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She was watching me. Listening.
So I went on. “They kept asking about a relative. I was afraid they’d call your mom.”
She grimaced, the idea of her deadbeat mom showing up at the hospital exactly what I knew it would be. A drama shit show of epic proportions.
“So yeah, I lied. I told them we were engaged. I told them I was your family.” I let out a frustrated noise and stood. “I am your family,” I declared, pacing behind the chair. “It shouldn’t matter if we’re engaged or not. I care about you more than anyone else. You’re mine. I had every right to be there, and they were trying to keep me out.”
“I’m not yours,” she had the gall to declare. After I stood there and poured out the torture I’d lived. All those hours of wondering if she was even still alive.
I turned to face her, everything about me daring her to deny me again. “Yes,” I intoned. “You are.”
Her eyes dropped to her lap, but I continued to stare.
“Where’d this ring come from?” she asked, holding up her hand.
“Madison gave it to me.”
“So I’m wearing some other girl’s ring for an engagement that isn’t real.”
“It’s real to me!” I hollered, my whole body moving with the outburst.
“W-what?”
I wanted to laugh at her surprise. But how could I laugh? The joke was on me. Of course she was surprised. Of course she didn’t believe me. I never gave her reason to.
“I lied about the engagement, but everything else I said to you is true,” I confessed.
I didn’t really know what I was expecting, but fury was not it. Nor the way she burst up from the chair, nearly pitching sideways because of that damn broken ankle.
Rushing forward, I reached to catch her, but her angry growl kept me back. Straightening to her full height, she wobbled just a little and reached out to balance herself on the back of her vacant seat.
“Maybe I haven’t remembered everything,” she said, voice cool. “Because I never would have thought you cruel, but that’s exactly what you’re being right now.”
“Cruel?” I questioned. “What about what I said makes me cruel?”
Her lower lip wobbled, and the anger I felt at the insult slipped away as if it hadn’t been there at all. The urge to comfort her was so strong right now. So strong my hands shook with it.
“You told me you loved me.”
“I do.”
“Stop lying!” she yelled, the outburst causing her to pitch to the side.
This time, I ignored her protests and caught her around the waist. Her hands fisted in my hoodie, bunching the material as she tried to push me away. I locked my arms tighter, pulling her body flush with mine.
“Look at me,” I demanded.
Her body obeyed, something she hated if I were to judge by the stubborn, angry glare that met me.
“I am not lying. I do love you. And I’ll never love anyone else,” I swore, and then I captured her mouth with mine.
30
Jess
He kissed like he meant it. Like his lips didn’t just speak the words but would somehow brand them into my skin. I was not strong enough to push him away because, though we’d already shared a kiss, this one was with knowledge behind it. This one spoke to the four-year-long yearning I carried in my heart.
In that moment, familiarity warred with instinct, and it made me realize how much experience influenced everything a person did. Since I’d woken up with amnesia, I operated mainly on instinct, and looking back, it seemed so much simpler. In the last hour since the resurgence of my memories, my view on everything skewed. Everything was so much more complicated now. My instinct was still the same, however, it was in a battle with my head.
