by Liz K. Lorde
“No,” I agree. “It was whatever the bakery decided to make, if I remember.” Then I have to consciously steer my thoughts away from that particular path…our wonderful wedding day and how very happy I was.
“So, all the more reason,” Shawn says. “At the very least, I can keep you company.”
It would be weird, but really, did I care? I didn’t want to go alone.
“Okay,” I say finally. “It’s at 10. And now I’ve got to get Tanner ready for school.”
Shawn looks down at himself, still wearing the jeans and shirt I found for him. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have any more of my old clothes around, would you? I should probably dress up a little bit.”
I bite my lip. Do I really want to admit that I couldn’t bear, in seven years, to get rid of anything of his?
Finally, I tell him, “If you go out to the garage, up on the top shelf by the door, there are some boxes of your stuff that I haven’t gotten around to taking to the charity place.”
Shawn is clearly surprised. “Wow, I guess I didn’t really expect you’d still have anything,” he tells me as we both start down the hallway towards the kitchen. “But thanks, I guess.”
I nod and head back into the kitchen to find my son.
“Okay, big guy, time to get dressed for school,” I tell him, flicking off the TV.
“Okay,” Tanner says, more agreeably than I expected. Maybe it’s because Shawn’s standing right behind me, and Tanner doesn’t want to have a tantrum in front of him.
As Tanner heads to his room, Shawn’s watching him hungrily.
“You did a great job, Evy,” he tells me, then turns and opens the door to the garage.
“Thanks,” I say softly, even though I know he can’t hear me.
Chapter 13
Shawn
Evelyn follows me into the garage.
As I stand there looking around, she goes straight to a stack of boxes and bins in the right corner. She stands there for a split second, looking at it all until she finds the box she recognizes she wants.
The box she starts to pull out has my name scrawled on the side in big black letters.
A mixture of sorrow, pleasure, and surprise rises up inside me.
She could have thrown all my stuff out, but she didn’t. Yet she boxed it all up to sit in a closet out of sight and out of mind.
“How about I take it inside?”
Back in the house, I take it into the room, with Evelyn following. After I’ve put it on the bed, she comes up beside me and starts to open it.
“Here you go,” she says. “These used to be yours, and I don’t see why they wouldn’t fit.” She glances at me to take me in completely. “Except being a little more toned, you look the same. Definitely didn’t get fat over the years you were supposedly dead. So, you have a nice selection here, and you won’t have a problem with any of the clothes.”
I just look at her and the box of clothes. I don’t comment on her little statement of me being supposedly dead. It sounds so accusing—as if I was using it as an excuse to hide from life, or her.
I suppose she has a right to be mad, even if I do have amnesia. I’m more stuck on the fact that she kept all this stuff.
“Why did you keep it all?” I finally ask.
She stands there for a minute. At first, she looks lost, and then she looks as if she is trying to figure out how to respond.
“Honestly, I didn’t even want to box it all up. I was still clinging to the idea that it wasn’t true and that it was all a dream. But James thought it would help. He thought it would help me start to realize the reality of the situation. That you were really gone.”
She gives a low chuckle.
“Obviously, though, you aren’t gone,” she mumbles. “Everyone had accepted you were, except me.”
As she talks, my chest tightens with each word. I rub it to try to relieve the pressure.
This whole situation is fucked up. It kills me that I can’t remember anything that involved my life with this woman. But is it worse than what she had to deal with?
She remembers everything and learned that the man she thought was dead was really alive and hadn’t come home back to her until years later.
I shake my head. I can’t dwell on this shit. I can’t change what happened. All I can do right now is get dressed and go to a cake-tasting with Evelyn. A cake tasting for her wedding to another man.
I reach into the box to pull out the first shirt my hand comes in contact with. I lay the shirt down so I can remove the one I’m currently wearing. My fingers grasp the bottom and roll it up to pull it over my head.
“Shawn!” Evelyn exclaims. “There’s a bathroom you can change in. Go undress in—”
She stops speaking once I have the shirt completely off. I look at her, and she is eyeing my chest.
I look down to see what she is staring at. I realize she’s analyzing all the scars that cover me. They are wounds of war.
Over time I’ve accepted them, but they are a reminder of my traumatic injuries received on duty. I know she caught a glimpse of them last night when she came into the room while I was naked. Maybe she didn’t see them fully in the dim light.
She slowly walks towards me until she is standing a foot away from me. One of her hands lift, as if to touch me, but she stops before making contact to look up at me.
I don’t say or do anything to indicate I want to stop her from touching me. We look into each other’s eyes. She must see in my expression that I’m willing to stand here while she explores my collage of scars, because she resumes her reach.
When her skin finally makes contact with mine, I jolt slightly from the feel. She glances up at me to make sure I’m okay. I give her a slight nod to tell her to keep going.
Her delicate and soft fingers trace one scar after another. She pauses on one thick scar that resides on my right shoulder. It’s small and slightly circular but has a thick buildup of scar tissue.
“How did you get this one?” she asks.
“Gunshot wound,” I reply. “It didn’t go all the way through, and there wasn’t a doctor around or anyone who wouldn’t kill me on sight, so I had to dig it out myself. Also had to stich it up myself. That’s why it’s so raised.”
She looks stunned, but she moves on to trace a thinner scar that runs crookedly under my ribs on the left side.
“This one?” she whispers.
“Knife fight with an asshole who thought he capture me to sell off to a terrorist cell,” I explain. “Luckily, I found someone who could stich that one up for me so it doesn’t look half as bad as the other scar.”
I try to make light of it, but Evelyn still looks pained.
She asks about another scar on my left arm that was also due to a knife. That one didn’t need stitches, just a bit of cleaning and making sure it didn’t get infected while it healed—which it did, therefore leaving a scar.
Evelyn lands on a medium-sized scar that rests on my left pec.
“What happened here?”
I stare down at her hand tracing over the scar. It’s ragged and slightly white.
What the hell did happen there?
I furrow my brow. I stare at it long and hard, but no memory of how I got it comes to mind.
“Shawn? What’s wrong?” Evelyn asks, breaking me out of the trance I was in, trying to find an answer to her question about the scar.
“I don’t know,” I finally state. “I don’t remember where I got the scar from or how I got it.”
Looking at the other scars Evelyn didn’t ask about, I realize there are a handful of them that I don’t remember how I got. I remember some incidents resulting in some of the scars, but not all of them.
Shouldn’t I be able to remember? Usually, you get scars, and you remember because the pain or the incident that caused them are that memorable. But shit, I can’t remember.
My irritation grows with the realization of the areas my amnesia extends to. Only now that Evelyn is asking about each s
car do I realize the extent of my memory loss. Before, I never even questioned where they came from.
“It looks like it hurt. And it’s really close to where your heart is,” Evelyn states once again, drawing me out of my own head.
I just nod.
“Maybe it’s better you don’t remember this one. All that matters is you survived and it’s healed.”
Maybe.
“I should finish getting dressed before we’re late to the cake-tasting,” I tell her.
She jerks back suddenly from me. “Right. Um, there are the clothes, and you know where the bathroom is. I’m going to go change myself.”
She leaves without a backwards glance.
Trying to get rid of the frustration over my amnesia, I get dressed quickly and wait by the front door for Evelyn.
Hopefully, the cake-tasting will go smoothly and help take my mind off everything that’s happened or been revealed since I showed up at Evelyn’s house.
Like I said before, it’s a fucking messed up situation.
Chapter 14
Evelyn
Still reeling from the moment with Shawn and his scars, I go to my room to change and throw on a pair of comfy jeans and a plain t-shirt.
I can’t believe I’m going to a cake-tasting with my supposedly dead husband for a wedding I’m having with another man. I’m still irritated that James isn’t coming to this. But there’s nothing that can be done.
I walk down the stairs and retrieve my purse and keys by the door. Shawn is already waiting for me.
I turn to him. “Ready?” The question is clearly superfluous, but I ask it anyway, feeling the need to say something.
He nods and holds out his hand.
I look at him, confused. Does he want me to hold his hand?
“Give me the keys, Evelyn. I’ll drive.”
“I can drive there just fine, Shawn,” I say as I clutch the keys tightly to me. “Plus, it’s my car.”
He chuckles. “That’s beside the point,” he replies. “I want to drive us. Please.”
He has a sincere look on his face. I know he isn’t going to drop this. He used to always insist on driving in the past, too. I always loved that about him. He wanted to drive and let me relax in the passenger seat.
He’d always rest his right hand on my thigh while his left steered—I shake myself. Thoughts like that aren’t productive, Evelyn.
“Fine,” I tell him as I toss the keys to him. He catches them without blinking, and his lips quirk into a small smile.
Honestly, he’s always been the better driver, anyway.
We leave the house and hop into the car. Soon, we’re driving through town, heading towards the small bakery, where the cake tasting is taking place.
I’m humming along to a song as the wind blows through the windows of the car. My hair is blowing all around my face, but I don’t care. The breeze feels amazing.
I glance over at Shawn, and he’s smiling as he looks at me briefly before directing his eyes back on the road.
“Why are you smiling?” I ask him.
He gives a bemused shake of his head.
“You were just humming along to the song,” he replies. “I don’t know if I’ve ever heard someone hum so excitedly. Then again, it is your favorite song.”
He’s laughing by the end of his statement.
“How do you know that’s my favorite song?” I ask quietly.
He seems slightly confused for a second. The furrow between his brows is present again.
“I don’t know how I know it’s your favorite,” he finally says. “I don’t remember hearing you ever humming the song before. I just said it without thinking.”
We sit there quietly. I’ve tuned out the song now.
I used to hum the song all the time when it came on. Whether he was in the car with me or not, but most of the time, he was in the car with me.
After he was presumed dead, I never hummed along to the song again. I didn’t even listen to it. It would always depress me because it reminded me of happier times.
When the song came on a few minutes ago, I didn’t even think about changing it or get depressed when it started, I just started humming. I hummed as if everything was back to how it was before Shawn “died.”
Shawn pulls the car into a parking space out in front of the bakery and turns the engine off.
He turns his body towards mine and looks at me. I look into his eyes. Those eyes seem familiar yet different from what I remembered.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I reply.
I don’t say anything else. I don’t say how off-balance I feel at the moment. I open my door and jump out of the car.
Shawn holds the bakery door open for me. We walk into a store filled with the rich and sweet smells that only a bakery can have.
We’re greeted and then led back to a room specifically reserved for consultations and tastings. The baker lays out ten different samples in front of us.
“I’ll leave you, two, to taste the cakes and talk over which you would like for the wedding,” the baker explains to us with a wide smile on his face.
Then he looks directly at Shawn. “Whatever cake you and your future bride pick, I can assure you that the cake will be perfect down to the last ingredient. I know how important it is for everything to be just right for both of you, but especially the bride.”
I blush. The baker doesn’t know that Shawn isn’t the groom for the wedding the baker will be making the cake for. I’m just about to correct him when Shawn’s voice prompts me to shut my mouth.
“Thank you,” he replies as he throws his arm around the back of my chair, effectively bringing him closer to me. “I know the cake will be delicious, no matter what, and we’re excited to figure out which one to choose for the wedding.”
We’re looking at each other even though Shawn is addressing the baker. Shawn is looking at me lovingly, as if this was our wedding, and not mine to another man.
God, I always loved when he looked at me that way, as if I were the only woman in the world. As if he can’t stop looking at me or believe I’m with him.
A longing for what we had rises within my chest. All those years he was gone seem to melt away, and now, it’s just the two of us.
But those years can’t just be wiped away. They happened, and now we’re both stuck in a confusing situation, trying to figure out what to do.
I break away from his stare. We’ve been looking at each other so intensely. I didn’t even see when the baker stepped out of the room to leave us to the tasting.
Shawn gives a slight cough. “Right, why don’t we start from one end and make our way down the line,” he finally says. “I’ll make notes for you as you go.”
He grasps the pen and paper provided for us on the table.
I reach for the first cake, but Shawn beats me to it. He takes a chunk out of the sample with his fork and then holds it out to feed the cake to me. I go with it and open my mouth.
He does this with each sample.
We arrive towards the end, with only three cakes left, when Shawn feeds me a decadent chocolate cake layered with the lightest peanut butter mousse I’ve ever eaten. It’s sweet—but not to the point that it would be overwhelming or make you feel sick after a few bites.
I give a little moan of pleasure.
Shawn is smiling at me when he hears me moan. “I think it’s safe to say this one is your favorite,” he chuckles. “No other cake has gotten that response.”
I smile back at him. “I don’t think there’s any contest between that one and the others,” I reply. “But I still need to try the last two to make sure.”
“Of course,” he says.
He feeds me the last two samples. Neither one comes close to blowing the chocolate peanut butter one out of the water.
“Should I just tell the baker now that you want the chocolate peanut better cake?” Shawn asks.
I smile, but then it falters.
“What?�
�� Shawn inquires. “What’s wrong? Did you want a different flavor?”
“James said he wanted red velvet,” I answer.
Shawn looks confused. “Why did he back out of the tasting if he wanted a say in the cake choice then?”
That’s a damned good question. I sigh.
“He has strict demands and opinions on everything involving the wedding, but he never comes to any of the appointments,” I explain. “Comes with having so many obligations—he’s too busy to pull himself away.”
It bugs me that James doesn’t come to the appointments, but I get why he can’t. If he can’t make it, then he can’t make it.
“James insisted on red velvet cake for the wedding,” I continue. “It’s not a bad cake. None of these cakes are. The baker is the best in town by far, so none of his cakes are terrible.”
Shawn shakes his head.
“But red velvet isn’t your favorite,” he points out. “It’s your wedding, too, Evelyn. You should have a say in it all, as well. Besides, you’re here tasting the cakes, and James isn’t.”
He’s right, of course, but I don’t know if I should ignore James’ wishes completely.
The baker walks in then.
“Have we decided on a cake?” he asks us both.
Shawn speaks quickly, not allowing me to speak.
“Yes!” he says excitedly. “We’ve decided on the chocolate peanut butter one. She couldn’t stop talking about how amazing it was. None of the others came close to getting the same reaction.”
“Excellent,” the baker replies happily. “Chocolate Peanut Butter it is. Now all we have to decide on is how much cake you want and how you want it decorated.”
“That’s all you, Evelyn,” Shawn directs at me. “You pick whatever you want. Whatever will make you happy.”
I look at him and smile a little. There’s no way he’s going to let me change the flavor—and I can’t be happier. It’s the cake I want, after all, not the plain old red velvet. I’ve never been a big fan of red velvet anyway.
I turn towards the baker and start discussing with him how much cake will be needed and how I want it decorated.