Page 22 of Remember Me

I bit the text off in the middle of my sentence as I contemplated Hayes’s motives. He said he loved me. Would he continue to love me, though, if I never returned to previous me? Could I give him everything that was in me, and take that risk? What if I did? What if I fell in love with him all over again — not too farfetched, considering I’d already done so once, right? What if I did, and then he decided I wasn’t the person he loved, after all?

Attractive Guy from Smokey’s:you there?

Me:He’s worried I might decide to do this parenting thing without him.

Attractive Guy from Smokey’s: parenting?

Me: I’m kind of pregnant

Attractive Guy from Smokey’s:no shit

Was a response tono shittypically required?

While I was deciding on the etiquette of doing so, the phone rang. Levi was calling. “Hello, Attractive Guy from Smokey’s.”

His low chuckle filled my ear before he grew serious. “So…obviously you just learned you were pregnant after your accident?”

I sat up, playing with the blanket across my lap. “I’m assuming. I have no way of knowing if I knew beforehand. I hadn’t told Hayes, and it’s still early days, so it’s entirely possible I found out at the same time he did — in the hospital.”

“That’s…mind-blowing and kind of fucked up.”

I released a shaky breath. “It really is. I’m still struggling to wrap my head around it.” For a few minutes neither of us spoke. I could hear keys tapping in the background, and the sound of music turned down low. “Anyway. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I really needed someone that didn’t know me, if that makes sense.” I shook my head and rested my forehead on my palm, even though he couldn’t see me. “Of course, it doesn’t make sense. I don’t even know what I’m trying to say.”

“It makes sense. And no apology needed. You didn’t know me. That’s a lot to blurt out to a stranger.”

“And yet I’m doing exactly that.”

“Why did you tell me? I’m glad you did, don’t get me wrong.”

“It just felt like the right thing to do.” I climbed out of the bed and walked over to the window, pulling the curtain to the side and peering down into the yard. “If you’re going to be my friend, you need to know what kind of baggage you’re dealing with.”

“Friends, huh?”

“Is that okay? I can’t really be anything more, Levi. Not right now, maybe not ever. I’m about to get really big and unsexy, and I have no idea what I’m doing with Hayes. On the one hand I feel like there’s something he’s not telling me. But on the other, I feel like I at least owe it to him to figure it out.”

“One, I happen to find pregnant women very sexy —”

I gasped. “You deviant!” I grinned, knowing he was humoring me but enjoying it all the same.

“And two, as much as I think I like you, I think that’s the right thing to do. I’d be all kinds of torn up if something like this happened with my fiancé and baby mama.”

“Thanks, Levi.”

“Anytime,friend.”

I hung up, feeling better about things than I had in a while. It helped to have a completely objective, outside opinion.

Turning off the light, I snuggled back under my blankets and closed my eyes. I’d give him a shot before moving on. A decent, fair shot.

That’s what I owed him.

“Lay down your roots now,

let them wrap tight around mine,

sink deep in the soil”

Tyler Knott Gregson