In Front

Harrie woke up slowly. Before her eyes had opened, her mind started wandering.

I need to feed Puzzle. I need to go for a run. I have a meeting at 10am at work.

This was followed by more of the usual tasks she did every day. By the time Harrie’s alarm screeched out, her hand was already poised above her iPhone to silence it. Her hazel eyes fluttered open and her heart lurched inside of her chest. Fear filled her veins as her silent alarm rang out in her mind that something was wrong.

This is not my bedroom.

Harrie stood up and spun, her head whipped back and forth looking for any immediate danger. She relaxed ever so slightly at what she saw. The room was just an average bedroom. A large wooden bed sat in the middle, sided with matching side tables adorned with lamps, wooden draws, and closet doors with a mirror. There were no paintings on the walls, and everything seemed so white. White sheets. White floorboards. White paint on the walls.

Harrie’s own bedroom was filled with colour. She had turquoise walls, plants in every possible free space, rattan bookshelves filled with her treasured stories and a large painting by an up and coming artist she was fond of at the local markets. This room was hers if it had been stripped of its very soul.

The bedside draws closest to her held a glass of water, her phone plugged into a charger and a puzzle book. She grabbed the book and flicked through. Her own handwriting decorated the pages. She had filled these puzzles in. Yet she had no recollection of any of them.

This was textbook Harrie. She always did puzzles before bed; she couldn’t sleep unless she had a glass of water and her phone was never far from her hands reach.

So why was this all coming up blank?

Harrie had the sudden thought that she had been kidnapped. Surely there would be signs. She rubbed her wrists and studied them carefully looking for any traces of being bound. Nothing…

Harrie went to the closet and stared at herself in the mirror. Her hand automatically went to her mouth that gaped open. Harrie almost expected the mirror woman not to follow her movements. Certainly, that wasn’t her? The woman gazing back at her looked tired and frumpy. Sad even. She appeared to be Harrie on her bad days. Even her brown hair looked dull as if her colour had been drained out. Harrie opened the closet doors. Partly to see inside, partly to get those haunted eyes off her.

Inside neatly dangling from coat hangers was an entire woman’s wardrobe. Harrie was about to leave when she caught sight of something familiar. There sticking out near the back was her dress. Something sunk in the back of Harrie’s chest. Whatever was going on was real.

She pulled it out. Her black and white polka dot dress. One of her favourites. Without thinking Harrie peeled off her pyjamas and slipped into her dress. She looked in the mirror again. The dress was tight around the top and at her waist flowed out. Inspired by the beautiful dresses of the 1950’s. What the hell was going on?

A loud bang rung out from outside the bedroom door. Some one else was in the house. The hairs on Harrie’s arms stood to attention.

Her heart hammering against her ribs, Harrie carefully exited the bedroom and crept down the hallway. More white. It seemed the whole house was white.

Harrie came out to what had to be the kitchen. She couldn’t see anyone and was about to move forward when a man stood up. He turned to her when he noticed her lingering in the doorway.

‘Babe… I’m sorry, did I wake you up? I dropped the pan.’ The man looked at her with soft eyes. He was clearly concerned that he had upset her. But who the hell was he?

The man had dark black hair, solid arms, and a thick course black beard. He looked strong, like a wood cutter from a children’s story.

 ‘I…’ Harrie started but couldn’t get anything else out. It didn’t matter anyway because the man started talking as if she hadn’t.

‘You’re still mad about last night.’ It wasn’t a question. He came over to her. Those powerful arms still holding the pan he had dropped.

‘I don’t know you.’ She said taking a step back as he reached her.

‘Don’t know me… don’t know me? Harrie, I said I was sorry. What more do you want from me? I don’t know you. How about that? Ever think of that? No. I said I was sorry. I’m making pancakes. Come on, you love pancakes.’

‘How long have we been together?’ Harrie asked trying not to show her fear to this man.

‘Ahhh. You can’t trick me. Three years. What? That some kind of test? You think I had forgotten. Three years baby.’ He waved his finger at her accusingly.

Three years?

Harrie felt like she was going to throw up. There was no way this man was her boyfriend.

Harrie was married.

Harrie and Nathan had been married October 1^st, 2025. The theme had been enchanted forest, and everything had been perfect. Nathan was the kindest and most charming man Harrie had ever met. He made her laugh until she couldn’t breathe, made her fall in love every day and made her feel safe without even trying.

This man in front of her, he made her want to check behind her shoulders every ten seconds. Harrie felt like her entire life had just spiralled down the drain. No Nathan, no colourful house, no P`uzzle?

‘Puzzle?’ Harrie asked her words barely more then a whisper.

‘Puzzle? What the hell are you talking about woman?’

No Puzzle. Puzzle was Nathans and her dog. He was a brown toy poodle X shih tzu. And he no longer existed.

‘Lucy?’ Lucy was Harrie’s best friend. They spoke every day and never went more than a week without seeing each other.

‘I thought I told you not to talk to that thing. Have you been talking to her again?’ His voice was cold steel. No emotion. Just the underlying promise of punishment.

‘No. I need to sit down.’ Harrie moved past the man, careful not to touch him and sat on one of the white chairs surrounding the table in the kitchen.

She put her head in her hands and fought back tears. Had Harrie lost her mind? Had she imagined everything in her head? Why was this happening to her?

Harrie suddenly remembered her phone she had left sitting beside her bed. The man had just made it to her, when she jumped up and raced back to the bedroom. He called out her name uselessly behind her, but she paid him no attention.

She frantically grabbed her phone and started going through it. There had to be proof that she wasn’t crazy. A photo of Nathan or Puzzle. Anything that could help her.

Her album was filled with photos of the dark-haired man. She scrolled all the way back to three years ago and saw the decline in the spark of her eyes as time rolled past forward.

No Nathan or Puzzle. The date read August 23^rd, 2020.

The man burst into the room.

‘What the hell has gotten into you? Is this still about last night? I told you a hundred times already. I didn’t mean to push you. I tripped. It’s not my fault your head hit the wall.’

He was apologetic but not. Like honey laced with drops of acid.

He had said her head hit the wall. Could that have caused this? Was she simply confused or even concussed?

Harrie struggled to draw enough air into her lungs. Tears were threatening to pour out of her eyes and once she started Harrie didn’t think she would ever be able to stop. She was grieving. Grieving for a life she never even had.

‘I’m going to make pancakes. Come into the kitchen and sit.’ The man said.

Harrie didn’t think she had a choice judging by the control in his voice. Something inside told her to obey.

Harrie sat at the table picking at the pancakes the man had made. They tasted like flour, but she didn’t dare say so. Instead she faked a smile and nodded her approval which seemed to make him beam. Judging from her text messages, his name was Brian. Thankfully, Brian seemed to be satisfied and that all was forgiven. He stood up instead of watching her with his beady dark eyes.

‘How about you make it up to me in the bedroom.’ He said smirking.

Harrie felt revulsion slither through her. The thought of him touching her made her want to scrub her skin with a metal scourer. She had to get out of here. She had to escape.

‘I have to go to work. I have to get out of here.’

Before he could say anything or even worse stop her, Harrie ran past the bearded man, out to hallway, turned and ran the opposite way to the kitchen. Her best guess was that was where the front door was.

There was a small table at the end of the hallway. Harrie grabbed the black handbag that sat on it and shoved her phone inside. She heard the heavy footsteps of Brian coming down the hall. She looked and saw his face contorted into rage. His fists clenched at his sides. Harrie quickly grabbed the pair of ballet flats near the door and made her escape. Once on the other side she wasted no time running down the apartment complex hall.

Brian burst out of the front door and bellowed her name. Harrie instinctively put her hands on her ears as she ran. An old lady had just entered the elevator and had her hand on the door holding it open for her. The second she was inside the lady started tapping the close door button. Harrie hadn’t realised she was holding her breath until the doors slid shut and they began descending. She gulped at the air greedily. The woman didn’t speak to her. She didn’t need to. Harrie was safe.

Once downstairs Harrie left the building without looking back. She would go to the only thing that she could count on, work. Harrie worked in marketing. She spent her day designing add campaigns to clients. She loved nothing more then standing in front of a room and using her words to weave an idea that made people swoon. To her it was like magic. The pied piper with his magic flute. Come, follow me and I will lead you to something amazing.

She worked at a marketing firm called Martin Louis. The only firm to work at in her opinion.

As Harrie walked she made an inventory of the handbag. Keys, wallet, lipstick, and a $50 note hidden inside one of the pockets. She could only assume that Brian didn’t like her to spend money on top of his other list of rules. Harrie shook off a shudder at the thought of him again. She used her phone to order an Uber and get herself the hell out of this neighbourhood.

Harrie took the Uber ride over as a chance to clean herself up. She ran her fingers through her hair and tied it back up, ran the lipstick over her lips, and rubbed a little onto her cheeks for a pinch of rosiness. She noticed a small array of slices of chewing gum laid out by the Uber driver and popped one into her mouth.

It wasn’t until Harrie stood inside the lobby of Martin Louis that she even considered the possibility that she didn’t work here anymore. There was no way she had made that up too. Was there? It dawned on her that she had conducted perfect husband, perfect house, perfect dog, why not perfect dream job too?

Before she could let it crush her spirit anymore than this day already had, Harrie approached the front desk. She tried not to consider the fact she didn’t recognise the pretty blonde receptionist.

‘Hi, I was wondering if you could tell me the name of your head of the marketing team?’ Harrie asked her voice wound tight in anticipation.

The receptionist regarded her for a moment looking her once over then smiled.

‘That would be Mr. Ken Price. Do you have a meeting?’ She asked with a warm smile.

Her heart sunk to the ground then kept sinking. That was her position.

‘No, thank you.’ She managed out.

She spotted a chair in the waiting area and plonked herself down. What was she going to do now? Return to the awful white apartment? Back to the man who would keep accidently tripping and hitting her head on walls until one day she wouldn’t wake up? Did she even have a job to go to? Why couldn’t she remember anything!

Harrie’s hopelessness was replaced by frustration. She was about to get up and leave before she broke down in tears or worse screamed, when the elevator doors opened and out stormed a woman in a red dress. Her mascara was running down her face in chunky clumps. The women kept trying to wipe her tears away but instead just smeared the mascara like war paint across her face. In her hands she held a cardboard box with the usual desk items piled inside crudely. All eyes turned to her and quickly turned away as she passed. The second elevator doors slid open and out walked Meg Hidler. She was the neck that held up Martin Louis’s head. She was Harrie’s boss.

Harrie got up and hastily walked to the drink cooler and began pouring herself a cup of water so she had a good view of the front desk. She watched as Meg made her way to the reception desk.

‘Britney, make sure you remove Miss Miller from our system promptly. The last thing we need is her getting back in here. It’s bad enough I have to run damage control on a number of our clients already after what she’s done.’

‘Yes, Mrs Hidler, right away.’

‘Good and Britney, put out an advertisement for her replacement. I want someone at her desk by the end of the week. Next week is already going to mean overtime and with one less person I don’t know how we are going to manage.’

Harrie didn’t even have time to think. Her feet were moving towards Mrs Hidler.

‘Mrs Hidler?’ She called out as she reached her stopping the woman who was not only an amazing boss but a friend.

‘Yes?’ She asked impatiently.

‘My name is Harrie Williams. I would like to fill that desk.’ Harrie smiled a confident grin.

This was where she belongs after all. Seconds ticked by as Meg considered her. On any other day Meg Hidler would have laughed and kept walking. You didn’t just walk into Martin Louis and demand a job. Her mouth moved up to one side as she pondered her options.

‘I can’t believe I am going to say this but what do I have to lose. Upstairs, let’s go. You’ve got five minutes to prove to me I shouldn’t forget your name.’ Meg turned and began walking again.

‘Well Miss Williams, I have to say I am impressed.’ Meg Hidler had extended those five minutes into twenty. Harrie had been able to use those magic words of hers and sell not an idea, but herself. She had made Meg not only believe in her but want her. That was her gift after all.

‘There has been quiet a scandal this week and we are kicking our legs trying to get above water. So, I am going to throw you into the deep end. You either sink or swim. I don’t need to tell you that only one of those options leads to you returning tomorrow. I have a new client. Nothing too big but worthwhile. I want you to meet with them. You can send me through all your credentials tonight if you haven’t royally screwed up.’

‘Lucky I’m a strong swimmer.’ Harrie said standing up.

Meg’s eyebrows went up and she smiled. Meg liked a woman who was sure of herself. Harrie knew that.

She followed Meg to one of their meeting rooms and was left there with a good luck.

Harrie opened the door and for a moment couldn’t believe her eyes.

Nathan swivelled towards her in his chair. His sandy blonde hair was swept to the side neatly. He smiled lazily and warm. A current charged through Harrie’s body at the sight of him. He got up and stood staring at her.

‘Do I know you?’ He asked and chuckled nervously.

‘Not yet.’ She smiled taking his outstretched hand.

The current, stronger this time flew through her all over again.

‘I’m Nathan.’

‘Harrie.’

He hadn’t let go of her hand yet and Harrie didn’t want him too.

She didn’t care if she couldn’t remember her past.

After all, her entire future was in front of her.