Hannah’s struggle with memory loss and Rafael’s pain
When I began writing the second book, I knew it had to surpass the first — to be sharper, darker, and more affecting. I asked myself what fresh cruelties I could visit upon Hannah and Rafael to deepen their trials and test their bond. After the first book’s events, Hannah begged Rafael to take her to Paris, and from that plea their European odyssey began. For three years Rafael was Hannah’s anchor, steadfast beside her through the long nights when nightmares of those who murdered the faculty staff haunted her sleep. Whenever those visions returned, Rafael refused to leave her; he would soothe her with long, aimless walks along the Seine and nights spent watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle at midnight. Their bond felt unbreakable — and I resolved I would be the one to put that to the severest test.
When Daniel calls Hannah to tell her that Connie is getting married, a familiar fear begins to creep back into Hannah’s thoughts about returning to the States. Yet after their conversation, her visions come rushing back; shaken but resolute, she wakes Rafael and tells him she is ready to travel back for Connie’s wedding. After she is murdered, shortly before her wedding, Hannah suspects that someone from her past has come back to haunt her. The issue that haunts Hannah across all three books is that, in trying to protect Rafael and make sure nothing happens to him, she acts in secret and makes choices that ultimately land her in danger. The most daunting scene for me to write is the one in their apartment, when she studies a photo of her and Rafael, murmurs “I’m sorry, Raf, I’m doing this for both of us,” and sets off for New Orleans. She has no idea that it will be the last time she sees her beloved godfather; after confronting the culprit in her hotel, she loses her memory and everything changes.
When Rafael learns that she is in the hospital, he immediately flies to Los Angeles, arriving with worry deeply etched on his face; when she finally awakens, he is shattered to hear the words no godfather wants to hear as Hannah looks up and asks, “Who are you?” — leaving Rafael utterly heartbroken and reeling from the sudden absence of the bond he had trusted and relied on for so long. The pain Rafael carries after the doctor tells him of Hannah’s memory loss is unbearably raw and utterly heartbreaking. Even though she doesn’t remember who he is, at nights Rafael curls up and cries himself to sleep, the tears a quiet confession of his grief. Just seeing Hannah so completely lost, failing to recognize familiar faces and strangers alike, is steadily destroying his very soul. Even though Bree tries to reassure Rafael that everything will eventually be okay, those words do little to ease the persistent ache he still feels.
Hannah felt a lot of pressure from everyone who kept reminding her who she had been in the past. The weight of their expectations tugged at her until she could hardly breathe. The biggest blowout comes near the climax, when she finally explodes at Rafael and tells him off. She yells at him and blames him for all the dangers they have faced together, unleashing months of fear and resentment in a single, raw moment. Then, with a voice edged in pain, she shouts, “I AM NOT THE PERSON YOU WANT ME TO BE! I AM NOT YOUR GODDAUGHTER, I AM NOT HER!!” Those brutal words hang in the air; Rafael, shattered, walks away. Not long after, he writes her a heartbreaking letter, one that confirms the distance her outburst has carved between them. It is thanks to this letter that Hannah recovers her memory.
But why have Hannah lose her memory? Hannah had been struggling a great deal over the past three years. Those years were brutal for her, and in the early months Raf would sometimes see her suffer flashbacks, ordinary faces warping into the faces of her tormentors. She once confessed to him that she wished, more than anything, she could forget the things she had been through. It is no wonder my second book won at IIBA!
