Page 78 of Before I Lost You

Kenneth seems to ponder that. “I like that.”

“It’s silly…”

“No, it’s not,” he says quickly, grabbing my wrist and squeezing it, making my fingers tighten reflexively on his jaw. It makes me want to kiss him. Say fuck it and close the gap between us. Instead, I look into his eyes and bite my bottom lip. He looks at it for a long moment, then at my eyes again. “But you are right, Connie.” I gasp at the nickname he called me in a past life,ourpast life, and he grins. “You are a romantic.”

“Told you,” I say with a low chuckle, but it’s strained. I feel like someone has spun me in circles for hours. Lightheaded.

“I like it,” Kenneth smiles softly. “We have that in common now.”

Does he wonder if we have more in common? Does he want to find out? Does he want this? Me? Us?

I switch my grip on him to the back of his neck and pull him closer, then press my lips to his cheek. His skin is soft, freshly shaved, and I inhale deeply to get the smell of his aftershave deep into my lungs. My eyes sting, but I fight back the tears, refusing to let them fall, and let go of him. Instead of letting me step back, he grabs my hand again and smiles. It’s bright and happy, and so him.

It makes me feel whole again.

Chapter 30

DÉJÀ VU

I’m sitting on the sectional couch in Kenny’s living room, waiting for him to come sit with me. He’s talking on the phone by the floor-to-ceiling windows a few feet away, and I tear my eyes away to browse for one of the movies he loves. Something I shouldn’t know about him, but do. Maybe it’s cheating to pick something I already know he enjoys for the sake of impressing him, but I don’t care. I need to use all the tools in my arsenal if I want him to choose me again. So I pick the movie and pause it, then set the remote down on the couch right next to my thigh.

He’s speaking in a hushed voice, as if it’s something he doesn’t want me to hear. Sometimes he used to speak like this when his mother called and he wanted privacy, so I pretend to scroll social media for a few minutes. When the conversation doesn’t die down, I begin to wonder what’s wrong. I’m frowning when I look at him, and he turns around and startles when he realizes my gaze is locked right on him. His brows raise, but he mouthsalmost done. I nod and look away, choosing to focus on looking around the apartment, trying to spot any differences. I don’t. I can’t.

It’s eerie how everything is exactly the same. The walls are the exact same color, sectional couch positioned in the same spot, and the coffeemaker in its rightful place next to the stove. I already know his room looks exactly the same from breaking in a few weeks ago—down to the damn sheets. Is there anything different about him? Sometimes it feels like I’m going crazy. Like I’m living in some alternate reality where everything is the same yet completely different. We didn’t meet by chance this time around. No, I looked for him. Asking him out was premeditated as well, not a spur-of-the-moment decision. Taking him to do something he loved only happened because I already knew what he loved, and asking him to show me around a place he loved, too, was purely a selfish decision. I knew there were plenty of things we hadn’t done together yet in our past lives, so I wanted another glimpse into his soul. I guess it worked in my favor, and it makes me feel like I’m cheating fate. Like I’m rewriting everything.

Do the stars align for us this time around? Or will I be stuck in a loop, losing him the same way over and over again? Or what if I lose him in a different way every single time? What if we’re only destined for heartbreak? I don’t think I could take that. I know I won’t accept it. I’ll keep coming back over and over again until we get it right. No matter how many tries it takes. As long as I’m by his side, I could do anything. Be anyone. As long as I’m his. Because if there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s that we belong together.

When he told me about dreaming of a man in an alternate life who loved him, I knew it was me. Is he having the same kind of dreams I was? Does he recognize it’s me? Is there anything telling him that this feels right between us? It makes me wonder how all of this works—will he ever remember anything? Or are we destined to relive this over and over, never remembering each other when the clock restarts? I hate that I know him,really know him, and he has no idea who I am. It also reminds me of the last time we were together, when I dreamed of him constantly—down to the tattoo between his thumb and forefinger. I thought I was crazy when I realized the dreams were about him. But what if this has all happened before? If I lived that entire reality already, and my soul was just seeking his? What if I subconsciously remembered him frombefore?

This is an absolute mindfuck, and quite honestly, I don’t know how to act half the time we’re together, trying so hard to keep this secret. I’m afraid that if I told him, especially this early on, he’d think I’m insane. Hell, even I know I sound crazy. But it makes me wonder if I could ever tell him in the future. If we stay together. If I can make him fall in love with me again. Maybe six months is all we’ll ever have—over and over again—and I need to focus on making them the best six months of our lives. But it also makes me want to spill it all, tell him that we only have this time, and open his eyes to our reality. And that surely we’ll find our way back to each other in the future. Over and over again, we’ll come back to each other to fall in love again. Like the waves come back to the shore. Inevitable. Star-crossed lovers at its worst. But nothing could keep me away from him, not even to save myself the heartbreak.

“Sorry,” Kenneth murmurs, coming to sit next to me. Instead of taking the other end of the couch, he gets as close as possible, then drapes his legs right over my lap and rests his cheek on the cushion to look at me. “That was my mom.”

“It’s okay.” I smile, relieved that I still know him. That I knew all along that it was her he was talking to. “How is she doing?”

He frowns. “She’s not doing great, but she’s hanging in there. I’ll be visiting her tomorrow.”

“Tell her I said hello,” I say softly, then groan. Fuck. She probably doesn’t even know I exist. “I’m sorry, that was presumptuous of me.”

This time, he smiles gently. A small ripple across his perfect features. Lips barely twitching. “I told her about you.”

“Oh?” I suck in a sharp breath. “What did you say?”

“That I met this really persistent guy, and he makes me feel like a princess.”

A startled laugh bursts right from my chest. “Is that so? A princess?”

“Yeah.” Kenneth grins. “A real-life fairy tale.”

I can feel my eyes going soft, and Kenneth’s smile wobbles slightly. “I only hope I can give that to you, my Prince Charming.”

“You’re really intense. You know that?” he whispers. “It scares me.”

A frown takes over my face, and he digs his thumb between my eyebrows and smooths out the vertical line I know is there. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to scare you. I’ll ease up on the intensity—”

“Did I ask you to do that?”

“No, but—”