Chapter 1

The doctor said, "It's the early signs of hippocampal atrophy. Your cognitive assessment score is 21. Ms. Bennett, you're only twenty-eight."

The doctor slid my brain CT onto the lightbox. Under the stark white glow, my brain looked like an abstract painting. That faint shadow in the left hippocampus was destiny's mark on me.

"Early-onset Alzheimer's," he declared, taking off his glasses and rubbing his brow. "It progresses faster than in older patients. Memory loss, disorientation, language decline… Eventually, you'll even forget how to swallow."

The air-conditioning in the exam room felt too cold. I stared at that shadow.

I thought about last month when I forgot the elevator code at work, last week when I couldn't find my car in the supermarket parking lot, and yesterday when I walked out wearing my husband, Xander Coleman's white coat, thinking it was my own.

"How long do I have?" I asked, surprised at how steady my voice sounded.

"It varies. In faster cases, short-term memory can noticeably decline within a year. In about three years, you may not recognize those close to you. And in five years…" He paused. "But there are new drugs in clinical trials."

I nodded and took the diagnosis. The paper was light, but it made my wrist tremble.

When I stepped out of the hospital, the early summer sun was so bright it hurt my eyes. My phone rang. The screen showed "Xander". He was the youngest chief neurosurgeon at Mercy Hospital, a genius in the medical field.

And for the past three years, he had treated me as a substitute for another woman.

"I have surgery tonight. I won't be home," he said. His voice over the line was as cold as surgical steel.

"Xander." I tightened my grip on the diagnosis. "What if one day… I forget you?"

There was a short silence. The faint rustle of papers came through the phone. "Don't make such pointless jokes. There's ready-made food in the fridge. Heat it up yourself."

The line went dead.

I stood at the hospital entrance, staring at the words "Alzheimer's disease" on the diagnosis, and suddenly laughed until tears blurred my vision.

How ironic. My husband was an expert on the brain, yet he had no idea his wife was losing hers.

And the woman he could never forget—Shelby Hughes, his late wife—had died of a brain tumor.

*****

My marriage to Xander was basically a business deal.

Three years ago, his beloved Shelby died from a brain tumor. A year later, the Coleman family needed a respectable, well-matched marriage to keep up appearances, and the Bennett family needed the Colemans' backing to survive a crisis.

And me, Ramona Bennett? I happened to resemble Shelby, at least from the right angle.

The first time we met, Xander stared at my profile for ten whole seconds, then turned to our parents and said, "Her then."

The wedding was so bare-bones, it felt like he barely cared. He zoned out during the vows, slipped the ring onto the wrong finger, and before the reception ended, he got a call from the hospital and left me to toast to the guests.

Xander's villa was supposed to be our home, but everywhere I turned, there were traces of Shelby: her favorite brand of aromatherapy candles, the ceramic ornaments she collected, and a photo of her in a lab coat in the study.

Shelby's smile in the picture was bright, and she had a tear-shaped mole at the corner of her eye, same spot as mine. Xander once said that was pretty much why he picked me.

"Don't touch her stuff," Xander muttered drunkenly on our wedding night, pointing at Shelby's things everywhere. "You stay in the guest room."

I hauled my suitcase upstairs. The guest room faced north, cold and gloomy, with a dead sycamore tree outside the window.

For three years, over a thousand days and nights, I was trapped in the shadow of someone who was dead.

Xander would call my name, but six out of ten times, he'd blurt out "Shelby" instead. Then he'd freeze, his expression darkening.

He liked me to wear light blue, the color Shelby loved most.

He wanted me to keep my hair long, down to my waist, just like Shelby, who never cut hers until chemo forced her to.

Even in the heat of the moment in bed, he'd unconsciously kiss the tear-shaped mole at the corner of my eye, murmuring Shelby's name.

And me? I was like a shadow puppet, living in someone else's story. I tried to mimic Shelby's gentle voice, copied the way she tucked her hair behind her ear, even learned to bake, just like she did. However, Xander never bothered to try any of the cookies I baked.

"Ms. Bennett, actually, Mr. Coleman..." Sam Graham, the butler, would sometimes hesitate, as if he wanted to say something.

"It's fine, Sam," I'd always reply, smiling as I shook my head.

But was it really fine?

I was simply too good at convincing myself that if I didn't love, I couldn't get hurt.

A week after I got the diagnosis, I completely blanked out on something for the first time.

That day, Xander came home on time for once. The moment he walked in, he frowned. "Where's the first draft of my thesis? You said you'd print it out today."

I stared at him, totally lost. "What draft?"

"The one I dictated to you last night," he said, irritation written all over his face. "The one about regenerating neurons in the hippocampus."

The hippocampus... Well, mine was shrinking.

"I... I don't remember," I murmured, clutching my apron so hard my nails pressed into my palm.

Xander stared at me for a few seconds, then scoffed. "Ramona, you can't even handle something so trivial now?"

Xander headed straight for the study, and I trailed after him without thinking. On the desk, there was a tidy pile of papers. The draft sat right on top, printed out and even neatly stapled together.

However, I couldn't remember doing any of it at all.