Everything around them seemed to pause, as if waiting. And then Troy’s palm was covering Emma’s hand, pressing it against her own cheek. Her long lashes swept down, and she sighed. Emma heard the murmur of conversations and felt the fleeting curiosity of strangers. Bagels, coffee, and wet asphalt—the scent of downtown Portland—hung in the air and Emma felt something inside of herself exhale, stretch, and unfold itself.
Troy released her hand, and Emma’s heart plummeted when she felt Troy’s confusion and discomfort. “I’m sorry if I make you uncomfortable.”
“You don’t,” Troy said, but her emotions betrayed her. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but I dream about your touch.” Troy looked up at the sky letting the rain hit her face. “My dreams are…pretty vivid.” Troy met Emma’s eyes again and Emma felt her fear seep away. “We should go get that coffee.”
Troy strode away so quickly that Emma had to work hard to keep up with her. Neither of them spoke until Troy stopped in front of a nondescript blue building and busied herself locking up her bike. Emma stood above her, wanting to run her hands across the back of her wet shoulders, wanting to take the bag, which she knew would be filled with books from the library, from Troy’s back.
Troy stood up and Emma swayed forward as if pulled by an invisible force. All of the pain and longing of the months without Troy crowded into Emma’s heart until she felt as though she wouldn’t be able to think. Now that she had Troy in front of her—where she could touch her, smell her, feel her presence—the thought of having to live without her was unbearable.
Unable to help herself, Emma risked doing something she had thought about doing since she had first realized it was Troy standing in front of her at the courthouse. She reached up, hesitated, and then removed the tie that held Troy’s braids back. She pulled a few of the braids in front of Troy’s shoulders. Her fingers lingered as she admired the neat plats. “Who did these for you?”
“I did them myself.”
Surprise made Emma speak without thinking. “You told me you didn’t know how to braid your own hair.”
Troy’s lips parted in surprise; she took a deep breath and leaned closer, as if afraid someone would overhear her confess a secret. “It was all real?” she whispered, no, begged.
She wants it to be true. And even as she thought it, Emma felt all the pain and fear of rejection, all the pain of being alone disappear.
“I don’t know. Maybe it was, but I remember, too.” Emma was shocked to realize that the words came out as a half sob. “It’s been so hard to let you remember on your own, but I had to. I wasn’t sure if it was all just me…wanting you. I didn’t know if what we had there was because there was no one else.”
“I lied.” Troy’s face looked as if it had been dipped in a plaster cast.
“You lied?” Emma repeated.
“I wanted to be close to you. So I lied and said I didn’t know how to braid my own hair. I remember sitting between your legs. And I remember—I think I remember—other stuff, too.”
“Other stuff?”
“I remember making love to you, Emma. I remember how stupid I was the first time.”
“You weren’t stupid.”
Troy continued as if Emma hadn’t spoken. “I don’t remember everything about it, but I remember being afraid. Not of you, someone else.”
Emma felt almost dizzy with relief at having Troy share the onslaught of emotion that she had been dealing with for the last year without her.
“I remember enough to miss you, and I spent a long time feeling guilty.”
“Because of Patricia?”
“Yes. I felt like all my heartache should be just for her, but you were there, too.”
“How do you feel now?”
“Confused, hurt, guilty…happy.” Troy struggled with trying to put words to what she was feeling.
Emma reached out and put her thumb over Troy’s lip.
Emma pulled Troy’s neck forward until Troy’s mouth hovered just in front of hers. Her own feelings echoed the fear coming from Troy until their lips met. Her answer was wordless. Troy’s mouth opened and their tongues greeted each other like long-lost friends. Emma heard Troy’s bag drop to the ground then felt Troy wrapping her arms around her, pulling her close, deepening the kiss.
Emma’s legs—the good one and the getting-better one—gave out beneath her. A passerby laughed and Troy loosened her embrace and eased the ferocity of the kiss, but not before returning to Emma’s lips twice, as if promising that their separation was only temporary. When Troy released her, Emma stumbled back. Troy reached out as if to steady her, but didn’t make contact.
Emma blew out air and pushed her damp hair back off her forehead.
“Okay?”
“Mmm hmm.”
Troy dropped her hands to her sides. “I think we blew past the first-date stage a long time ago, but if you want to go in, I’m game.”
Emma bit her bottom lip and looked up at the sky. “I don’t like being inside much anymore. Would you mind getting a little more wet?”
Troy started to speak, paused as if to rethink her answer before saying, “It would be my pleasure.”
Emma had to run the sentence over in her head twice before she figured out the innuendo. A flush darkened Troy’s face.
“What are you thinking?” Emma asked.
“I was thinking that you know so much about me, but I don’t know anything about you. I feel like an amnesia victim.”
“I don’t know as much as I would like to about you either. We weren’t together that long. We were just beginning to learn about each other when we were…” When we were what? How should she refer to it? When we were sleeping, comatose? How could we have been either of those things when I remember so vividly?
Emma was tempted to tell her what she knew, what she had begun to feel before everything was turned on its ear. She gathered her courage and said with careful determination, “I know this is going to be hard for you to understand, but I need to let you remember on your own.”
Troy shook her head. “It’s taken me almost a year to piece together the little bit that I can remember!”
“You have no idea how hard—how unbelievably heartbreaking—it’s been for me not to come to you. I needed to let you remember us, because I wasn’t sure if ‘us’ was just a figment of my imagination.”
“But now you know it wasn’t.”
Emma felt Troy’s frustration mingle with her own. Why was she punishing herself? So what if she told Troy a few things? She wouldn’t be putting her words in Troy’s mouth if what she told her was true.
“I know what I felt was real. I can’t speak for you.”
Can’t I? I know exactly how Troy felt about me because I felt it. Emma pushed the thoughts away. That was a different time—a fairytale dreamscape where the real world was not around to point out their obvious differences.
“But what if I never remember it all?”
“Then I’d like to start over. Get to know each other all over again, if that’s all right with you.”
The tension left Troy’s face and the smile she gave Emma seemed resigned. “Are you up for a walk down to the waterfront? I don’t know if I feel like being inside right now.”
“A walk sounds great. I’m sure we can find some coffee down there, too, right?” Emma teased. She and Troy would have to re-learn each other. She knew deep within her soul that they would be all right. There would be some bumps, but that would be no different than any other relationship.
“There’s a cart on the way. He has pretty good coffee.”
“Okay, that sounds good, but you have to let me carry your bag.” Troy hesitated before handing Emma the heavy bag and bent to unlock her bike.
Emma, seeking to lighten the mood, asked, “Whatcha reading?”
Troy looked pained as she said, “Jane Austen.”
Emma smiled, but forced herself not to laugh. Troy was acting like she had been caught grinning into the pages of a Barbara
Cartland bodice-ripper.
Emma sighed. Troy might not ever remember everything, but she remembered some of it. And the feelings that were coming from her now were strong: curiosity, fear, attraction, and even deeper was a need to reconnect.
Emma had been dealing with that pain since she had walked out of Troy’s hospital room. Her soul was suffering from the phantom pain of having Troy removed from her life. She had gone on with her life, had laughed, and had even had fun on several occasions, but sometimes she awoke in tears. Sometimes she would sit at her table eating dinner and find herself remembering a snippet of something Troy had said. She would find herself in tears while working on the numerous invoices the clinic had amassed. Even though she had gone on with her life, she ached for Troy whether she was busy at the clinic or sitting at the window seat reading a book.
They began to walk toward the waterfront. Emma was holding Troy’s bag and Troy was pushing her bike. They walked a few feet in silence before Troy spoke. “This feels a little bit scary to me. It’s like all this stuff is just now clicking into place for me and here I thought I had been awake for over a year.”
Emma knew how she felt. If Troy never remembered anything more than she already had, she could be happy—as long as they were together.
“We can slow this down,” Emma said.
“You can try,” Troy replied, “but don’t count on any cooperation from me.”
Emma laughed and let the sense of joy and belonging flow through her as she and Troy walked toward the waterfront, alive and forever awake.
About the Author
Gabrielle Goldsby is the author of The Caretaker’s Daughter, Never Wake, Such a Pretty Face, Remember Tomorrow, and the 2007 Lambda Literary Award–winning mystery, Wall of Silence 2nd edition.
When not writing, reading, or in the gym, Gabrielle enjoys exploring the trails near her home in Portland Oregon, camping—the kind that requires a tent—and watching movies in her home theater with her partner of nine years.
Gabrielle’s works in progress are Paybacks (Bold Strokes Books, 2009) and The Burning Cypress.
For information about these and other works, please visit www.boldstrokesbooks.com.
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