Page 32 of Love and Other Lost Things

Her gaze flew to his and something like longing… something like that desire he’d seen on her sidewalk today, mirroring his own emotions… crossed her face.

His chest filled with a warmth he hadn’t felt in… ten years.

When his last girlfriend had broken up with him a couple of months ago, she’d accused him of being cold, detached. I can’t get close to you, she’d told him with regret. Those words had lingered because his girlfriend in college had said a version of the same thing. Nik had never thought of himself as cold. He was still close with Hannah and Ali and had built new friendships with his coworkers at the hospital. His patients loved him.

But sitting here, a connection stretching between them that had survived a decade of time, three thousand miles of distance, and so many unanswered questions, he suddenly understood what his former girlfriends were talking about.

This.

He hadn’t been able to give them this.

“Happy.” Jane breathed out the word like a sigh, her eyes dropping to their hands intertwined in the middle of the table. “I guess you could say I’m still a work in progress.”

Nik remained silent, giving her space to say more.

After a moment, she lifted her chin, jaw set in resolve and determination in her eyes. “But I’m a lot closer than I’ve been in a long time. Maybe coming back here has helped me realize that I can be brave.”

Nik sensed his opening, but before he could speak, someone approached the table on his left. Damn it.

“Hi,” the server said, holding up a notepad. “Can I get you another brownie? Or some coffee?”

Jane slid her hand out from under Nik’s and sat back in her chair. “Yes, please.” She gave the server an extra wide grin, almost as if to counteract the sadness that had been in her eyes moments ago. “Coffee and another brownie would be great.”

Nik ordered a cup of coffee, and once the server headed back across the café, he turned back to Jane. “Tell me about being brave…”

But Jane cut him off with a wave. “Oh, it’s nothing. I’m probably feeling a little nostalgic being back here after all this time. My life really isn’t that exciting.” She shrugged, all traces of the emotion on her face wiped clean, a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes in its place. “I want to hear about what you’ve been up to.”

“Jane…” Nik growled in frustration over her deflection. And then he leaned forward and said the thing he’d promised himself at the beginning of this coffee date, or whatever it was they were doing here, that he wasn’t going to say: “What happened to us? How did we end up like this? Especially after…”

That night.

“Nik.” Jane looked away. “I don’t know what you want to hear.”

“How about the truth, for once?”

She stared at the remains of the brownie on the plate. “The truth might…” She cringed like she hated to break it to him. “… disappoint you.”

His eyes roamed over her, heart slowly sinking. Was it possible the night at the overlook hadn’t meant as much to her as it had meant to him?

“Look.” She sighed. “It was a long time ago. Can’t we just catch up like old friends? Do we have to make this a whole thing?” Her voice was cold, distant, a tone he’d never heard from her before.

Was it possible that none of their relationship had meant as much to her as it had to him? His mother had suggested it when he’d spent that first summer after Jane had left lying on the floor playing sad songs on repeat. Jane is a girl with big dreams. Maybe she needs to spread her wings and not be held back by teenage infatuation.

But he’d known better than that. He’d known her. Or, at least, he’d thought he had. He wasn’t sure about anything anymore.

The server came to drop off their drinks, an interruption Nik was now grateful for, because he was trying to catch his brain up to the present when it was still swirling around in the past. He focused on stirring cream into his coffee.

“So, you ended up coming back to Linden Falls after college and med school?” Jane asked, cupping her hands around her mug.

Nik nodded slowly. Something like that.

“And you’re a doctor now?” Jane prompted.

Nik took a sip of his coffee, wishing it were something stronger. “I’m in my third year of my residency at Linden Falls Hospital.”

“Which department?”

“Emergency.”

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