The Memory of Us: A Standalone Soulmate Romance

by Claire Raye

  “I would love to see it,” I respond, giving Nora a quick smile before turning my attention to Alice. “And I guess I owe you a thank you.”

  “Me? Why?” Alice asks as if she couldn’t have possibly played a part in any of this.

  “You’re the reason Nora was in San Diego in the first place. We never would’ve met if you hadn’t been living there, and I never would’ve found her now if you hadn’t encouraged her to write her book.”

  “I guess I never really looked at it that way. It was a hard time for both us and I think that clouded the memories of those days. Either way, I’m glad I could help.”

  There’s a lot I don’t know about Nora, but as I sit here with her and Alice, I’m learning, and I know once we’re alone, we’ll have more to talk about.

  We talk a little more with both Alice and Nora sharing stories from the road trip they took last year, and all of us laughing at some of the funnier things that happened.

  Glancing back at the clock in the kitchen, Alice says, “I’m sorry to rush you guys, but I have to get to work soon. Got a lot of kids to photograph today.”

  “I know,” Nora responds, standing up from the table and carrying our empty glasses into the kitchen. “Thanks for letting us come by today. I’m so glad you got to meet Elliot.”

  “Yeah, yeah, of course. How about we do dinner tonight or another night this week with James too?” Alice questions and looks at both Nora and me. “How long are you here for?” Alice asks, this time her question is directed at me.

  “I’m not certain,” I answer, and I’m sure it makes me sound weird that I never booked a return flight. “I still need to book a flight back home.”

  “Oh, so this visit is pretty open-ended?” Alice’s eyes widen as she looks at Nora and I’m not sure if this is a good or a bad thing. I know how this looks to the outside observer. The only two people this situation makes any sense to are Nora and me, and I imagine right now Alice is wondering what my intentions are. I can see her mind trying to sort out details and questions. Am I planning to return home? Where is home? Do I have a job? Am I staying with Nora?

  “I’m planning to head back to Chicago in a few days. I have to get back to work and I’m sure Nora does too.”

  “Ok, then dinner for sure tonight,” Alice says and Nora agrees, checking with me before she answers.

  As we’re leaving Alice’s apartment, Nora asks if I’ve ever been to New York City, and wants to know if I want to see some of the sights. I’ve only been to NYC briefly for work, and the time I came to find Nora, so I agree.

  We set off, catching a taxi on the corner and Nora directs the driver to the Empire State Building, and I can’t help but laugh.

  “What?” Nora asks, as she gives my side a pinch and I laugh a little louder.

  “You do realize I live in Chicago? The Sears Tower?” I say as if to let her know I’ve seen tall buildings in my lifetime.

  “Isn’t it called the Willis Tower now?” Nora scoffs jokingly. “And I know you’ve seen tall buildings, but the Empire State Building is like tourist shit and today we’re tourists.”

  “Tourist shit it is then.”

  We spend some time taking pictures at the top of the Empire State Building before moving on to a boat tour of the harbor and the Statue of Liberty. We stop for lunch, buying New York style pizza from a small walkup, and we argue about which has better pizza, New York or Chicago with Nora arguing it’s definitely New York. But I hold firm on my point that there’s a time and a place for both. The convenience of being able to eat and walk totally goes to New York, but Chicago wins when you want to eat yourself sick.

  As we walk hand in hand down the sidewalk to our next stop, I realize I have never felt so comfortable with someone in my life. It’s effortless being with Nora and I know all our efforts to find each other weren’t in vain. It doesn’t matter that it took thirteen years or that we barely know each other or that there were other people in our lives. We belong together.

  I stop, tugging Nora by the hand and away from the crowded sidewalk. Pulling her close, I kiss her, my hands on either side of her face and I feel her smile against my mouth. I could kiss her forever and never tire, but I pull away, resting my forehead to hers, as I whisper, “There’s no place I’d rather be.”

  A part of me wants to tell her I love her, wants to tell her the words she couldn’t say out loud just a little while earlier at her sister’s apartment, but I want her to know I mean it, that it’s not just something I’m saying in the moment.

  “Me either,” she murmurs back, her eyes closed as she takes a deep breath, as if she’s trying to commit everything about our time together to memory. I feel Nora’s arms tighten around my waist and she rests her head against my chest, and says, “You smell exactly how I remember and it’s perfect.”

  We finish our day of being tourists with the September 11th Memorial, and then pick up Chinese food on our way back to Nora’s apartment.

  The silence in the cab ride back is comforting, with Nora sitting next to me, her head resting on my shoulder as we both take in the views. Tired but in the best possible way.

  Nora immediately sits down in front of the coffee table on the floor, her legs tucked underneath her. I set the food down on the table and take a seat on the floor across from her. Opening the bag we both grab a few containers and the chopsticks. We ordered way too much but neither of us seems to care as we start eating right away.

  After Nora has taken a few bites she retreats to the kitchen and returns with two beers and two bottles of water. Setting them down on the table, she trades me food containers and we both keep eating. Everything about what we are doing is so simple and natural, like we’ve been together for years rather than just hours.

  Out of nowhere, Nora breaks the silence, “What’s your favorite movie?” she asks, a smile on her face knowing this is the way we started out. It’s that random question and answer, but still somehow enough to make us feel closer.

  “Jaws,” I respond immediately and Nora gasps out loud.

  “No shit! That’s one of my favorite movies, top three.”

  We talk about our favorite parts and Nora grabs the DVD from a shelf and puts the movie on, and it quietly begins playing in the background of our conversation.

  “You said top three, so what are the other two?” I ask, wanting to know more about her, even if it’s not too in depth.

  “Well, Jaws obviously, Back to the Future, and you have to promise not to laugh,” Nora pauses and I nod my head, but I have a smirk on my face because obviously this is going to be good. “And Good Burger, but honorable mention goes to Star Wars.” She adds that last part in as if to make the fact that she loves Good Burger better.

  I laugh out loud nearly choking on my beer, but I honestly can’t mock her. “I wouldn’t dare make fun of your choices,” I tell her. “If I had to give a top three it would be Jaws, Return of the Jedi and here it is, Sister Act, but not the first one, the second one.”

  “Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit?” she questions, an almost comical look on her face. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Good Burger? Like you have any right to question my choices,” I respond, teasing her as I reach across the table and tuck a few loose strands of hair behind her ear. My fingers brush her cheek, and as they do something in both of us changes. The room grows still and quiet, and Nora turns the TV off. I watch her wet her lips, the tip of her tongue slipping between them, as I feel something within me begin to heat up.

  I want her. I’ve always wanted her, and not just because she’s stunning, but because I’m drawn to her. To her beauty, to her love of writing, to her intense need to find me, and everything else that makes her who she is.

  I watch as Nora sits up on her knees, her elbows resting on the table but she’s now leaning closer to me. “I guess we can agree we both have our guilty pleasures.”

  “I guess we can,” I respond, but before I can say anymore, Nora is across the table and her lips
collide hard with mine.

  Chapter Thirty: Nora

  We’ve spent more time apart than we have together, but these last couple of days have felt like we’ve been together forever. I know it won’t last. We have to go back to our real lives, lives that aren’t together and I’m lying here in bed wondering how we will make this work.

  I don’t want to leave New York and while I haven’t asked Elliot, I have no idea if he wants to leave Chicago or if his job would even allow it. This bubble we’ve been in is about to burst. I thought that once I found him all the stress and worry would dissolve, but that was just unrealistic because we have lives that have continued on without each other. Making this work suddenly seems impossible.

  “What’s the matter?” Elliot asks, my eyes focused on the ceiling as the sun begins to stream in the bedroom through the slats in the blinds.

  He can tell something’s wrong before we’ve even gotten out of bed and that should be a sign that he knows me, he understands me, and as much as I want to admit my fears to him, I’m hesitant. I don’t want him to think I’m already considering this thing between us a failure.

  “I worry about how we’ll make this work,” I confess quietly in the comfort of the silent bedroom without the prying eyes of everyone who said what I was doing was crazy.

  “What do you mean?” he asks, turning to face me, his fingers tracing a path down my arm and across my stomach. His touch is soothing and calming, and for a second I forget my concern, I forget that we will struggle to become a couple. Our love story is different and bold. It’s spanned over a decade, but it will always be viewed as unusual and people will question if it will ever really work.

  “You’re on a vacation right now and so am I. We have jobs and families and lives that we created. How can we possibly leave it all and start something new?” My words come out in a desperate rush of panic. But if we don’t follow through with it, all of this will have been for nothing. The last twelve years of my life will have been for nothing. My breakup with Ryan will have been something I did out of fear rather than out of necessity.

  “We’ll make it work. Your job is easy, Nora. You can do it from anywhere. We can move wherever you want. California, Hawaii, Australia. It doesn’t matter.” He’s so sure of himself, so sure of his words and I hate that I’m panicking and ruining this time we have together.

  “What about your job?” I ask, again realizing we haven’t really dove too deeply into what our lives look like outside of each other.

  “It’s a large corporation. I can transfer. It will take some time, but I’ll be able to find something within the company.”

  His answers calm me and make me think. I’ve already changed my life by waiting for him. Changing things now won’t matter and now is my time to live the life I’ve always wanted.

  A life with Elliot.

  “We’ll make this work,” he murmurs, nuzzling into my neck and making me smile. He’s right. We will make this work no matter what.

  “We’re going to meet my dad today,” I murmur back, cuddling closer to his warm body. “Just a warning, I have no idea how this is going to go. Alice is one thing, but my dad, he’s another.”

  “Don’t worry about this. We don’t need people to understand what we’re doing or why. This is between us and if our families can’t get on board then it is what it is.”

  The next stop is my father’s house and I’m not entirely certain what his reaction will be. I think like most he assumed I’d never find Elliot. That I’d continue to drag myself through life looking for him. So he was more than pleased when I met Ryan and even openly admitted his happiness that I would now be more committed to a “normal” life. No more aimless wandering, no more traveling and wasting my vacation time, no more loneliness. But little did he know, Elliot was still there in the back of my mind, clouding my judgment and making me realize I was just pretending with Ryan. I was forcing myself to be happy. Today is different. Today is the start of mine and Elliot’s life together and like he said, we don’t need to explain things to anyone.

  We arrive at my dad’s house several hours later and when we pull in the driveway, Elliot hits me with a look that screams he has something to say. He looks at the house and then back at me, his mouth opening and closing like a fish and I can’t help but laugh. His eyes are wide and his brow furrowed, as he looks to be processing something, trying to find the right words.

  “What’s going on? “I question, smirking at him and his expression, suppressing the laugh I feel coming on so I don’t make him uncomfortable.

  “This is your dad’s house?” he now asks, almost like he’s clarifying, pointing to the red brick bungalow in front of us. It’s been my dad’s house for thirty-five years. It’s the house I grew up in and the house he can’t bear to put up for sale because it holds all the memories of my mother. Alice and I have tried to convince him to move to something smaller, something with less maintenance, but he won’t hear of it.

  For the longest time I wanted the house out of my life. I wanted to pretend the death of my mother didn’t have a massive impact on my life. I didn’t want to be returning home as if it had filled some void in my life, but as the years ticked by, I realized the house and my dad keeping it, helped us all heal more than we thought.

  “Yep. This is the house I grew up in.” I stop and point to the window above the front door. “That was my bedroom. Alice’s was in the back of the house and she would—”

  “I’ve been here. I met your dad,” Elliot blurts out cutting off my words and silencing me with something I didn’t see coming.

  Now it’s me with my mouth opening and closing as I try to figure out what to ask first. My thoughts are a mess, swirling and jumbled with questions and reasons and ideas for how he could’ve possibly met my father.

  “What do you mean?” I stutter out, my words catching on my tongue. I can feel my heart begin to race, a panicked feeling consuming me.

  Did my father know it was Elliot and intentionally send him away? Did he keep it from me in the hopes that I’d just move on with my life? My panic turns to anger in an instant and I don’t even wait for Elliot to answer as I whip open my car door and storm toward the house.

  “Nora!” Elliot yells, jogging to catch up to me, grabbing my wrist and spinning me so I’m now facing him. “Stop. I met your dad while I was looking for you, but I didn’t know it was your dad.”

  “When?” I ask, my words practically a demand for him to spill it all.

  How could he have been this close? How could he have met my father but somehow missed me? Was this recently? Was this before we finally found each other?

  I have too many questions to even begin to process and the two of us stand suspended in an awkward silence until my father calling my name breaks it.

  “Nora, what are you doing?” he barks, his Boston accent heavy and somewhat soothing in this strange moment.

  “Go back inside, Dad!” I yell back, my accent now slipping through in the heightened anger and confusion of the situation. But he doesn’t move, his feet firmly rooted on the white front porch as Elliot and I stand in the yard, watching him.

  In that moment though, it must register, and I watch my father’s face go from red to ashen white and without another word, he walks back in the house. The door slamming shut behind him and I have no idea what kind of mess I’ve just brought Elliot into.

  “Does my dad know who you are?” I ask, shakiness to my words, wondering if this reunion could’ve happened years ago, but my father somehow controlled it.

  “No. I don’t think so,” Elliot answers. “It was a while ago. The first time I came to find you.” He stops, dragging a hand through his hair and letting out a hard exhale.

  This situation is far more complicated than either of us even realize. We’ve been looking for each other for twelve years, twelve long years of let downs and disappointments and neither one of us really knows the lengths we actually went to. It’s hard to put into words the number of ti
mes we thought we were on the right track or how far we really traveled. It’s all become one lump of bullshit that we’ve never fully discussed.

  Right now is why we should’ve. I’m struck with wondering about all the times we may have been so close, but still not there.

  “My investigator found you. Well, it was obviously your father’s address and I came here. He was leaving the house and I stopped him, asking—”

  “About me?” I interrupt, hanging on his words and wondering if my father could really do this to me.

  “Yes, but no. I didn’t think it was you and I asked if your dad had a wife, figuring that’s who my investigator found, and he said yes, but that she had passed away.” Elliot shakes his head, a pained expression painting his face. “I knew your mother had died, but I never put the two together,” he adds quietly and I hate that he is suddenly feeling like he failed somehow. I can feel it in the air between us, and when I reach out and take his hand, I feel it in the limpness of his grip.

  This situation is taking its toll on both of us and this is just a small moment in all of this. I wrote a damn book about it all and the press will have a field day when they realize I found him. That we found each other.

  “I thought it was another dead end. I was so used to finding dead ends I didn’t bother to ask any more questions.”

  “Elliot,” I whisper, my hand now resting on his cheek as I step closer to him. I lay my head against his chest, his arms wrapping me in a comforting embrace and I do the same to him. We both need a few minutes before we walk into my father’s house and are hit with a million prying and judgmental questions. It’s coming, I can sense it, but we need to be stronger than this and any doubts we have will shine through. I don’t doubt Elliot’s intentions or his attempts to find me, but I do understand feeling defeated. “I understand dead ends and I also understand giving up,” I add, letting Elliot know what he did when he met my father wasn’t his fault.