Page 143 of Forget Me Not

“Why did you say it like that?”

“Like what?” he asks, lips brushing against mine in the softest kiss.

Despite last night, heat coils in my stomach.

“Like you’re going to eat me alive?”

“I may. Better find your swimsuit,” he chuckles, kissing me roughly on the mouth. When he pulls back, his stubble leaves a burn that travels across my body, leaving goosebumps despite the morning heat. “Or don’t,” he shrugs. “You won’t need it for long, anyway.”

He’s crazy.

“No.”

“I’m right here.”

“Yeah, but what else is right there?”

“Toast,” Reid chuckles, looking over his shoulder to where the dog is doggy paddling around him in circles. “Look, he’s having the time of his life.”

Toast didn’t almost drown, I start to snap, but I force a deep breath through my lungs, instead.

I’ve done this countless times and way farther out. I practically grew up on the island.

So why can’t I move past that night?

“Nova,” Reid says quietly, his arms resting on the back of the deck. He watches me like he can read my mind. Like he can see all the fucked-up scenarios playing out in my head and they don’t scare him.

At least that makes one of us.

I want to be better. I want to move past it. I want to forget.

Anxiety roils in my stomach when I step closer to him. We’re just like yin and yang— so polar opposite, but so intrinsically intertwined it would take the force of the sun to pull us apart.

Unfortunately, the sun comes tomorrow, in the form of a goodbye.

This is my one opportunity to be better.

Carefully, I reach up and undo the restraints of the life jacket.

Okay. Step one.

Reid watches quietly, his eyes burning my skin when I lift my shirt over my head, then reach for my shorts.

Once I’m in nothing but my swimsuit, the breeze on my bare skin feels like a silent reminder that my heart is still beating. I can do it.

Reid holds his hands out to me when I sink onto my haunches at the back of the deck and gently, I let him pull me towards the water.

Everything in me begs to climb back to the deck when the waves lap at my skin, but I go with him because I trust him.

I would trust him with my dying breath.

He pulls me into him and I hold on, my life raft in the middle of the ocean.

“Alright?” His voice is deeper, huskier than usual. Like this is as big a deal for him as it is for me.

In reality, we’re just two people. Our problems don’t affect the world, but to us, they are the world. My fear of water isn’t going to change nations, just like his love won’t. But . . . in the end, even if neither of us make a big difference in the world, we’ll have made a difference to each other.

“I’m okay,” I breathe, pulse thrumming in my chest.

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