Page 97 of Promise Me

I shrug and step to move around her, but she stops me.

“Answer me.”

I take a deep breath and look down into her eyes.

“I told you. I wanted a way to say thank you, and I also didn’t want you to feel like you missed those years.”

“Why?”

“Sadie,” I warn.

“Just tell me. Tell me why you still let me live here. Tell me why you wanted me by your side when you went back to the ice rink. Tell me why you go to the store and buy food you hate just because you know I like it. And tell me why you would close your bar just to have a party for me that included maybe twenty people. Tell me, because?—”

“Because I want you, Sadie,” I snap. She steps back as my breathing increases. “I want you with me at all times. I want you here when I wake up, when I go to bed, when I come up for lunch to make a sandwich, when I walk to the gym, or when … hell, Sadie, I want you every single moment of the day that I breathe. Just you. You’re all I think about.”

My hands are all but shaking because she’s too far out of reach, and I’ve never once had an outburst like that. Seconds pass, and she doesn’t do more than look at me.

I step toward her.

“I’ve never … wanted anything oranyonethe way I want you. Not even hockey.”

Her hands drop to her sides. “I think I've made it clear what I want, and you’ve done nothing but tell me it can’t happen, so forgive me if I’m confused by your confession, Hudson.”

“I know.”

“So, give me the real reason you won’t take what you want. Not the shittyyour brother’s my best friendexcuse.”

The words are on my lips, but I can’t get them out.

She must feel my struggle, because Sadie moves until she’s right in front of me; her left hand caresses my face.

“You can tell me.”

“I’m afraid that if we start this, your memory will come back, and we’ll never get to see how it ends.”

She doesn’t respond right away, and I can’t decipher the expression in her eyes … I want to read them. I want to know her so deeply that I always know what she’s thinking or feeling before she says it. I want to know her better than anyone ever before, but fuck, losing her would be my undoing.

“I think it’s safe to say that my memory of who we used to be isn’t coming back.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

She shakes her head. “No, I suppose I don’t.”

The room falls so eerily quiet that, even though you can hear a car idling outside or the flap of the bars sign in the wind, our breathing seems to be louder.

“Hudson.”

“Yes?”

“All those things you said a moment ago, I want those, too, and I’m aware of the risk. But what if my memory doesn’t come back? Then what? We wasted all this time we could have been happy together because of fear. I don’t want to do that. I just want you.”

I try to back away from her, but she keeps a hold of me and pulls me closer.

“Please don’t,” she begs. “Please.”

“Sadie,” I whisper as she rests her forehead on mine. “If we do this, I need you to do something for me.”

“Okay,” she says softly. “What is it?”

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