High school graduation is supposed to be the ending of one chapter and the beginning of another. The excitement of college comes and the mystery to what the future holds. Mine ended in tragedy, and although my life didn’t end and the world didn’t stop turning around me, my heart still broke.

They told me she was dead. But that was a lie.

Her parents had other plans for her that I wasn’t supposed to be a part of. They used her amnesia to steal her from me, her friends, the life she wanted, the future we had planned.

I should have searched harder, longer, but medical school and my residency that followed took over ten years of my life. I drowned myself in work, and when that didn’t numb the pain, I sought relief with a tattoo needle.

A chance encounter changed everything.

There she was, standing in the doorway, singing the lyrics to the song I was strumming on the guitar. After a decade, my love was back. But she was married with two kids. And one of them—her nine-year-old—had eyes that mirrored my own.