Falling For Us Again

27. AWAKENED MEMORY

Chapter 27

AWAKENED MEMORY

Jenna

Mrs. Anderson’s house feels colder than usual. She is sitting on the edge of the couch, her back straight, her hands clenched in her lap. She’s not looking at us, her gaze fixed somewhere beyond the room, on some invisible point in the distance.

Her face is pale, the lines around her mouth more pronounced, as if she’s spent the last few hours grappling with a truth too heavy to bear.

“Mom,” Dylan says, his voice low but firm, and she turns toward us, her eyes meeting mine for the briefest of moments before they drop to the floor.

She doesn’t say anything. Neither do I. There’s a silence here that isn’t just the absence of sound but the presence of something far more painful—memories, regrets.

Dylan clears his throat. “Mom, I asked you here,” Dylan starts, his voice measured, “because we need answers. Jenna and I...we found out things. Things about Dad... and her mother.”

His mother’s face tightens.

“Things you’ve kept from us,” he continues. “About the accident. About Jenna’s mom. We need the truth, Mom. All of it.”

Her shoulders tense, and I can see the battle raging within her, the reluctance to dredge up a past she’s spent years burying.

For a moment, I think she might refuse, but then she exhales a long, shaky breath and looks up at Dylan, her eyes glossy with unshed tears.

“I always knew this day would come,” she says quietly, her voice rough around the edges. “But I hoped... I prayed that maybe it wouldn’t. That maybe you wouldn’t have to know.”

She pauses, swallowing hard, her fingers twisting together in her lap. I step forward, my pulse pounding in my ears. Every second stretches into an eternity, and I can feel the ground beneath me shifting, the walls closing in as she begins to speak.

“It wasn’t supposed to end the way it did.” She shook her head, a faraway look in her eyes. “Your father...he loved her. Iris, Jenna’s mother. We were both in med school together, and our families were quite close.”

“When our parents insisted that we get married, I was happy about it because I was in love with him. By the time I found out that his heart belonged to another, it was too late. We were already married.”

“Things were good, and your father was a good husband to me. But we moved to Hartlow, and somehow as fate would have it, Iris was living here as well. Seeing each other again after so many years brought up old feelings, and when Jenna’s father found out that she was seeing someone else. He became abusive, and Liam hated to see her suffer.”

My breath catches in my throat. The words sting, not because they’re new, but because hearing them from her makes everything real in a way I hadn’t prepared for. I feel Dylan tense beside me, and I know he’s struggling to process it, too.

“Your mom was going to leave with you,” she continued, looking at me, her voice croaking with emotion. “She was running away. I didn’t know that he was planning on leaving with her.”

Dylan’s mother pauses, pressing her hand against her mouth as if she’s trying to hold back a sob. I feel my stomach twist, nausea rising up inside me.

“They were running away together,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “Running away to save Iris and her daughter, he told me that to my face. He said he had to do this one thing for her, and then he promised he would let her go. But—” She closes her eyes for a moment, her shoulders shaking. “I knew in my heart that he was never coming back. I just didn’t think it was for the reason it ended up being."

"Richard came back earlier than expected, while they were getting in the car and took off after them. It was raining that day. The roads were slick, and they... never made it."

The room spins, the walls closing in, the weight of her words crashing down like a tidal wave. I can barely breathe. My mother died because of a desperate attempt to escape with me and give me a better life, and I’m the only one that survived. I’m the one who lived through that wreckage.

Her eyes are clouded with tears and some emotion I can’t place—perhaps, it’s guilt, or maybe shame. “You were in the car, Jenna. You survived the crash, but... but your mother and Dylan’s father didn’t. Your mother died immediately from the impact. Liam was in a coma, and died a few weeks later”.

The memory rushes back, sudden and fierce.

I’m in the car again, my mother’s voice trembling as she says a prayer. Dylan’s father… I can see his face now, worried but full of warmth whenever he turns to me. He is at the wheel, his grip tight, the rain pounding against the windshield. Just as we rounded a corner, the headlights of a truck suddenly appear out of nowhere, bearing down on us.

I hear the fear in my own voice as I scream, our voices intermingling in a screech of alarm. My mother’s hands grip mine and she looks at me as if she knows this is the end. A tear rolls down her cheeks and she wrap me with her arms.

“I love you, Jenna,” she whispers just as the truck slams into us.

I remember the sound of tires skidding, the scream of metal twisting, and the world spinning out of control. And then—nothing. Silence. Darkness.

I can’t breathe. I feel the room tilt, the walls closing in, and suddenly, everything goes black.

When I come to, I’m on the couch, Dylan’s hands on my shoulders, his face full of concern.

His mother is kneeling beside me, her face pale, worried. My heart is racing, my chest feels tight, the remnants of the memory still swirling around in my mind like a storm I can’t escape.

“Jenna?” Dylan’s voice breaks through the fog, and I blink, trying to focus on his face. His eyes are wide, filled with worry, and I realize he’s been calling my name, trying to pull me back from wherever I’d gone.

“I’m...I’m okay,” I manage to say, though my voice is shaky, and I’m not sure I believe it myself.

His mother reaches out, her hand trembling as she rests it on mine. “I’m so sorry, Jenna,” she says, her voice thick with emotion. “For the terrible way I treated you. You were just a child and didn’t deserve any of it. You weren’t responsible for your mother’s choices.”

"Beyond the betrayal, your father was also threatening me to keep Dylan away from you. I was scared for Dylan. I didn’t want him to follow in his father’s footsteps and suffer the same fate."

"I know that probably doesn’t mean much to you right now, but it’s the only way I knew to protect my son.”

Her apology feels like a knife twisting in my gut. All these years, she’s known.

“I’m sorry,” his mother says again, her voice small and broken. “I’m so sorry.”

For a long moment, no one speaks. The silence stretches out and Dylan reaches for my hand, his grip the only thing that feels real in this moment.

I look at him, searching his face for what… I don’t know.

But all I see is the same confusion and pain that I feel.