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“But that was it,” I said miserably.
“Sorry for what?” LT asked, cradling her mimosa close to her chest. Looking like she was holding her breath as she waited for one of us to explain.
And with a shaky inhale, I did.
Everything from how Chase had been all Sunday to how it’d fallen apart when we’d arrived at his parents’ house that night.
“And I know he’s sorry,” I said once I’d finished telling them the entire thing. “I know a part of him doesn’t like that he’s hurting me. But that ‘sorry’ doesn’t mean anything when the anger and betrayal he directs at me is so much stronger.”
“Dude, I hate this for you,” Anna said softly. “This isn’t Chase. He wouldn’t do this to you.”
“Yeah, well,” I whispered on a strangled laugh. “You know, it’s funny...they say soulmates find each other in every life. Love each other through anything, even death. Either we’re not soulmates, or it’s all just bullshit because he can barely tolerate me through lost memories.”
A weighted silence surrounded our table. Drowning out the restaurant noises and chatter from the other tables and making me feel uncomfortable in my own skin.
“I need to go,” I said, already standing and grabbing my purse.
The girls made objections, and Samantha reached for me, but I slipped away before I could do something like make things more uncomfortable or break down all over again.
But by the time I pushed out of the restaurant’s door, Samantha was there, pulling me into a fierce hug and refusing to let me go until a shuddering breath wrenched from me.
“I know it doesn’t seem like it, and I don’t know how, but it will be okay,” she murmured. When I nodded, she asked, “Are you coming back to my apartment?”
“Um.. .I don’t know,” I said as I pulled away. “I appreciate you being there for me the last couple of days, but I should probably—”
“Just get whatever you need from the house and come back.”
My head bobbed for a long while as her words had my stomach sinking. “You think I should move out?”
“I just don’t think Chase is the kind of guy who will give you the space you need and deserve to figure out your thoughts,” she said uncertainly.
“There’s nothing for me to figure out,” I said adamantly. “I know what I want.”
“But if this is your life now,” she began gently, a grimace tugging at her mouth, “then there’s a lot of difficult things that need to be figured out—like what you’re doing with your wedding.”
“Right,” I whispered, then took a hesitant step back. “Right. Then I’ll, uh...I guess I’ll go pack.”
“Only if you want to,” she offered when I took another step away. “You don’t have to do anything I said; they’re just suggestions. But my apartment is there for you.”
I nodded and forced a smile. “Thanks, Sam,” I murmured before hurrying to my car.
But during the drive home, my resolve grew weaker and weaker.
It wasn’t that I was under the delusion that Chase would miraculously get his memories back today or tomorrow, or any time soon. So, our wedding needed to be called off.
I knew that.
It was that these days away from him had been excruciating. It was that the thought of a life without him crippled me. It was that I didn’t know how to abandon him just because he was lost, no matter what it cost my heart in the process...
By the time I was standing at our front door with the key in my hand, I was torn.
Memories from before and after Chase’s wreck waged a war on my heart and mind until I was absolutely sure I would walk in and fight for the man I loved, all while packing to leave.
But as soon as I set foot inside, I nearly crumpled under the weight of the battle. My lungs strained as I tried to breathe because he was in every part of that home. In every memory.
Beautiful and devastating and real and—right in front of me.
I stopped halfway through the entryway when he moved into my line of sight from the kitchen. Looking exhausted and relieved and frustrated as hell.
