Page 139 of Forget Me Not

“Stop,” she whispers, the tears gathering in her eyes silently slipping down her cheeks.

“Four fucking years, Nova, and I thought about you every fucking night. Then I find you here?”

“There’s no way,” she breathes, shaking her head and trying to turn back toward the house, but I place a hand on her waist and she stops. “That wasn’t you.”

“It was.” I hold up my palm, showcasing the scar I got from a broken piece of the car when I fished her out of the water. “Walked away with this and a hell of a fucking story.”

She shivers and I think she’s going to cuss me out. Tell me to fuck off and leave. Tell me she never wants to see me again.

Hell, maybe that would be better for both of us. A clean break.

But Nova and I aren’t clean. We’re jagged and broken, but we fit together better than any fucking puzzle I’ve ever seen.

“We crashed . . .” she stammers. “Jack got me out and I couldn’t reach the surface.”

“And someone pulled you up and got the water out of your lungs and that same fucking someone has been thinking about those pretty ocean eyes for four years,” I grit, my hands shaking like a fucking lunatic when I reach up, brushing that loose curl out of her face. My hand slips lower, capturing the tear on her cheek and she closes her eyes at my touch.

Fuck, I want to stay with her, just like this. Freeze time. Freeze myself from the inevitable when I know I’ll let her down. When I fuck this up, just like I’ve fucked up everything else in my life.

“I don’t know why I’m here, Nova, but I can’t seem to stop. Sometimes I wish we were different people, but we’re not. All we have is right now and I don’t want to spend my last hours here fighting with you.”

Another tear slips free, but she stares up at me like I hung the goddamned moon.

I definitely don’t deserve that look. Not after the selfish life I’ve lived. Not when I’m telling her I plan to leave in a single day.

“You pulled me from the water?” she breathes.

“I jumped in after you.”

“Why did you leave?”

“Because I couldn’t stay.”

“You . . . saved—”

“Don’t,” I cut her off. I can’t fucking hear that shit. I would have done it a thousand times over for anyone. Even Jack. “I’m not a hero, Nova. I’m just a man that was on his way across the states who stopped to see a goddamned fireworks show.” I step closer, pressing my lips to her forehead, my chest aching to pull her into me. “You, though . . . you have stayed burned in my brain for years.”

A shiver ghosts through her and I don’t move. Not a fucking inch because right now, what I want to do is pull her into me, bury myself in her where neither of us will have to face the light of day in the morning. I want to get lost with her, burn in her. Let her consume me until we forget who we are and the lives we live that will inevitably tear us apart.

That’s what I want to do, but I know I can’t.

“One day,” she says softly, and cement hardens in my chest.

“One day,” I repeat. Now that it’s been spoken into existence, I’m starting to wonder if I really want to go to Alaska or if I’m losing my fucking mind leaving this girl.

I’ve searched every face for hers in the last four years. Wondering what happened to her. Who she was. I wanted to know her story. I wanted to know what made her laugh, made her sad. Those curiosities plagued my mind every fucking night and now that she’s here, in my hands, I’m giving it all away.

Maybe I could stay. Maybe we could make this work.

It’s the not knowing, without a doubt, that I can make her happy, that stops me.

“Better make the most of it.”

We both pause, her hand on my chest where I’m sure she can feel my heart beating the inside of my ribcage. I don’t move. I wait. I wait for her to come to me because I need her to. Right now, in the dead of night on one of our last nights together, I need to her to crave me as desperately as I crave her.

Carefully, as if she might spook me, she raises on her tiptoes and presses her lips to mine.

And everything fucking ignites.

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