Three days later, I saw the white-haired man again.
This time, he was standing inside Nicolás’s apartment.
I stopped at the doorway.
He looked at me.
I looked at him.
Then Nicolás came out of the kitchen carrying three cups of coffee.
—Perfect. You’re here.
He pointed casually at the stranger.
—This is Adrian Cruz. We’ve known each other since college.
My brain stopped.
—You know him?
Adrian’s eyebrow lifted.
—I believe we’ve met.
Heat rushed to my face.
Nicolás looked between us.
—When?
Adrian answered before I could.
—Outside the hospital.
Nicolás’s smile disappeared.
—What happened outside the hospital?
I wanted the floor to open.
—Nothing.
Adrian sat down.
—She asked for my number.
Nicolás nearly dropped the coffee.
I glared at Adrian.
—Was that necessary?
—You asked whether we had met.
Nicolás turned toward me.
—You flirted with him?
I frowned.
—Why do you care?
He froze.
Right.
According to him, we were only “something like friends.”
Adrian slowly looked at Nicolás.
Something strange passed between them.
Then he asked:
—You haven’t told her?
My attention sharpened.
—Told me what?
Nicolás interrupted immediately.
—Nothing important.
Adrian’s expression cooled.
—I see.
The rest of the afternoon was uncomfortable.
Nicolás kept finding excuses to stand between us.
If Adrian asked me a question, Nicolás answered.
If I laughed at something Adrian said, Nicolás’s face darkened.
Finally I asked:
—Are you jealous?
He choked.
—Why would I be jealous?
—Exactly.
I smiled.
—We’re just friends.
Adrian coughed into his coffee to hide a laugh.
That evening, Nicolás drove me home.
He was unusually silent.
At my door, he finally asked:
—Do you really like white hair that much?
—Always have.
—That’s ridiculous.
I stared at him.
—Why are you offended by my preferences?
He rubbed his face.
—Forget it.
But I didn’t.
Because things had started bothering me.
Nicolás knew how I drank coffee.
He knew I hated coriander.
He knew exactly which side of the sidewalk I preferred walking on.
When I had a headache, he automatically opened the second drawer in my kitchen and found my medicine without asking.
A “friend” shouldn’t know where I kept painkillers.
And every time I questioned him, he changed the subject.
So I began investigating my own life.
Old photographs were easy.
Social media was harder.
Someone had removed dozens of tagged posts from my profile after the accident.
But backups existed.
My university cloud had archived everything.
That was where I found the first photograph.
Nicolás and me.
His hair was white.
His arm rested around my shoulders.
I was looking at him with an expression I didn’t need memory to understand.
Underneath, I had written:
“Three years with the idiot who said I wasn’t his type.”
My hands went cold.
There were hundreds more.
Birthdays.
Trips.
Restaurants.
Christmas.
A photograph of him asleep on my couch.
Another of us holding matching keys.
And finally a video.
Nicolás was on one knee in my living room, holding out a small ring.
Not an engagement ring.
A promise ring.
He said:
—When you’re ready, we’ll get married.
And the woman in the video—me—started crying before throwing her arms around him.
I closed the laptop.
Then opened it again.
I watched everything.
Until midnight.
At one in the morning, someone knocked on my door.
Adrian.
I didn’t let him inside.
—Why are you here?
He looked at my face.
—You found out.
It wasn’t a question.
My voice became cold.
—You knew.
—Yes.
—Everyone knew except me?
—Mostly.
I laughed once.
—Wonderful.
Adrian leaned against the hallway wall.
—Nicolás made us promise not to tell you.
—Why?
His jaw tightened.
—Because he made a bet.
That hurt differently.
Not like losing memories.
Like being turned into entertainment.
Adrian explained everything.
The party.
Nicolás boasting that he could make me fall in love again.
His friends betting on how long it would take.
Nicolás moving out before I returned home so I wouldn’t realize we had practically lived together.
Even the black hair.
—He said you originally rejected him before he changed himself for you —Adrian said.—He wanted to prove you could love the “real him.”
I stared at him.
—And you?
—Thought it was stupid.
—Yet you said nothing.
His eyes lowered.
—That was my mistake.
At least he admitted it.
I asked:
—Why were you so rude outside the hospital?
Adrian gave me a tired look.
—Because my best friend’s girlfriend had just asked for my number.
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
Then I remembered.
—Ex-girlfriend, apparently.
The next morning, I went to Nicolás.
He opened the door wearing a white-haired wig.
I stared.
He stared back.
Then he slowly removed it.
—This looks worse than it is.
—Does it?
His face collapsed.
—You know.
I walked inside.
His friends were there.
The same people from the party.
Nobody spoke.
I placed my laptop on the table and played the old video.
Nicolás looked like someone had punched him.
—You searched the backups.
—You deleted my tagged posts.
—Because I wanted you to remember me naturally.
—No.
I looked directly at him.
—You wanted to win.
Silence.
He came closer.
—I loved you for three years.
—Then why lie?
—Because before, I changed everything for you!
His voice cracked.
—My hair. My clothes. The places I went. I spent a year chasing you while you barely noticed me.
He swallowed.
—When you forgot everything, I thought maybe this time you could choose me without all that.
For a second, I understood him.
That was the dangerous part.
Then I remembered the bet.
—You could have told me we were together and still let me choose whether I wanted you again.
He stopped.
—Instead, you took away the information I needed to make that choice.
He whispered:
—I was scared.
—So was I.
I pointed toward my head.
—I woke up missing three years of my life.
My voice shook.
—And the person who supposedly loved me turned my confusion into a game.
Nobody defended him.
Not even his friends.
Nicolás’s eyes reddened.
—Do you still love me?
I answered honestly.
—I don’t know.
That was worse than saying no.
The memories returned slowly.
Not dramatically.
A smell.
A song.
The feeling of Nicolás’s old white hoodie beneath my fingers.
Fragments.
Within six months, most of those three years had returned.
So did the good memories.
Nicolás running across campus in the rain because I had forgotten an umbrella.
Nicolás learning to cook my favorite noodles.
Nicolás sitting beside me all night when my father was hospitalized.
I remembered loving him.
Completely.
But I also remembered something else.
I had been preparing to break up with him before the accident.
Because toward the end, Nicolás had become obsessed with proving I loved him as much as he loved me.
Every disagreement became a test.
Every boundary became rejection.
The accident had not destroyed a perfect relationship.
It had simply erased the problems along with the happiness.
When I told Nicolás, he cried.
So did I.
But we didn’t reunite.
Sometimes recovering a memory doesn’t mean returning to it.
And Adrian?
For almost a year, nothing happened.
He never pursued me.
Never used my confusion.
Never asked me to choose him.
We became friends.
Real ones.
Then one afternoon, long after my doctor declared my recovery stable, we walked past the same hospital entrance where I had embarrassed myself.
I pointed at him.
—You know, you were unnecessarily rude that day.
Adrian smiled.
—You were my best friend’s girlfriend.
—Technically I didn’t know that.
—Technically I did.
I laughed.
Then I asked:
—If I asked for your number now?
He looked at me.
—Now I might give it to you.
So I asked.
And this time…
he did.
Nicolás had been right about one thing.
I was capable of falling in love again.
What he never understood was that love was not a trick that could be reproduced by repeating the same variables.
Hair color wasn’t enough.
History wasn’t enough.
Even memories weren’t enough.
He bet that if he had won my heart once, he could win it again.
But after losing three years of memory, I learned something he never expected:
The second time, I finally knew enough to choose for myself.
