Free Bed of Roses by Rebecca Paisley

“I’m wearing my meal.”
    She ignored his complaint, certain that Mariposa would ease it.
    Sure enough, the cougar quickly and neatly cleaned Sawyer’s chin of every trace of the fish stew.
    “I am glad that I did not kill you, Sawyer Donovan.”
    “That makes two of us.”
    Zafiro cut the apple and popped a sliver into Sawyer’s mouth. “How does it feel not to know who you are?”
    He didn’t want to discuss his memory loss. It was frustrating enough just to think about it. “How long have I been here?”
    “It will soon be eight days. What is it like to have no memories?”
    She wasn’t going to give up. And he wasn’t going to answer.
    “Why do you not want to touch your trunk?” Zafiro asked. “The nuns said you did not like to be very near it.”
    Sawyer squeezed a handful of sheets. The trunk. Truth was, he didn’t know why he didn’t want to look at it, touch it, much less open it.
    All he knew for sure was that every time he saw it he felt almost blinded by a crushing sort of pain. A horror he didn’t know how to overcome.
    And yet he could not make himself get rid of the trunk. Whatever was inside seemed vitally important for him to keep.
    He would not, however, look at it. Not now.
    Someday. Maybe.
    Maybe.
    “Sawyer? What is it like not to have memories?” Zafiro continued to press.
    “I have memories. I just can’t remember them.”
    “Why?”
    His irritation rose like steam from a kettle. “How the hell should I know? That’s what this forgetting stuff is all about!”
    For a few moments Zafiro chewed on her bottom lip, wondering whether or not to voice the thoughts in her mind. “Sawyer…” She reached up to fondle her sapphire, moving the large jewel between her fingers and finally clasping it in her palm. “While you were with fever you spoke…spoke about a big house with white curtains. You said there was blood in the house. Do you think…I…well, maybe the house is a memory you have forgotten and now it is trying to come back to you.”
    He didn’t answer.
    But she saw his body stiffen, and from his eyes spilled an agony that pulled at every compassionate part of her. “I am sorry,” she whispered.
    “For mentioning a house I know nothing about?”
    He’d growled the question at her, and she knew then that if indeed he remembered as much as a fragment about the house with the white curtains, he wasn’t going to discuss it. The urge to pursue further the subject of the bloody house was almost irresistible, but she instinctively realized that for Sawyer to speak about it, to try to remember, would cause him pain a thousand times worse than that of his physical injuries.
    Perhaps in time, as the weeks passed, she would mention the house again. “You have strong legs.”
    He frowned, wondering what his legs had to do with the white-curtained house.
    That house. He’d seen the house in his mind before, while he was awake. Now, apparently, he’d been talking about it in his sleep.
    But where was the house? Had he lived in it? And why all the blood? God, so much blood.
    Whose blood?
    He couldn’t think about it anymore. Though the thought of the house was much like a wisp of smoke that vanished almost as soon as it came to be, the mere notion of it filled him with pain he couldn’t stand or comprehend.
    “Sawyer?”
    He took a deep breath and struggled to assume an ordinary expression. “I have strong legs. So what?”
    “Maybe you are a ballet dancer,” Zafiro explained, relieved by his normal tone of voice. “I saw a ballet once many years ago. The dancers, they had legs like yours, full of muscle. When you are well enough, you will dance for us and we will tell you if you are any good.”
    He still didn’t want to talk about his memory loss, but he for damn sure didn’t want her believing he was some silly ballet dancer. “I am not a ballet—”
    “How do you know?”
    “I know because…because I just know!”
    His shout got him another chicken bite on the