Page 144 of Forget Me Not

I focus on the beat, rather than how much water could be underneath me. I’m alive. I’m in the water and breathing. There’s no mud in my lungs. No one to save.

It’s just us.

How am I supposed to give this up? This warmth, comfort, healing. Everything good and bad in the world, wrapped into one to really make this life feel like it’s worth it. This person who really makes me feel like I’m living for the first time in my life, rather than just surviving?

How do I say goodbye when someone is actively choosing to go?

“I’m okay.”

“I had fun today.” I don’t know why I’m talking so much. I just can’t stop. It’s like if the conversation pauses for even a moment, I’ll start to think and that could be deadly.

Reid walks me back to the cottage, both of us tired. Sunburned and sore from a day out on the water, in his bed, and finally, in his captain’s chair. My limbs feel as if he’s branded himself on me in more ways than one. As if he doesn’t want me to forget.

As if I could.

This summer . . . It changed my life.

I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.

I knock his elbow with mine, and he gives that sort of breathy chuckle he does when he’s lost in a train of thought.

“Are you going to come down to the ferry tomorrow?” he asks quietly, stopping on the porch of the cottage.

My stomach twists in knots and he must see it all over my face. He stops, his fingers coming up to graze over my cheek. Light as a feather.

“Just stay in and get some sleep. You’ve got a long day at the inn,” he murmurs, voice rough. Tears burn in the backs of my eyes, but I push them down. I hate this.

I hate it so much I can taste the metallic flavor of blood on my tongue from biting the inside of my lip.

Every time I open my mouth to speak, it snaps shut. I get the feeling he feels the same way.

I want to ask him to stay, but I know that’s against the rules. We aren’t built for each other. We molded ourselves to fit for this single summer that is, without a doubt, the best summer of my life.

I’m in love with him.

It’s as easy as that.

But I can’t have him.

He would come to resent me for begging him not to leave and I would hate myself for my inability to let him go. I would give him all of myself while I only got half of him.

I can’t do that again.

“I have to go,” he murmurs, voice so quiet, I almost think I imagined it.

Slowly, I nod, my heart trembling as if it’s going to burst into a million tiny pieces.

“I know.”

As if it’s the last thing he wants to do, Reid steps even closer, and instead of kissing me, he aims higher, pressing his lips to my forehead and inhaling deeply.

This is the part where people say I love you in TV shows. Books. Movies. Anything but real life because in real life, Reid will be gone at this time tomorrow and I will be here in dusty little Port Nova, halfway across the world.

He presses a kiss to my lips and without another word, he leaves. I don’t wait around to watch him go. I can’t.

When you know, you know.

An hour later, when I’m laying in bed, I hear footsteps on the hardwood stairs and when he steps into the room, his eyes cast in darkness, my heart thrums violently in my chest.

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