Page 48 of Remember Me

Page List Listen Audio Download Book

Font:

that it's a first sight

at all.”

Tyler Knott Gregson

December 12¦Birdie

MY PHONE TAUNTED ME FROM THE SPOT WHEREI’D LAID IT ON THE COUNTER.After this weekend, I’d half expected Hayes to call or text when he went to work.Aside from that, I really wanted to ask him about his cryptic list.

When I woke up this morning, though, there was nothing. He had risen early without waking me and the house was still and lonely.After our stairwell encounter on Saturday, he’d made himself scarce. I didn’t understand it and had no idea where he’d disappeared to. He’d kissed the hell out of me and then ran, as if he was afraid I would if he didn’t.

I was dying to tell him I’d remembered something last night. I was still marveling over how the memory had just been there, like it had never been absent, when I awoke. With no one to celebrate my victory, a feeling of dullness crept over me.

As I brewed the cup of morning tea I’d taken to drinking in lieu of coffee — decaf, ugh — I picked up my phone and unlocked it, flipping idly through the generic phone apps that came pre-installed. It might as well belong to anyone. There was nothing about it to indicate that it was mine, and while technically I knew I needed to personalize it, the anonymity of it was frustrating.

I was ready to bemeagain.

A glance at the time revealed plenty of time before I needed to be anywhere. I should be able to access previous usage information, right? I seemed to remember getting a new phone before, the guy in the cellular store updating it for me so it retained all of my contacts, texts, apps, and photos. After a quick google session, I knew how to do what I needed to and it seemed fairly simple. The only difficulty would be remembering my password.

I opened a browser to sign into my iCloud account, closed my eyes at the login prompt, and tried to empty my mind. Opening my eyes, I typed the first email that came to mind. I had no idea if it was current, or from when I was in high school. At least it was a Gmail and not an AOL account…that had to be a good sign.

I did the same with my password, entering my old dog’s name and numbers corresponding to my birthday.

Incorrect password.Damnit.

I tried a couple of other possibilities before giving up and resetting my password, which was relatively simple given that the program sent a code to my device to verify identity and then allowed me to pick something different.

Once I was logged in, the process of updating the device with a recent backup was easy peasy lemon squeezy, and I set the phone on the counter to finish the process while I went upstairs to shower.

The back-up was finished by the time I finished getting dressed. I opened up the text messages, which because of the backup dated back a few weeks. For some inexplicable reason, I held my breath as I scrolled down. The most recent was from Remi, a meme of a vaguely familiar man saying ‘hey, girl’.

There was a string from Mom, mostly about picking up some milk for her and her plans to move and work for her brother. It made me feel better to know that we had talked about this, that I had known.

There were dozens from Hayes. It didn’t look like I had ever bothered to clear out our text history. I scrolled back a ways to read them in order, discovering a little glimmer ofusin all the words between us.

The earliest one, in particular, had a smile creeping across my face.

Hayes: Thinking about you