Her Stolen Memories

2- Unnerved

Seattle was Aana's home. Her mother had told her that she was born here and raised here. She had taken over her grandpa's small business, 'Reed Cements' at the age of twenty while studying MBA in economics and built it with her strategies and hard work for years until it became 'Reed Cementations USA', an international brand with millions of profit per year.

Aana's heels clicked on the marble floor as she stormed inside the building with confidence oozing out of her in infectious waves. Her memory was a blank slate now. After the drastic accident, the doctors had barely managed to save her. It took her six months to beat the long sleep of Coma, and another six months to start accepting the fact that she was a newborn person with too much to learn and too much to accept, about herself and also about the world that she had now started to become familiar with.

The clean, while tiles glimmered under her creamy, perfectly manicured feet while the equally white cement walls wielded the big glass windows effortlessly. The giant pillars, set every few feet apart kept the ceilings of the eight floors building uphold. Even she was astonished that this all was hers. That every inch of this building had been built with her sweat and blood, her days and nights and her sleepless nights.

She was proud of herself.

As she stepped forward with Amelia following her close behind, the people shuffled out of her way on their own, sensing her superiority even when she did not make any gesture of being so.

It was really astonishing for people to see such young and pretty girl walking inside the building with an domineering aura surrounding her. Aana's attire was as common as it could get except for the brand name that she wore the clothes of. The dark blue Oscar de la Renta suit with thin, white straps, a sleek, straight pant, and white shirt underneath the jacket with the top three of its buttons open were giving her the most alluring, as well as sophisticated look.

Her shiny, black heels made clicking sound on the ground while she admired the work that was once done by her own hands to make sure everything was as perfect as she wanted it to be. Years of hard work and love and passion and this was the result. She had not felt this happy ever before.

Almost all of the staff in the building was new. The old one had gotten placed in their other international firm. The people working, chatting, discussing stopped and stared at her but she did not wait around. She did not have time. She had missed out on too much and now it was time for her to take back the power again.

"I will see you later." Aana stopped and turned to her mother, but then found her already standing near the lift door.

"Hurry up." Amelia said excitedly, "I will take you to your room."

Aana stifled the groan that almost escaped her lips. She wanted to tell her mother that she wanted to manage everything on her own. There was no use of taking her everywhere with her finger placed in her mom's hand like a child. But then the excited look on Amelia's eyes stopped her from saying anything.

Reluctantly she looked around, taking one more glance at the place that she was now going to be the most of her day and walked towards the elevator.

"Aana!" an overenthusiastic voice shouted from behind.

Aana barely had the time to turn around before she was hugged tightly by someone at least two feet shorter than her even though her height was not even something to be proud of. Her tallness barely managed to touch the lines of five point five. Her arms squeezed in, the heavy man engulfed her for dear life from around her upper waist.

"I missed you here!" The man sniffed as his throat gave out a choking sound, "After... long time... oh Aana."

Before Aana had the time to react or even get over the shock of being hugged by an unknown man so suddenly, a hand with perfectly manicured fingers grabbed his shoulders and pulled him off Aana.

Aana was relived, she could not lie.

"How dare you!" Amelia sneered, "Have you forgotten your place in this company? Who hired you?"

"Mom..." Anna started but Amelia cut her off by inching towards the short man who had suddenly gone very rigid and scared. His fingers started to fiddle in nervousness while his gaze swiped from Aana to Amelia and back.

"Fired-- right now!" Amelia could barely speak through the huffs of anger, "My daughter. Oh God. A f*****g server."

Rooney's confused and fearful eyes went from Aana to Amelia and then around himself to find an escape. He had not realized that Mrs. Reed was with Aana because she was not next to her. As soon as he had seen Aana after a whole year, in his happiness he had forgotten everything and just ran to hug her. The emotions coursing through his body had been uncontrollable.

But he could not understand why Aana was looking at him like he was a stranger who had attacked her? Aana had always been like his own little daughter. Since he had lost Paige while she had been in college in the hands of some merciless rapists, who were now serving their time in the jail, waiting for the date of their death sentence, Aana had always supported him.

After the death of Paige only Aana had been the reason he came to work every day. When she got into the disastrous accident, he had tried multiple times to visit her, but the security surrounding Aana had not permitted him to cross even the vicinity of the building.

"Are you deaf?" Amelia fumed when Rooney stayed rooted to his spot, stock-still, "Security! Get this i***t out of the building right now!"

"Mada... Madam. I..." Rooney's broken words came out in as panic hit him with full force, his frightened eyes found Aana's, hoping to be recognized and saved.

"You heard mother, sir." Aana said gently, unnerved by the unknown man's behavior, "Please leave the building. You are fired."