“Someone was delivering those and asked if I’d drop them by.”Stupid.I mentally kicked myself as soon as I said it, but no explanation other than the truth came into my brain.
“They’re nice. Thanks for bringing them.”
I swallowed. “You’re welcome.”
An awkward silence descended as I did a quick sweep of him, unable to help myself from checking to make sure he was otherwise okay. When my eyes landed back on his mesmerizing brown ones, I gave him a forced smile. I needed to leave. That much was painfully obvious.
“Is there…anything I can get you? Before I go?” I said.
“No. Wait, actually?—”
This was it. The “gotcha” moment.
Reid squinted and held his hand up to shield his eyes. “If you could close the blinds, that would be great. It’s a little bright.”
“The blinds. Right.” It took me a few beats to realize that meantmove. With a numb body, I somehow shut all the blinds and made sure to grab the note from the flowers before he had a chance to read it and say, “Ollie who?”
I looked back at him before I got to the door. He’d pulled his covers up and his eyes were closed, already drifting off into a peaceful sleep.
He doesn’t remember… He doesn’t rememberme…
As terrified as I’d been before his surgery, I’d never entertained the possibility that my time with Reid was over. It didn’t seem real.
Any second now, I’d wake up and realize it was all a nightmare.
Any second now…
I never woke up.
With every day that passed, every phone call I made to his mom to check on him only to hear that, no, he still hadn’t regained memory of anything since his accident, the hope I’d carried dwindled. Every day I called, every day Reid grew physically stronger, but the answer was always the same.
“No. I’m sorry, Oliver. The doctor said it’s possible he may never remember,” his mom had finally said. Fuck, I’d never forget that day. It had been a full month since Reid’s surgery, and it was that day, and her words, that made it apparent Reid wasn’t ever going to remember me. Maybe I needed tosomehowlet go.
“For now, maybe it’s best if he concentrates on his recovery, on things that are familiar,” she’d said. And I’d read between the lines:without you.Not that she’d been malicious about it, because God knew I understood, but the pain was almost physically unbearable.
My number was erased from his phone. And I’d drifted back into the life of complacency I’d had before Reid. Actually, scratch that. I was no longer complacent, not after knowing what life could be like with him. No, there was another term for what I was.
Fucking. Miserable.
Mike sang along with the Black Eyed Peas, rapping something about humps and lovely lady lumps, on Big Bertha’s radio as he drove us back from a hospital drop-off, oblivious to my thoughts…or perhaps overcompensating for them.
“If you’ve got lady lumps, there’s a conversation here that’s long overdue,” I said.
“Deb was singin’ this song in the shower this morning, and now it’s on the damn radio. I swear it’s following me around. I can’t get it out of my head.” He flipped the channel to something with more twang. “Ah. That’s better.”
“Better is debatable.”
Mike glanced over at me. “You know what you need? Something that’ll perk you right up.”
“If this is about you trying to convince me to go to the National Porn Star Conference again, I’m out.”
“I wish you’d just think about it. Even Deb wants to go.” I shot him a glare, and he rolled his eyes. “Fine. No porn stars. But for real, we gotta bring you back to life, my man. You used to be all cheerful and shit.”
“I’m still cheerful,” I muttered.
“Oh yeah? Smile for me, then.”
I plastered on the biggest, fakest smile I could manage, and Mike reared back in his seat, cringing.