EPOV

I slammed the trunk of the Volvo down and tried not to drop the box in my arms. Jasper jerked his head towards the door and went into the house, also holding a cardboard box full of my stuff. Jazz and Alice had made good on their promise to let me turn their attic into my temporary art studio.

I followed Jasper into their huge colonial-style home. The Phoenix heat had not yet faded when I stepped into the coolness of the house. I trudged upstairs, all three flights of them, into the musty attic.

"Is there anything else you need brought up here?" he asked as I dumped the box right near the entrance.

"No, I already carried the easels up. You can put that one on the table, that shit's breakable." I wiped the sweat off my forehead on the edge of my shirt. The heat traveled up in almost-visible waves. I desperately needed to get a fucking electric fan up here or I'd die. "Let's go down, I'm fucking dying."

Once in the pristine kitchen, Jazz popped the caps off a couple of beers. I chugged mine down, slamming it on the countertop before reaching into the fridge for another.

"So…" Jasper still nursed the first beer, only on his third sip or so. "You think you can handle this?"

I snorted. "If you thought I couldn't, would you be entrusting me with this shit?"

"It's mostly Alice's doing. But I'm asking you."

"Yeah, I can handle it. And I still gotta ask you, dude. Have you considered the possibility that this is nothing more than a really elaborate scam?"

Jasper took another swig, tipping the bottle further back. He thought for a moment, and shook his head. "Nah. A scam for what? She's got more money than you—trust fund baby, too. Not to mention an inheritance. And she's not the type to want attention either, believe me."

"So why? Shits and giggles?" I wiped my mouth on my sleeve. Shit, I felt rank. I'd have to shower soon, after I unpacked the boxes in the attic.

"I can't tell you much more than I already have. Doctor-patient confidentiality. But I've been reading up on regression cases similar to hers. It's very rare, what's happened to her. It's called delusional amnesia." Jasper finished his beer and rinsed out the bottle in the sink, adding both of mine. "What I can't figure out is the use of a foreign language of which she had no knowledge."

"That shit's fucked up, man." I remembered what Jasper had told me on the drive to his place, about Isabella's slow adjustment to being awake and off the tranquilizers; this had been an hour before I got there. She flat-out refused to eat the hospital food—not that anyone blamed her—but she was picking up the utensils and the plates and poking at the food as though she'd never seen anything like it. Although Alice translated the words for the food before her, Isabella shook her head and wouldn't touch it. So then she'd gotten hooked up to an IV, and that hadn't gone over well, either. The beeping machine had freaked her out again, not to mention the needles.

"I can't wait for Carlisle to get here. I don't know if he'll have magical answers or what, but I'll feel better once he's on the case, too."

"What else can you tell me about her? That's not confidential?"

"Well," Jasper hesitated. "She works at Rose's. She's the hostess."

"And the thought of her cooking up some crazy lawsuit didn't occur to you?" I gaped at him in disbelief. "She obviously knew, Jazz."

"It's just a coincidence. I was referred to Bella by her friend Angela, whom you saw at the hospital. Plus, we don't have the same last name," he pointed out.

Shit. So crazy-chick worked at Maison Rose, but apparently didn't know my brother and his wife owned the place. I was still suspicious as hell, but whatever. As long as Alice paid up, I didn't care. But there was another thing that bugged me.

"Okay, Jasper, again, what's with the Bella shit? Crazy chick says her name is Isabella." I personally thought Bella suited her better—beautiful. But Alice's translations made use of the latter name.

"Her name is Isabella. But my patient prefers Bella for short. Now this persona is referring to herself as Isabella," Jasper explained patiently.

"Huh. So what am I supposed to call her?" I rolled my eyes at his use of the word 'persona'.

"You'd better stick to what she calls herself now." Jasper smiled slightly before pushing himself away from the counter. "I'm going back to the hospital. We should be back tomorrow at one, discharge is at 12. Alice is helping to bring her home." With that, he waved at me and headed for the front door, grabbing his own car keys from a cracked-glaze bowl near the entrance, placed specifically for that purpose.

As if this were her home. I snorted again, shaking my head. Jazz and Alice were too much do-gooders for their own good. I headed upstairs again, pausing to pull off my sweat-stained shirt. It was sweltering in the attic, and it would only stick to my skin, adding to the heat.

I began unpacking the few boxes I'd brought, slowly making the dusty attic resemble a cramped but well-stocked art loft. The easy motions numbed me, stopped me from over-thinking the situation. Palettes, brushes, thinner, acrylics, watercolors, canvases, charcoal sticks, paper… they all blended together as I held them in my hands once more. I hadn't worked in so long…

As I walked down to the second floor, I thought about what tomorrow would bring. Alice was still bonding with Crazy Chick, speaking to her soothingly in Spanish. I was glad that she would be here as much as she could, since French was similar to Spanish, but not so much that I could speak it and be understood by the CC. Shit, I couldn't help thinking of her in those terms. The only good thing was that if I slipped and called it to her face, she wouldn't understand. Crazy Chick, Isabella… Bella.

I had claimed one of the three guest bedrooms in their insanely enormous house. She would be occupying the room next to mine. I flipped on the shower, shedding the rest of my grimy clothes. A flash of bright blue caught my eye before I closed the bathroom door. The Oxford dictionary I'd bought earlier, sitting on the nightstand. I couldn't imagine what had possessed me to do that; it felt like giving in, as though I believed her bullshit 'I'm-400-year-old-Spanish-royalty' story.

I'd forgotten to check, but I fervently hoped the dictionary included swear words.

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I find it odd that no one's asked me yet what the title Regresa means… it's not a huge secret, but either it's blatantly obvious or no one's really curious… not sure which. I'll be trying a different POV for next chapter… and hopefully have it up by tomorrow night. Please R&R!