Married 24 Times

Julian had said that, but he wasn't even home. Not long after he'd left me alone to finish unpacking, he had left on a business trip.

That wasn't disappointment, I promise.

I decided to listen to his words and had placed my rocks all over our room. As I was searching for free space on the bookshelf, I found a rock identical to the blue rock Julian had taken an interest in that now rested on the fireplace mantel. I examined it. Though the rock I owned had been smoothed after I had found it, this one seemed like mine had been when I first discovered it. I struggled to recall where I had found the blue stone, but no matter how I tried, I couldn't remember.

My memories from before I was twenty were all hazy. I could remember some things, but other things were impossible for me to recall. There didn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to the things I could and could not remember. I could remember things from all different years of my life, but certain memories just wouldn't come up no matter how hard I tried.

The blue stone was one of these memories. I knew I had found it when I was little, but I couldn't remember under what circumstances or where. Most memories I couldn't remember had no real effect on my life. Just like the blue stone, they were small things I didn't need to know.

I set the unpolished stone back where I had found it, tucked beside some books on one of the lower shelves. Maybe Julian had been given the stone and wanted to know where I had gotten mine? That was probably why he'd asked about it.

After unpacking my rocks, I moved onto unpacking the other boxes. There were pictures of me and my parents, a few pictures of me and Mia (which I promptly threw into the waste bin), and other keepsakes. One picture near the bottom of the box caught my eye.

It was a picture of the day Julian and I officially became engaged. Though we'd been engaged since our births more or less, when I was nineteen the Leonhart's held an official engagement party.

The party was over the top and beyond belief. Until that point, I'd had no idea the wealth of the man I was to marry, but once my family and I arrived at the party venue, I'd finally understood. Marrying Julian meant marrying into a world I would never understand nor truly belong to.

Our engagement party was also only my third time meeting Julian. We met twice and children, but up to that point, we had never met as adults. Julian was twenty-four at our engagement party and I remember believing him to be the most mature man I'd ever met. He seemed like a perfect god to me without any flaws.

The proposal itself was unlike most proposals. Julian's father had told the guests the story of his father always wishing to unite the Leonhart and Harnet families, but until I had been born, no girls came from either family. He praised me for being born a female and then Julian had slipped a ring onto my finger.

I glanced down at my finger. That same ring now sat there. It was a silver band with a large solitaire oval diamond. Truthfully I wished my ring were a little smaller, but I didn't dare complain or request something else. This ring had sat on my finger for over a year. My younger self loved this ring because Julian gave it to me, but now I felt it was impractical.

The picture was taken after the ring had been slipped onto my finger. Julian and I were standing close together as I showed off my ring with my hand resting on his chest. I was looking up into his face with a glowing smile while Julian smiled at the camera. I felt a lump rise in my throat. Somehow... we looked like a happy couple truly in love. There wasn't a hint of the distain in Julian's face that he would come to show towards me.

Like the stone, this was one of those memories that eluded me. I could not remember the moment Julian stopped smiling my way. He must have looked kindly at me once. I had photographic evidence in my hand. I just didn't know when his expression had changed. When had he stopped believing in our marriage before it even began?

In my past lives, I had never looked to the past for answers, but maybe that's where Julian's secret lay. I just needed to remember what had made him so hateful. Why was the Julian in my photo so much different? In the picture his hand was wrapped casually around my waist and you could see the grip with which he held me to him. I couldn't be sure of my own memories anymore since I knew they were tinged with too much pink, but I had felt safe and protected.

I don't think I could ever safely say Julian had loved me, but I knew at one point there had been something there besides just the obligation he claimed was his motivation.

I set the picture aside and began searching through my other boxes for more evidence. There had to be something, somewhere, to help me remember. And if I didn't have any of the evidence...

I'd have to pay a visit to that woman.