Page 119 of The Cost of Forgetting You

A knock on the door shatters the silence cocooning me, and I jump, sucking in a breath through my teeth. “Yeah?”

The door cracks open, and Truett peers inside. As soon as I see him, that tightness in my chest melts away.

“I brought lunch.” He grins. “You didn’t answer, so I got you a shrimp sandwich. Hope that’s okay?”

“You didn’t have to get me anything.”

My stomach growls in disagreement. I clamp a hand over it. He steps into the room, chuckling, and slides an arm around my waist. His nose dips into the space where my neck slopes into my shoulder, and he inhales deeply.

“I didn’t have to. I wanted to.” His lips brush against my skin, which breaks out in goose bumps. “Whatcha looking at?”

I hold out the note for him to read. It only takes seconds before he’s letting out a breathy laugh, something like nostalgia softening his features.

“What?” I ask.

“That’s my mom’s handwriting.”

I glance at the page again. That nagging sense of familiarity suddenly clicks into place, and I see it so clearly, our parents as they must’ve been twenty-something years ago, scrawling notes to each other on torn notebook paper.

He reaches for the stack and removes another page, filled with more of the same. “Where did you get these?”

I point to the box on the ground. “It was in the stuff from the school.”

“Were they passing notes at work?”

“No.” I shake my head, glancing back at the note in my hand. “He talks about his dad being mad about his grades. They were kids.”

Truett laughs, a warm smile illuminating his face. “That’s cute.”

“Cute? I didn’t even know they knew each other back then.”

His smile falters. Gray eyes widen, opening up so I can see them clearly. “You still haven’t talked to your dad, have you?”

“No, I—” I catch my bottom lip with my teeth and roll it. “I guess I’ve been scared.”

“Scared of what?”

I shrug, letting my hand fall to my side, note still clasped tight. “Scared I’ll upset him. Or myself.” My gaze roves his face, taking in the sun-darkened freckles on his nose and the split in his lip where he bit it too hard. What’s new, and what’s always been there. Though it all feels familiar just the same. “For years I told myself it was this one-time ordeal. But what if it’s worse? What if everything I believe about my life is a lie?”

“You believed me wanting you was a lie.” He smirks, but it’s soft at the edges. “Look how much better the truth turned out to be.”

My responding laugh is harsh. Fragmented.

He catches my chin between his thumb and forefinger, holding my gaze. It’s unnerving to be seen like this. Up close and personal, and completely out of control. When you’re the one taking care of things, you get the benefit of standing back. Holding it all at arm’s length. Letting someone in, letting them take a bit of that burden from you… It also means letting them close enough to see you clearly. Trusting them not to run when they do.

His gaze dances from eye to eye. He clicks his tongue like what he finds there breaks his heart.

“I’m not gonna pretend that I know everything that happened between them, but I do know this.” He leans forward and brushes his lips over mine, soft as a whisper. “There’s a lot to be learned from it. A lot we could do differently, to spare ourselves the heartache our parents endured. It’s not a bad past, Delilah. Just a past. We’ve all got ’em.”

I rise up on the tide of him pulling away, stealing one more painfully gentle kiss before he’s standing upright, out of reach.

“Now, there’s a shrimp sandwich out there with your name on it, but if we linger here any longer, your dad might eat it and his both. He’s in a feisty mood today.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Feisty?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry. We’re gonna channel that energy into something productive.”

The intensity of our conversation slowly leaks from my bones, and I relax into him, my worry momentarily forgotten. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

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