by Piper Rayne
“You and Lucy are gonna be partners,” Cam said. “Come on and slide down in the water,” he instructed me, as if I’d never done that before.
“You want me to get on his shoulders?” I asked, both praying Cameron wouldn’t make me do this and at the same time wanting to.
“Cam.” Adam shook his head, which kept my ass on the cement edge.
“Stop it. Come on. I’m doing you a huge favor.”
“What?” Adam screeched and his voice turned high right at the end.
Cam patted him on the shoulder. “One day he won’t sound like a frog anymore.”
I think the reason people envied the Greenes was their big family. To an outsider, they all appeared to be close. Cameron Baker had been pulled into them, being Fisher’s best friend. Having only a three-year-old brother, I would love to have siblings who had your back.
“Now stop playing games, let’s go.” He pointed at Cora. “You can be my partner.”
“This is hardly fair. You’re taller than me,” Adam complained.
“True.” Cam looked around. “Turner, get your ass over here.”
Cora groaned. “I am not getting on Toby Turner’s shoulders.”
“Oh, come on,” Cam implored.
Toby swam over. We’d made peace after the depantsing incident, and he and Adam actually became friends afterward.
We convinced Cora to get on Toby’s shoulders, and once she was up in the water, Adam sank down into the water and I straddled his head with my legs hanging over his chest. His hands grabbed my shins and my body slowly emerged out of the water. I put my hands on his head and was surprised by how silky it was in my fingers.
“Okay, girls, on the count of three, you each have to try to get the other one to fall off. Boys, stay strong.” Cam leaned along the edge of the pool, Fisher and Xavier on either side of him, watching. “One. Two. Three.”
Adam and Toby walked toward one another, and Cora and I ended up laughing more than fighting, which aggravated the boys. My body wiggled, and Adam’s hands on my bare skin were doing all sorts of things to my hormones. I was so preoccupied with his touch that Cora pushed me and I fell back, unable to keep my balance. As my body sank to the bottom, Adam’s hands landed on my hips, guiding me back up. We both emerged from the water, staring at one another.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly.
He shook out his hair. “Don’t worry about it. You’re okay?”
I nodded a few times. Our bodies were only inches apart and his hands were still on my hips. His gaze fell to my lips and it was as though the entire party disappeared and it was only us. I slid my tongue along my bottom lip because I read that your lips shouldn’t be dry when you kiss a boy. He was so gorgeous, I lost all train of thought.
“Cake!” Mrs. Greene yelled, and everyone scrambled to get out of the pool.
Adam smiled and swam away, his hands falling off my body in a lingering way that suggested he didn’t want to let me go.
That was when I knew Adam Greene and I were destined to be together. I even wrote it in my journal that night.
* * *
Before we reach the doors of the inn, I stop, closing my eyes to make sure the memory is still there. I envision a younger Adam in his swim trunks, smiling at me. Yeah, it’s still there.
“I had journals,” I say.
“What, sweetie?” Mom opens the door.
She’s been great the past three months, helping me try to remember. She didn’t want to come back to Sunrise Bay though. Said that whatever made me leave a year ago was still here, and not knowing what it was, she thought returning could make things worse. But I pushed the issue until she worried I’d come by myself.
“I used to write in journals,” I say again.
“You did?”
I nod. “You never had any at home?”
“You packed up your room when you…” She heads toward the reception desk where a young man I don’t recognize stands, her words trailing off like she wasn’t speaking.
Once we’ve secured a room for the night and we’re inside, I sit on the bed. “Mom.”
She’s busy taking off her coat and getting out of her shoes, checking her phone as if I didn’t say her name. I’m just realizing that she never told me about Adam or even the fact that I was married. How could she keep that from me?
“Mom,” I say again.
“What, sweetie? I never saw any journals.” She’s talking to her phone.
“Will you please look at me?”
She glances up.
“Can we talk about what a huge thing this is? I just remembered being at Adam’s thirteenth birthday party. I mean, until twenty minutes ago, I didn’t even know he existed.”
She puts her phone down and sits on the edge of the bed, taking my hands. “This is what I was afraid of. I’m not going to lie, I’d hoped maybe you wouldn’t remember being married. When you came to us in Idaho, you were so distraught. You didn’t get out of bed for an entire month.”
“Why did we break up?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know. You wouldn’t say.”
“Why? Why wouldn’t I have told you?” My forehead creases.
She sighs, her telltale sign she’s holding back information and would rather not tell me. “I think you were afraid I would say I told you so.”
“Why would you have done that?”
“Because we forbade your marriage.” She pats my hand. “I never saw you get married, Luce. Your father and I didn’t agree with it and there was a fight and…”
I slide my hands out from hers and stand, looking out the window that has views of the bay. “Why didn’t you support us?”
She sighs again. It’s grating on my nerves. “It’s a long story.”
“Good thing we have nowhere to be then.”
She stands and grabs her overnight bag, ready to go to the bathroom.
“Mom,” I plead, “you can’t keep me in the dark. Dr. Lipstein said when I have questions, you should answer them and maybe they’ll help me remember.”
At times in the past three months, I’ve felt my mom keeping information from me. My brother, Zane, would say something that didn’t quite make sense to me and then my parents would shift conversation in another direction.
“Some things are meant to stay in the past. You came back to us. Can’t we just let that be?”
I raise my hands in frustration. What did she expect to happen when we returned here? Did she hope I would remember nothing and this entire part of my life would be erased forever? I think I’m starting to understand why she was so hesitant for me to return.
“Either you tell me or I hear it from Adam, because I’m not leaving Sunrise Bay without an answer.” I cross my arms.
“Okay, okay. Just let me get ready for bed and process everything, then we’ll hash out what happened.” She opens the door and disappears down the hall.
I wait for the bathroom door to shut down the hall, then I grab my coat and slide out of the room. If she has to think about it, she won’t tell me the full truth. And I’m starting to figure out that it’s up to me to remember for myself.
Going downstairs, I tiptoe past the front desk and out the door, but I freeze in place when I see Mandi’s finger poking Adam in the chest.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
Both of them look over. Adam steps forward only for Mandi to wrap her hand around his wrist and tug him back.
Looks like it’s not only my family who wants to keep us apart.
Mandi’s hand is so tight around my wrist, she’s going to pop open a vein with her nails.
Lucy stops outside the doors to the inn.
My stepsister Mandi owns this place and I’m assuming she was appointed the designated Greene to watch out for me showing up here because as soon as my truck pulled into the parking lot, she was out the door, telling me to go home.
How can I go home? I drove Alicia home and she tried to lure me into her house by palming my dick throug
h my pants. Sadly, nothing happened, not even a chub—the consequences of having your estranged wife show back up in town is limp dick apparently. So I walked her to the door and said good night.
I told myself to drive home. I really did. To just go to bed. But I couldn’t convince myself I’d get any sleep. Still, waiting until tomorrow, like my dad said, is good advice. But somehow, my truck took a wrong turn and then another wrong turn, leaving me outside the inn.
“Hey, Luce,” Mandi says, still with a vise grip on my wrist. Seriously, her hands are freakishly strong. “Did you need something?”
Lucy shakes her head, our gazes finding one another under the dim lights of the parking lot. “No. Just thought I’d clear my head.”
“Where’s your mom?” Mandi asks.
“Getting ready for bed.” Lucy zips up her jacket and shuffles her feet in place. “Adam, do you want to talk?” Her voice is so shaky and raspy, I barely recognize it.
I dislodge myself from Mandi’s Herculean grip and walk toward her. “Sure.”
“Adam…” Mandi’s tone holds warning, but I raise my hand.
“It’s my life.”
She says nothing else, and Lucy smiles over my shoulder at what was once one of her good friends. Mandi’s only a year older than us, and when Lucy and I were dating in high school, it was usually Lucy, Mandi, Chevelle, and me hanging out in the basement of our parents’ house. I wonder if Lucy remembers that.
“Please don’t make me the one responsible for organizing a search party, okay? Don’t run off,” Mandi says to our retreating backs.
“Don’t worry. I’ll bring her back within an hour,” I say.
“An hour?” Mandi screeches.
But I’m too busy soaking in the fact I’m walking toward the bay with Lucy next to me. It’s been so long since I’ve seen her, so it’s odd how normal yet weird it feels to be near her.
Lucy is taking in everything as we increase our distance from any sign of life.
With tourist season starting tomorrow, our small town of Sunrise Bay is more crowded than normal. Luckily, down by the inn, it’s more secluded. The majority of guests staying at the inn are probably having fun in the square, where most of the festivities are tonight. I find us a spot on the rocks closer to the shoreline and we sit. I pick up small pebbles and toss them in, needing to keep my hands busy before I do something stupid like touch her.
I’m not sure what to say, so like an idiot I blurt, “If I’m dead tomorrow, your mom probably killed me.”
“I get the gist she isn’t a fan?” Lucy sits next to me, picking up her own pebbles and throwing them in the water.
I glance over. The moonlight shines down on her face, reminding me of the nights in our cabin up in the mountains when we’d look at the stars and end up making love on our deck. I shut my eyes because that no longer exists. We aren’t that naive couple who thinks love can conquer the world anymore. In fact, now I know for certain it can’t.
“What do you remember?” I ask her.
I know absolutely nothing about amnesia, other than what I’ve seen in the movies, and I’m pretty sure that’s not completely accurate. Like that rom-com Lucy made me watch once where the guy is in a coma and when he wakes up, they convince him he has a fiancée. But whoops, she fell in love with the brother while he was fighting for his life.
“At first nothing. I didn’t know my name. But the doctors called my parents, and as soon as I saw them, I remembered them. They thought my memory issues would be temporary, but then nothing else came for a long time.”
“So you forgot all about me, huh?”
“I guess,” she says. “I remembered they were my parents, but I couldn’t recollect much else. Then when I saw you, I remembered you’re my husband.”
“Soon-to-be ex-husband.” I mentally reprimand myself for my tone when her shoulders sink.
“Can I ask you what happened between us? Did we break up because of your girlfriend?”
I guffaw. Of course I must be the one at fault. Anger is a hot pit in my stomach, but it’s still hard to admit one of the most embarrassing and painful things that’s ever happened to me. “I was never unfaithful to you. You left me.”
Her forehead wrinkles. “Why?”
What did I do in my life to deserve this torture? To have to relive all this shit again just as I was starting to feel like I could move past it. I stare at the water, at some of the fishing vessels there. I’d like to dive in and ask them to take me with them out to sea for months.
I shrug, trying to appear unaffected. “You said you wanted to live your life. That you weren’t happy anymore.”
“Oh.” Her voice is meek and weary.
I want to curse myself for the instinct that wants to fix what’s troubling her. That’s something a husband does, not a soon-to-be ex-husband.
Too antsy to sit, I stand and head closer to the shoreline. The sky is dark, the stars overfilling the sky. A romantic scene for some maybe, but not for us. Those days are long gone.
“How come when I saw you, none of that came back? For a moment there, I was so happy.” She pulls her knees up to her chest and rests her chin on them, staring at the water.
“I’m sure all the reasons for your unhappiness will come back to you,” I say in a derisive tone. Which is the exact reason I’ll be keeping my distance. Otherwise I’ll get close to her again, just for her to sweep the rug out from under me once she remembers. Then I’ll be back to pulling myself up from the depths of despair and I can’t do it again.
“On the way back to the inn, I remembered your thirteenth birthday party.”
I glance back at her and she has a soft smile on her lips. I remember it was the first time I ever touched her. I fucking loved Cam for suggesting a chicken fight that day. “I wished for you to be my girlfriend when I blew out the candles that day.”
She sucks in a breath and I wish I would’ve kept that to myself. I’m not sure if I ever told Lucy that before or not. “Really?”
“That was over a decade ago. First crushes and all that shit.” I throw a rock out and it sinks into the water. My heart feels a kinship with it.
“You always had a great arm,” she says.
I nod. “So that’s all you remember, huh? That I was your husband, at thirteen you went to my birthday party, and I have a great arm?” I head back to the rocks.
“So far. I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?”
“I can tell my appearance bothers you. That I’ve upset you.”
I blow out a breath.
“What?” Her legs drop and she reaches out but retracts her hand immediately. “I’m upsetting you?”
I shake my head. “It’s just weird… you don’t remember much about me other than that I’m your husband, but you can still read my body language.”
“Yeah, that is weird, I guess. My doctor said it’s different for everyone. He pushed for me to come here, but my mom wasn’t very receptive to the idea. I’m starting to understand why.”
The last thing I want to discuss right now are her parents. I’m not the person to fill in her missing pieces. Welcoming her and helping her might be the right thing to do, but it’s not my place. Not anymore. “Why’s that?”
“My mom said she didn’t come to our wedding?”
I huff that even while Lucy is sick, Susan is trying to turn her away from us—from me.
“What? What am I missing?” Lucy asks.
My head falls back. “It’s her job to tell you, not mine.”
“Seriously?”
Her voice raises and it throws me off at first. Hell, sure we had our fights, but Lucy was a second grade teacher and she rarely lost her temper or ever raised her voice. I always said she had the most patience of anyone I ever met.
“Do you have any idea what it’s like to not know anything?” She rises up from the rocks and walks back toward the inn. “I thought we shared something. That you’d tell me. You are my husband.”
�
��Was!” I yell. “I was your husband until you walked out on me. I’m sorry you got flung from a horse and can’t remember that, but do you have any idea what I’ve been through this past year? The love of my life left me without anything more than a ‘you just don’t make me happy anymore.’”
Her shoulders fall and she slowly pivots around to face me. “I don’t remember any of that.”
“It doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
She crouches and buries her head in her hands. “You hate me!”
Fuck me. My jaw tenses and my fists clench at my sides. “I don’t hate you. I—”
“Lucy!” Susan screams from the balcony of the inn, then rushes down the stairs toward us.
“Fucking hell,” I murmur.
Lucy’s head flies up. “So you hate her too?”
I shake my head and don’t answer because Lucy doesn’t remember the hell they put her through. All she must remember are her parents from when she was younger. I’m sure not going to be the one to help her figure this out.
“You can’t just take her like that,” Susan says when she reaches us, trying to catch her breath.
Mandi is right behind her, along with my stepbrother Jed. He sighs and gives me that look to say this sucks.
Yeah, tell me about it.
“I didn’t take her,” I grind out.
“You expect me to believe that? You have a new girlfriend, why don’t you just keep moving on?”
Lucy stands, and her mom wraps her arm around Lucy’s shoulders.
“Susan, you’re being unfair,” Mandi says. “I was there. Lucy wanted to talk to Adam.”
“I did, Mom,” Lucy says.
I blow out a breath and run my hand through my hair, pulling at my neck to relieve the tension building there.
Susan ignores Lucy’s comment. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s get you inside.”
“She’s not ten,” I say.
Jed groans.
Mandi sighs.
Susan stops and turns around. “Your animosity toward me isn’t going to help her.”
“Maybe a call from Idaho would’ve been helpful.”
“Okay, let’s go.” Jed puts his arm around my shoulders, as if I’m drunk or something.