The Lifetimes I Remembered

Chapter Sixteen: Ivan

Despite the fact that his arm hurt like hell, he managed to bring the two of them to the diner again. Hannah had offered that he could teach her to ride the motorbike but even when she assured him she was a fast learner and had pretty good mastery, he didn’t want another vehicular accident.

She had sulked for a moment and had displayed that she was upset by his decision and still continually hinted that he should just teach her, saying that he wouldn’t last enough to get back to town.

“We could take breaks in between for me to rest my arm but there is no way I’m teaching you, Hannah.”

“Don’t you trust me?” She asked and he simply rolled his eyes.

“Isn’t this too early to go forth with that statement?” Ivan asked and then smirked at her. “You know, I'm actually quite surprised you agreed to spend this day with me.”

“You were persistent when you said we’ll explore the town together,” Hannah answered in the most nonchalant way she could. As much as she tried to make herself believe, she knew that Ivan would’ve taken note of the way she avoided him before they were stuck at the café.

The two of them entered the diner and Will was pleased to see the two of them again. He said he’d make them burgers and get an ice for Ivan’s wrist. It was now evident that his entire arm wasn’t hurt, it was just simply his wrist sprained, the pain simply shooting to his arm.

“Do you want to head directly home?” Ivan asked once the two of them settled in a booth. He was thrilled that they spent the day together and a part of him didn’t want the day to end. It was already past noon and he couldn’t help but hope that Hannah was still willing to spend a few more hours with him before they head back.

She shrugged and flipped to scan the menu. “It’s still early. Mom and Dom will be home around dinner. I just have to be back an hour before that so I could make dinner. Why?”

Ivan smiled when she looked up at him, her golden eyes bright. “My Dad mentioned a cliff near here. He said it had the most amazing view of the ocean. He also said I loved going there before the accident happened.”

“Do you know where it is?”

“I could ask Will about it. I just really want to see what the fuss was about it.”

Hannah just nodded. “Sure. We could see it before we head back.”

Turned out that the cliff wasn’t that far from the diner and was only a five-minute walking distance. The entire way there, neither of them spoke. Ivan wasn’t exactly sure how he should strike up a conversation with her. They’ve talked when they ate, they talked when he fell at the farm and sprained his wrist to pass the time, but there was also something about the silence that comforted Ivan. It was peaceful.

When they reached the cliff, Ivan marveled at the sight. His Dad was right. It really did give a spectacular view of the ocean below and he knew that Hannah was just as amazed as he was. She sat down, near the edge and allowed the breeze to ruffle her pale hair. He let the sight be committed to memory, allowing himself to inch a little bit on his own personal cliff, teetering on the edge of falling.

“What it’s like?” Hannah suddenly asked, turning to him, “Not remembering the life that you used to lead?”

He looked at her and shrugged. “You’ve been put up to speed on me huh?”

It was her turn to shrug. “Hazel speaks about everything and everyone. She brought you up. She told me about the accident and that your best friend died because of it. I’m sorry to hear that.”

Ivan sighed. He wasn’t sure what made him feel worse when it came to Andre. The fact that it was his fault that Andre’s life was cut too short or that he couldn’t mourn his death the way he should’ve. Because as much as everyone claimed that Andre was his best friend since childhood, it was too hard to believe it when for him, Andre was nothing more than a stranger.

“I’m just sorry that I can’t mourn him.”

His reply didn’t faze her as he thought it should. “You don’t remember him?”

He looked down and shook his head. “Trust me, I’ve tried. I swing by his grave every morning when I jog, reminding myself of who I’m supposed to be while waiting for memories of my life hitting me. It just doesn’t happen.”

“Hazel mentioned that since the accident, you just suddenly changed. It’s like you woke up a completely different person,” Hannah said, her eyes searching his for the answers.

Ivan didn’t know what kind of answers she wanted to hear but all he had to say was that he agreed with what his step-sister said. “She’s right. I have no memory of my life before the accident happened. I couldn’t remember who I was supposed to be. Everyone tried to help me. My Dad, Cheryl. Grace. But my memories seem like it’s never going to make a comeback.”

“Why don’t you just live the life you used to lead?”

“What do you mean?”

Hannah turned away and looked at the ocean. “You broke up with Grace.”

“I couldn’t remember what it was like to love her.”

In truth, there was a brief moment when he thought he would’ve regretted his decision. The relationship he had with Grace could’ve been a trigger if he had allowed himself to stay a little bit longer with her. But something warred within him and he couldn’t stomach another day of being with a girl he held no affection for.

“They say the heart remembers what the mind forgets,” Hannah stated, turning to look at him again. Her golden eyes looked like the sun and for a moment, he realized that the colors of both their eyes were of the same colors of their view at the moment.

“That’s what Grace said but hard as I tried, even my heart couldn’t remember what it was like to love her.” Because his heart could only remember what it was like to love the girl with the liquid gold eyes, the girl that he remembered but had never met at the time he woke up in the hospital.

For a moment, he wanted to confess that to her but knew that it would just ultimately scare her. Instead, he opted to confess another thing. “It gets frustrating to have everyone dictate who you’re supposed to be when you’re not even comfortable with that kind of life. It felt like I was leading someone else’s life. I quit football a week after I got back from school.”

“Couldn’t remember how to play?” Hannah asked, teasing.

Ivan chuckled and shook his head. “It irked me to have people expect things from me. I was clinically diagnosed with amnesia and although the doctor claimed it to be temporary, everyone believed that if I do the things that I did before, it would just reboot my brain and I could be the Ivan they all knew and loved.”

“Isn’t that a treatment to amnesia?”

He huffed and crossed his arms, careful not to hit his bad one. “It is but it frustrated me. Every time I did something far different from the pre-accident version of me, I could see the disappointment in their eyes. They expect me to act in a certain kind of way and I couldn’t do it. It seemed like they all knew the pre-accident version of me but no one bothered to know the one after the whole incident.”

“My brother died in an accident too,” Hannah suddenly said, seemingly disregarding everything Ivan said. But her statement poked his curiosity and he nodded at her to continue, “We were in an accident. Actually, that’s one of the reasons why we moved here.”

“What happened?”

“Drunk driver,” Hannah answered with a sad smile, “Who happened to be my ex-boyfriend. I haven’t told anyone this, not even Hazel.”

“Why are you telling me?”

“Because I know what it feels like to wake up to something you have no clue how to handle,” Hannah said and sighed, tucking her hair behind her ear, “When I went back to school after the accident, there was another story about it.”

“Jake weaved a lie and since he was the mayor’s son, everyone hung onto his every word. No one asked for my side, believing that I was a w***e who had an itch to scratch and Jake was a romantic hero who had his heart broken because I couldn’t get what I wanted.”

Ivan’s jaw clenched, not liking the story she was sharing. “What actually happened?”

Hannah closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead with her palm. “He called me, drunk, asking if I could drive him home. He was at a party of one of his friends. I rode my bike to get to him, concerned about his well-being. When we were in his car, that was when he tried something on me.”

Ivan’s eyes flashed and all he wanted to do was hunt the guy down and wrap his hands around his neck, squeezing tightly until he lost all the oxygen he needed to breathe. “How did your brother get in the picture?”

“I escaped Jake and ran far enough so he wouldn’t see me. I called Mitch to pick me up. He came five minutes later and saw how upset I was. He bought me ice cream and on our way home, at the intersection, a car was speeding right straight to us. Mitch died upon collision.”

“And it was your ex’s car?”

“Yes. But he was the mayor’s son so he got off the hook for homicide.” Hannah said bitterly. “Everyone at school looked at me like I was the one with blood on my hands. And eventually, the whole town looked at me like a murderer and a w***e. My mother couldn’t take it anymore so she moved us here.”

“For a new life and a new slate,” Ivan murmured and reached for her hand with his good one. “I’m sorry for your loss, Hannah.”

Atn that moment, Hannah allowed her walls to come crashing down and allowed her tears to spill. She did blame herself for Mitch’s death but thought she didn’t deserve to mourn him. She robbed him of the life he was supposed to have. Ivan pulled her closer to him and she allowed him to wrap his arm around her, finding comfort in his arms.

“I’m sorry for ruining a good day.”

Ivan shook his head. “We both had baggage we had to bear. I’m honored you told me that.”

Hannah squeezed his hand but didn’t move from the position they were in. Ivan hid the thrill that it sent him. They stayed like that for a moment, lost in both their thoughts. Both of them had a tough couple of months and Ivan wondered that maybe the reason they were brought to each other was because they could fix each other.

After all, didn’t people say it was darkest before the dawn?

“Hannah?”

“Hmm?”

“Earlier you said that sometimes we don’t see the ones meant for us because we’re too busy looking for them in someone else and that it was true for some people.”

“Why aren’t you letting that go?”

He chuckled and she moved to face him. He could only shrug. “I just can’t stop thinking about it. But what if, the one meant for us is someone we look for, not the ones in front of us.”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to look for love,” Hannah said quietly, looking down.

Ivan reached out to touch her face and tilted her head so their eyes met again. “But if we don’t, how will we find it?”