by Sara Mack
“It’s not an inconvenience,” he says then stands. “Besides, being here gives us some time to get reacquainted.” He pauses. “Without an audience.”
I give him a wary look. I know we have a past, but I don’t know how strong our relationship was.
After we established what I did and did not remember, James, Garrett, and Dane filled me in on everything Guardian – who they are, that James once was, that Garrett was, too. They told me about The Allegiant and the Intermediate, and about the strangers that came to help. But, they glossed over the relationships. When James began to explain how he and I were involved, it garnered a harsh look from Dane. That resulted in a snide comment from James after which Garrett stepped in and told them to hold off on the more personal stuff, for now.
I’m not ready to delve into my past just yet, so I turn toward my room. “I’m going to unpack.”
“Well, I’m hungry,” Dane says and shrugs out of his jacket. “Where do you go to eat around here?”
I decide to be difficult. “The kitchen.”
He smiles. “There she is. I was wondering when the real you might return.”
I roll my eyes. “There are some take out menus in the drawer under the microwave. Take your pick.”
He heads to the kitchen as I enter my bedroom. I find my suitcase on the bed and his propped against the wall. This is so weird. I take off my coat and get to work.
Unzipping the bag, I pull out my stuff, making a pile of the clean clothes and throwing the dirty ones into a heaping pile on the floor. I mentally remind myself that I have a test tomorrow in Stats, and I should email my instructors to let them know I’ve returned. I immediately scratch the email idea. I’ll just talk to them tomorrow in person. I do have to call my parents and lie to them about the fake accident that ended my fake trip abroad. I shake my head as I continue to sort. I hate lying. That hasn’t changed.
“Hey.”
“Geez!” I jump in surprise as Dane interrupts my thoughts.
One side of his mouth quirks up as he leans against the doorframe. He holds out two menus. “Chinese or pizza?”
“Pizza,” I answer without hesitation.
“Mushroom, green pepper, and ham?”
I frown. “How do you know what I like?”
He smirks. “I know a lot about what you like.”
The look he gives me insinuates he’s not talking about food. “Go order it then,” I say, irritated. “Tell me how much I owe you.”
He scoffs and pulls his phone from his pocket. “Like I’d let you pay.”
I shoot him a look. Was he always this annoying? At the airport he wouldn’t take my money to get his car out of the parking lot. “I will pay for what I eat,” I say adamantly.
“Oh, okay,” he says as he brings his phone to his ear. “The cost of two slices will surely break me. I’ll really need that $2 later.”
I open my mouth to respond to his sarcasm, but the pizza place answers and he walks away. I stare at my unpacked clothes while he orders from the living room. These next couple of days could be a challenge.
Once the contents of my suitcase are organized, I head to grab my backpack and catch Dane putting on his jacket.
“Where are you going?”
“To the store we passed at the corner,” he says. “You have nothing to drink.”
I feign shock and bring my hand to my chest. “You’re actually going to leave me alone?”
He gives me a dry look and opens the door. “Yes. Now would be a good time to call your parents if you’d like some privacy.”
I would like some privacy, but more than just a trip to the store in length.
“You remember what to tell them, right?”
I close my eyes and nod. “It rained in Ireland. I was walking on cobblestones, slipped, and hit my head. The fall messed with my old concussion, and I have some short-term memory loss. My advisor sent me home. The end.” I open my eyes.
“Very good,” Dane tells me. “I’ll be back before dinner’s delivered.”
“Yes Mom, I’m fine. I promise.”
“Emma, I swear to God you’re trying to give me a heart attack,” my mother says through the phone. “When did this happen?”
My finger traces the pattern on my comforter. “Yesterday,” I lie.
“Why didn’t you call us? Why didn’t someone call us? I’m going to have a word with that school!” she threatens.
“No, Mom, don’t. I didn’t even pass out. My memory is just a little hazy and the school didn’t want to risk my staying overseas in case it got worse. I thought you would be glad I’m home.” I know I am.
“I’m relieved, actually,” she sighs. “So, what don’t you remember? Did the doctors say your memory would come back?”
“It’s hit or miss,” I say. It’s probably the most truthful thing I will tell her about this whole experience. “At first I couldn’t remember the date or where I was. I couldn’t recognize some of the people in my group.” Especially the Three Musketeers hovering over me when I awoke.
“But it got better?”
“It’s getting there. Everything is back except…”
“Except what?”
From what James and Dane told me, the two of them are sure to come up in conversation with my parents. Apparently I’ve known James since we were kids, and Dane helped save me from an attack I don’t remember. “There are some pictures in my phone of people I don’t recognize.”
“What do they look like?” my mom asks. “Do the names Matt and Shel ring a bell?”
“Oh, I remember them,” I say and it’s not a lie. Matt and Shel are my best friends.
“Then what do the strangers look like?”
“One has light brown hair and really blue eyes and the other…”
Her sharp intake of breath stops my speech. “Oh, honey,” she says with real concern. “You don’t remember James?”
“Who’s James?” Maybe she will tell me what Garrett wouldn’t allow discussion of earlier.
“Sweetie, I’m coming out there. I can’t tell you this over the phone; I don’t know how you will react.”
“It’s that bad?”
“It could be,” she says. “I’m heading out first thing in the morning.”
I shake my head. She can’t find Dane here. “No, how about this weekend? I want to get caught up now that I’m back in classes.”
“Are they going to allow you to do that?”
“I hope so,” I lie again. I’m already caught up. “I need to talk with everyone and see.”
The buzzer from the front door of my building rings. It’s either the pizza man or Dane.
“What’s that?” she asks.
“Dinner,” I say as I walk toward the door. “Pizza guy.”
“All right, I’ll let you eat,” she says. “Go to bed early and get some rest. Expect me on Saturday.”
I smile into the phone. “I can’t wait. I love you. Tell Dad I love him, too.”
“Will do. See you soon.”
I hang up the phone and move to the intercom that connects to the front door. “Hello?”
“It’s me. Let me in.”
I can’t help but smile at the irony in this. Dane wants to monitor my every move yet he is locked outside. “No,” I say back to him.
He buzzes again. “You’re not funny. Unlock the door.”
“Make me,” I laugh. When is the last time I laughed?
“Emma, I swear…”
I release the button, so I can’t hear him anymore. I picture him outside cursing which makes me grin. He pushes the buzzer again, but I don’t answer. After a second or two, he holds the button down, so the buzzer rings continuously. It’s loud and I can only take the sound for about a minute before it grates on my nerves. It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard. I begrudgingly leave my apartment to let him in.
When I open the door he looks at me exasperated. “What was that?”
“That was fun.”
“It’s c
old out here,” he complains. He hands me a two-liter of Coke. “Paybacks are hell you know.”
I don’t feel threatened. “Whatever. You won; I let you in.”
He picks a case of beer up off the ground and walks past me.
“Expecting a party later?”
“I need this to put up with you,” he says as we walk down the hall. “The next few days could be rough.”
“You’re so funny,” I say sarcastically, even though I was thinking the same thing earlier. I shut the door to my apartment behind us, and Dane stops midway to the kitchen, turning to face me.
“What?”
He tilts his head. “Have you remembered anything yet?”
I blink. I’ve been home all of five minutes. “No. Why?”
He stares at me for a moment then turns toward the kitchen. “Just asking.”
Twenty minutes later the pizza is delivered, and I make myself comfortable in the living room to eat. I sit cross-legged at one end of the couch while Dane takes the other. We must be starving because we don’t speak, our mouths too full of food for anything else.
After finishing my second piece I find myself contemplating a third. Instead, I reach for my glass. “I wonder when James and Garrett will get here,” I muse. The two of them had to take the long way back by renting a car and driving to Michigan once they got off the island. James may be human again, but he has no ID to fly.
“Why?” Dane frowns, mid-chew.
“I’d like to see my cat again.” I take a drink. “I wonder if LB has missed me.”
“I’m sure she has,” he says and polishes off his fourth slice. He reaches for his beer and tips it back. “Did you talk to your parents?”
“Yeah. My mom’s concerned, of course. I talked her out of coming here immediately, but she’ll be here Saturday.”
“Your parents are good people.” He leans back against the couch. “I wish I could say the same for mine.”
“You don’t get along with your parents?”
He gives me a blank look.
“Let me guess. We’ve discussed this before?”
He nods. “My dad and stepmother own Bay Woods. You remember your summer job, right?”
“I do. I worked there with Shel until she went out of state.” I pause, trying to open up my memory bank. Things get foggy after that memory until another face emerges. “Then I worked with Leslie.”
He shakes his head. “No, you worked with me. You worked with Leslie for, like, two weeks.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Really?” My brain seems to remember a whole lot of Leslie. I frown as I realize how much I am missing. I know everything Guardian is gone, but it’s not just the people. It’s every interaction, every emotion, every moment. Suddenly, I want to know. The unease I felt before at discovering my past is replaced by curiosity. “How long would it take you to fill me in about…us?”
He regards me, takes a long pull from his bottle, and finishes it. “Hours,” he says seriously. He stands, reaching for my plate. “You want me to take that?”
“Thanks.” I hand it over, but eye him suspiciously. “Are you avoiding my question? I thought you wanted to get reacquainted?”
“I do,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”
He takes the plates and the pizza box into the kitchen and disappears. I uncross my legs and stretch and then rearrange myself on the couch. I glance at the clock; it’s nine. I have class in the morning at ten.
Dane returns from the kitchen with a beer in each hand. Is our past that rough? Should I be inebriated, too? “Is one of those for me?”
He looks surprised. “You want one?”
I think I do. “Yeah.”
He hands me a bottle as he sits, holding it out by the neck. “You don’t typically drink beer.”
“I know.” I twist off the cap and take a sip. It’s cold and tastes bitter, but for some reason I want it. “Okay, start talking.”
“I think you should ask me some questions.”
“How about you hit the highlights? Tell me what you want me to know.”
He looks doubtful. “I’m not sure we should go there just yet.”
“I’m not going to flip out or anything.” At least I think I won’t. I take another drink to enhance my confidence.
“You’re killing me,” he says. “Just ask me something.”
“Just tell me something.”
“God, you’re impossible!”
“You make it too easy.” I smile. “Have we always bickered like this? Like an old married couple?”
He laughs, but then his grin fades into a small smile. He looks at the drink in his hand, clearly remembering something, and then shakes his head to clear the thought as he raises the bottle to his lips.
“What is it?” I ask then pause as a thought strikes me. “We’re not married are we?”
He almost chokes on his beer. “No.” He clears his throat. “But I did take you on my honeymoon.”
I sit up straight. “Say again?”
He looks me in the eye. “Might as well air the dirty laundry first.” He shifts his body, so he’s facing mine. “I was engaged to someone named Teagan. I had the trip booked before I broke up with her. You needed a place to hide, so St. Thomas was it.”
That sounds logical. “Did I know this when we were there?”
“You found out when we arrived.”
“About Teagan?” I ask in surprise.
“No, about the honeymoon. You knew all about her.”
“Oh. That’s better.” I was thinking I went with him without knowing he had a fiancée. “So you and Teagan are through? How come?”
“That’s a long story.”
I look at the clock and take another drink. “The night’s young.”
He sighs. “I don’t love her anymore.”
This is like pulling teeth. “Because?”
“Because I love you.”
I freeze. I was not expecting that answer. He loves me? “I thought you didn’t want to go there just yet.”
“That’s not what I was referring to.”
My face flushes. There’s more? I decide to play it off. “I know I saved your life, but you don’t have to lie.”
He sets his beer on the table and moves closer to me. “I fell in love with you before you tried to kill yourself,” he says. “Which, by the way, I will never forgive you for. If you hadn’t jumped in front of me you wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“But you’d be dead.” I frown. “It worked out. I’m alive and you’re alive. It’s all good.”
“Is it? You have no memory of us. It took so long for you to realize your feelings for me. Now they’re gone.”
“Maybe they’ll come back,” I say. I feel bad I can’t reciprocate what he feels. It’s obvious he means what he says.
“I hope so because James is human again. He’s going to fight for you.”
My face twists. What is this? Some sort of turn of the century battle for the maiden’s hand? I’ve never been the girl everyone wants; I’ve never dated. Well, I thought I’d never dated. I clutch the bottle in my hands. “James and I were serious?”
He scoffs. “That’s the understatement of the year.”
“How serious?”
“You’ve been together since you were seventeen.”
What? We were together five years? Why can’t I remember that? I should remember that! “And then he died and came back?”
Dane nods.
I take another drink as I mull things over. Maybe my subconscious knew I’d need this beer. “When did things end between James and me?”
Dane sighs. “I don’t think they officially did. Can we not talk about him anymore?”
What does that mean? I was seeing two guys at the same time? I wouldn’t do that; I know I wouldn’t. “Fine. How serious were you and I?”
“Very.”
I give him a sarcastic look. He’s not being very forthcoming. “That’s vague. Just tell me. I’m a big girl.”
/>
Concern clouds his features. “Are you sure?”
“Jesus!” I sit ramrod straight, so I’m looking directly at him. “I’m not some fragile little flower! I got blasted by a supernatural being and survived for Christ sake! Do you want me to know about us or not? Just tell me!”
Dane looks shocked by my outburst. I take it I wasn’t prone to shouting prior to my mind wipe? He accepts my challenge however and leans closer to me. “You’re serious? You want to know right now?”
I meet his eyes. “Yes.”
“We slept together,” he says without an ounce of regret. “We slept together and you told me you loved me.”
All the blood drains from my face. Of all the things…. Call me naïve, but I was expecting a kiss or two, maybe second base. But sex? With him? I mean, look at him! How can I not remember that?! “When?” I ask, blindsided.
“Last week.”
For the love of all that is holy. I tip my bottle up and drain it in three swallows.
“You okay?” Dane asks.
I nod and hand him my empty bottle. “Can I have another, please?”
Chapter 2
My bed shakes. “Emma, wake up.”
“Nooo,” I moan and grab the pillow, folding it over my head.
“You have to get up. You’re going to miss class.”
“No, I’m not. The alarm didn’t go off.”
I flinch as the pillow disappears from my face. “It’s gone off six times! Don’t make me pull you out of there.”
I open one eye. Dane is standing over me with my pillow is his hands. “You’re really here,” I say stupidly.
A slight smile dances across his lips. “Where else would I be? Now get up.”
I try, but my arms feel weak and my head pounds. “I thought I dreamt last night.”
“You wish you dreamt last night.” He tosses the pillow at the foot of the bed and leans over me with a smirk on his face. “You’re hung over.”
“I am not,” I say and try to sit up again. It’s not working.
“Are too. I should never have listened to you; five was too many.”
“I never asked for five!” I groan. “You kept feeding me drinks hoping to score – again.” My late night drunken debauchery is a direct result of his revelation. I guess I couldn’t handle it without some liquid courage.