Page 135 of Restore Me

I bark out a laugh when her brows raise further. How can she give me answers about that night when she still doesn’t remember the most basic details of our time together?

She shakes her head. “I don’t have any answers about that night, but I do have some about the morning after.”

Now my interest is sparked. I’ve spent twelve years wondering what happened the morning after I left her, and I’ve imagined all sorts of scenarios, including one where she saw the note and threw it in the trash because she woke up regretting everything.

“What about it?”

“Like I said last night when I woke up the next morning I didn’t remember anything besides making the list and going to the party, but I did keep feeling like I was forgetting something. There was this voice I kept hearing, telling me to call them in the morning, and I thought it was from a dream because I couldn’t remember anyone actually saying it to me.” Her tongue darts out, swiping over her bottom lip. “I even asked my friends to help me figure out what happened, but they never saw us together, and no one could figure out why you wouldn’t save your number in my phone if you were real.”

Something like joy goes through me as I listen to her describe making some attempt to find me even when she wasn’t sure I was real, and it makes me a little more willing to walk her through the details.

“When you found me on the back porch, you said they left you to go hook up with some guys. By the time we left, they were nowhere to be found. I walked you back to your place and put you in bed. You asked me to stay, but I was afraid you wouldn’t remember anything in the morning and didn’t want to risk freaking you out. I wanted to give you my number, but your phone was dead, so I left the note instead.”

I can’t keep the pain out of my voice because I did everything I could to protect our connection. I thought ahead, I considered all the possibilities, and I still lost her. The thought of finding out why after all these years has my throat tight.

Sloane’s eyes go soft. “I never got that note, Dom. My mom took it. She was in my room when I woke up the next morning, and she saw it on my desk.”

“How do you know?”

She bites her lip, like she’s not sure she wants to talk about it right now, then launches into a lengthy explanation about the visit with her mom the day after we met and the confrontation earlier today at brunch. When she’s done, there’s an angry spark in her eyes that matches the one burning inside of me.

And I recognize it immediately.

Our siren song of destruction.

The familiar invitation to join her in setting flames to everything, every circumstance and choice, that kept us from each other. But I can’t accept it, not this time. “She was right.”

Her brows pinch together. “What?”

“Your mom.” I clarify. “She was right. She did you a favor by throwing the note away.”

“How can you say that? The note was our only chance at finding each other. It would have helped me realize you weren’t just a figment of my imagination!”

I hate the vehemence of her tone—the outrage she seems to be feeling at having a future with me stolen by her mother—because it makes a stupid amount of hope surge through me.

Hope I can’t afford to feel when I know that no matter what I’m going to have to let her go.

“And it all worked out the way it was supposed to. You and I were never a good idea. We wouldn’t have worked.”

I push to my feet and walk over to the window, pacing back and forth in front of the glass I want to put my fist through. Having this conversation with Sloane right now feels like the purest form of torture.

“You don’t know that, Dom. We never had a chance. You didn’t give us one! You saw me with Eric, and you didn’t say anything. You just treated me like shit. Why?”

“Because he was my best friend, Sloane. My brother. What was I supposed to do? Steal you away from him? Tell him about our night together and beg him to let me fuck you first?”

She flinches, but I can tell my crass words are pissing her off, not hurting her. Her mouth opens, working to craft a response to my comment, which is so far out of line I want to snatch it out of the air. She rises from her seat, and for a second I think she’s going to walk out, but instead, she comes over to me.

“Don’t be an asshole, Dominic. That night was about more than sex, and it wasn’t fair for you to make such an important decision for all three of us!”

She’s right. The decision I made did impact all of us, but I’m the only one who carried it. I’m the one who shouldered it every single day. I stare down at her, letting her see the weight of the past twelve years crushing me like boulders. A lifetime worth of wanting something I could never have. A thousand days of torture and pretending, making choices that left everyone happy except for me.

Dropping the act should be a relief, but I’m just pissed at her for forcing me to relive the night I hate her for forgetting. This conversation needs to end now. I scrub my hands over my face.

“You said you had questions. Ask them, so we can be done.”

43

Sloane

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