a sterile corridor to a small room with a television and DVD player.
"We've been monitoring you, Faye. I want you to see something from our overnight surveillance."
The screen flickers to life. The timestamp in the corner reads 2:47 AM, three days ago. The camera shows my hospital room, my sleeping form. As I watch, my sleeping self sits up, eyes still closed. I reach for something beside the bed—a sketchbook and pencil—and begin to draw with precise, deliberate strokes.
"You do this almost every night," Dr. Matthews says quietly.
On screen, I draw for nearly twenty minutes. When I finish, I hold up the sketchbook, as if examining my work through closed eyes. A single tear tracks down my cheek before I place the sketchbook back and lie down.
"May I see what I drew?" My voice barely rises above a whisper.
Dr. Matthews opens a drawer and hands me a sketchbook. Inside are dozens of drawings—all of the same face. Rowan. My husband. Some are just quick sketches, others detailed portraits capturing the exact curve of his smile, the particular way his left eyebrow arched when he was amused. In every drawing, he looks at the viewer—at me—with unmistakable love.
"You've filled three of these books since you arrived," Dr. Matthews says. "It's not consistent with someone who wanted her husband dead."
"But I remember—" I press my hands against my temples. "The blood. The knife. His eyes."
"Memory is complicated, Faye. Especially traumatized memory." She sits across from me. "Tell me about the murder weapon again."
"A surgical scalpel. Stainless steel. I took it from—" I pause, confused. "I don't remember where I got it."
Dr. Matthews nods to a security guard by the door. He steps out, returning moments later with a clear evidence bag. Inside is a scalpel, its blade still faintly stained with what can only be blood.
"This was found in your home, by your husband's body," she says, handing me the bag.
My hands shake as I take it. The weight feels right, familiar. But as I turn it over, something catches my eye—an engraving on the handle I hadn't noticed in my memories. I squint to read the small text:
*To Faye, Love R*
"He... gave this to me?" My voice breaks. "Why would he give me the weapon I killed him with?"
"That's one of many questions we're trying to answer." Dr. Matthews takes back the evidence bag. "The police allowed us to show you this because of your condition."
"My condition? You mean my... insanity?" The word feels both wrong and right in my mouth.
"I mean your unique psychological state. You're not here because you're being punished, Faye. You're here because something happened that your mind can't process correctly."
I stare at the drawings of Rowan, my fingertips tracing the pencil lines of his face. "If I killed him, why do I draw him like this? Like I—"
"Like you love him?" Dr. Matthews finishes. "That's what we're trying to understand."
Back in my room, I lie awake staring at the ceiling. The hospital is quiet except for the occasional squeak of nurses' shoes on the polished floor. I close my eyes and try to remember Rowan—not the dying version from my nightmares, but the living man I married.
He was brilliant. A neuroscientist specializing in memory formation. We met at a conference where I was presenting my research on neural pathways. He asked the most insightful questions, challenged my conclusions in ways that made them stronger. Six months later, we were married.
But now when I try to recall our wedding day, I find only fragments: the weight of a ring sliding onto my finger, the scent of lilies, Rowan's whispered promises. The memories feel distant, as if I'm watching scenes from someone else's life.
Why can't I remember our vows? Why can't I picture the venue?
And why, if I loved him enough to draw his portrait in my sleep, would I ever want him dead?
The scalpel bothers me most of all. *To Faye, Love R*. A gift from him to me. But why would a neuroscientist give his wife a surgical tool? For what purpose?
I roll onto my side, clutching the sketchbook to my chest. Outside my window, the moon hangs full and bright, just as it did the night Rowan died—the night I killed him. But now, for the first time since I woke up in this place, I'm not certain that my memories are true.
If I didn't kill Rowan, what really happened that night?
And if my memories can't be trusted, who am I?
Sleep takes me eventually, and in my dreams, I'm holding the scalpel again. But this time, instead of plunging it into Rowan's heart, I'm carefully etching something into the handle. The words form slowly under my steady hand:
*To Faye, Love R*
I wake up screaming again.
