Gone Before You Remember Novel by Judyian _ Novel





Gone Before You Remember Chapter 01

"Your brother will remember everything in about ten days. Just stay patient," the doctor said to Elena Bennett over the phone, insisting he was one hundred percent sure this time.
He had said the same thing six months ago, yet Adrian Bennett still remembered nothing of his past.
"I'm done waiting," Elena whispered, eyes cast downward.
She had already promised her biological parents, Richard and Priscilla Henderson, that she'd be in New York in ten days for the family reunion ceremony.
Taken by their enemies at the age of five, she could finally be with them again nearly twenty years later.
And she would never set foot in Los Angeles again.
A moment later, Elena ended the call. Just then, the bedroom door swung open.
Adrian stormed in with a dark expression and snapped, "Elena, I only asked you to give Maddie a little blood. It's not going to kill you. Why won't you do it? You're so selfish!"
Selfish?
Even though she had already made up her mind to leave, a searing pain still ripped through Elena's chest, and her eyes burned with tears.
Adrian's childhood sweetheart, Madeline Fraser, was about to undergo heart surgery, but the hospital's supply of Rh-null blood was dangerously low.
A few days ago, Elena agreed to help.
But with her low blood sugar, she blacked out halfway through the blood donation.
Adrian saw it happen with his own eyes. Yet all he did was softly reassure Madeline not to be scared, then coldly instruct the doctor to keep drawing blood.
He worried about Madeline's well-being, but Elena's life meant nothing to him.
He even had the nerve to call her selfish.
Elena fought back the tears threatening to spill over. "I just don't want to! I don't care if she lives or dies."
Her words angered Adrian even more. His gaze turned vicious, as if he were staring at an enemy. "This isn't up to you. You're going today whether you want to or not!"
With that, he grabbed her wrist and dragged her toward the door, his forceful grip showing just how resolute he was.
Despite Elena's desperate struggles, she was eventually pinned down by him at the blood draw table.
Seeing this, the doctor asked whether she truly consented to the donation.
Before Elena could answer, Adrian bent close to her ear and hissed through clenched teeth, "Don't forget—if my family hadn't taken you in and let you live in comfort in my sister's place, you would've died long ago! You owe me this!"
Elena froze.
Twenty years ago, Adrian's five-year-old sister died. As if by some twist of fate, on that very same day, his grief-stricken mother, Brenda Bennett, rescued Elena and adopted her.
Elena took the poor girl's place.
And because of that, Adrian blamed her for his sister's death.
After a long silence, Elena let out a bitter laugh.
Fine. She would pay him back—all of it.
She closed her eyes, her voice utterly calm. "Doctor, go ahead."
When the sharp, icy needle slowly pierced her skin, Elena heard Adrian's sigh of relief. The tears she had held back for so long finally slipped from the corners of her eyes.
She knew he was pleased that she had given in and that he was worried about Madeline on the operating table.
She was also sure that he felt nothing for her and wouldn't wipe away her tears.
And yet, once, when she had a high fever and clung to him in tears, afraid of getting a shot, he had held her against his chest and comforted her. He told the doctor to be gentle, his face filled with worry, as if he wished he could take the needle in her place.
Adrian had forgotten that he loved Elena.
Six months ago, he was in a car accident and lost his memory.
All he remembered about Elena was that she was just his adopted sister—and he could barely stand the sight of her.
The ten years they had spent relying on each other after their parents died had been wiped from his memory.
Two orphaned children, stripped of their inheritance by greedy, vicious relatives and thrown out of their home, were left with no place to go but a leaking house where they survived on plain bread.
She was 15 then, and Adrian was 19.
At their lowest point, they had only 30 dollars. They barely scraped through that month on one sandwich a day, paid for by the bottles and junk she picked up and sold.
Supporting one another, they made it through those brutal times.
Things only really started looking up a few years ago when Adrian shot to fame, winning Best Actor as a dark horse in a hit film.
As she grew older, Elena gradually realized that what she felt for him had become something else.
Her love grew wildly, but as his sister, she had to keep it hidden, and it tore her apart.
Three years ago, the media caught Adrian at Disneyland with a woman. They looked intimate, and the public immediately speculated that she was his girlfriend.
Devastated by the news, Elena turned to bottles for comfort. Lost in a drunken haze, she let her true feelings take over, clinging to him as she cried her heart out.
"Adrian, I don't want to be your sister. Could you not like another woman? Could you maybe like—"
In her entire life, filled with insecurity, that was the only reckless, brave thing she had ever done.
But no matter how brave she tried to be, she failed to ask, "Could you maybe like me?"
She was afraid that Adrian would be disgusted by her feelings. Then she might lose the only family she had left. Besides, she didn't want to jeopardize his hard-earned career.
Fortunately, Adrian only let out a deep sigh at the time. "You cry so easily. How are you ever going to manage without me?"
Then he smiled, as if he had finally gotten the answer he had been waiting for.
He gently cupped her face and lowered his head to kiss her.
"Ellie, don't cry. She's not my girlfriend, but a tool to figure out how you really felt.
"I like you. I like you very much."
She had been overjoyed the next morning when she woke up. But now, all she felt was deep pain—Adrian had forgotten everything between them.
Two decades of precious memories had been wiped from his mind.
Now, no one knew they'd been in love—except her.
So not a single soul could make Adrian believe that he had ever loved her.
For the past six months, Elena had tried everything to help him recover his memory. She had told him about the past again and again, only to be met each time with his growing impatience.
Yesterday, just as she was about to start, he snapped, "Can you shut up? I don't see why forgetting things about you is such a big deal."
The icy look in his eyes shattered what little hope she still had.
Then today, he announced his relationship with Madeline online and even proposed to her, all to keep her from being afraid of the surgery.
He'd started dating Madeline after the memory loss, and six months had gone by. Elena waited the whole time, trapped in the role of a sister while he was intimate with another woman.
But never, not even once, had she imagined that he would marry someone else.
The one who remembered everything was the one who suffered most.
So Elena decided she would no longer wait for him to regain his memory.
At last, the needle was withdrawn. The puncture site still hurt, but her heart felt hollow.
Adrian was pacing outside Madeline's operating room. Elena looked at him, her eyes cold with pain.
"Adrian, will you regret this?"

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