Page 55 of Remember Me

“I needed to. You don’t understand because you don’t remember. I know what it feels like to think I’ve lost you.” His voice was thick and his face so close to mine. I could feel his breath on my forehead, see his throat move when he swallowed. “I can’t go through that again, Birdie. I need to know you’re okay.”

I pressed my fingers to the hollow of his throat, mesmerized by the play of skin there. “I’m okay.” I raised my gaze to his. “I-I’m… I’m not going anywhere, Hayes.”

He stared at me for an eternal minute before he lowered his lips to mine and kissed me, deep and slow. I wound my arms around his neck and yielded to the movement of his mouth on mine, loving the ache of arousal deep in my core. He liked my tongue stud, I could tell, his own tongue returning to it time and again. I wondered if I had gotten it for him.

I lost track of time while we kissed, but all too soon he pulled away from me and stood, setting me on my feet. “I need a shower,” he muttered, striding to the door. “Why don’t you put on something pretty? Let’s go out to dinner.”

Bemused, I nodded. Dinner it would be.

“I am filled with wonderings, questions and doubt,

but of one thing I am certain: it will always be you

that gives flight to the butterflies inside me…”

Tyler Knott Gregson

December 14¦Birdie

THE SIGN’S SURFACE TAUNTED ME.I’d been staring at it for the past half-hour, hoping it would give me a hint.What do you want me to write?I asked silently, tracing my fingers over the smooth surface.What are you supposed to be?

It remained stubbornly silent, more interested, perhaps, in the Spotify playlist I’d found. Maggie had let me know that I could start producing more signs any time I felt up to it. With the holiday season, the ones in stock were flying off the shelves. So here I was, parked in front of a piece of wood and begging for enlightenment. I’d seen my other signs. They were beautiful. Professional, yet handmade. Where did I come by my ideas? What if I couldn’t repeat my efforts?

I heaved a sigh and stirred my fingers through the small basket of scraps I’d seen the last time I’d been in here. This was a start, but there had to be more. I looked around my studio for inspiration. Low shelves skirted the room’s perimeter, leaving space on the upper halves of the walls open for a bulletin board and a photo collage. The shelves were mostly empty, a few filled with random books and crafting tools that I didn’t fully recognize; the others waiting for the contents of the boxes that were stacked here and there. Most were open, as though I’d hunted down whatever I needed in that moment and left the rest for another time.

It was strange to see the disorder. I was starting to see that I was typically quite particular about putting things where they belonged. Everything had its place. I always placed my toothbrush in a special cup on the right hand side of my sink. My hairbrush and everything else went on the left, and never the twain did meet.

Rising from my workstation, I picked a box at random and started poking through it.

It looked like nothing more than marketing textbooks. Why hadn’t I sold those back to the bookstore? So not helpful. I shoved that box aside and pulled another to me. A glance revealed that it was stacks of vinyl albums. “I like vinyl?” I picked one at random. Conway Twitty. I pulled another loose. Patsy Cline? “I likecountryon vinyl.” I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised. We did live in Tennessee.

“Classic country.” My head jerked up and I saw Hayes standing in the doorway. “What are you doing?”

I tucked the album back in the box. “I’m searching for inspiration,” I said on a sigh. “Maggie’s going to need new signs pretty soon and I have no clue what to put on them.”

“You had a book… it ought to be around here somewhere. You carried it with you everywhere. We’d be watching a movie, and something would catch your attention. You’d whip that thing out, start scribbling.” He went to my workstation and started pushing things around.

My inner neat freak cringed, and I stood up, pushing him gently with my hip. “Let me.”

I riffled carefully through the several stacks of paper, books, and wooden flats, until I spied a small notebook covered in llama-patterned fabric. “Is this it?”

“That’s the one.”

Opening it, I discovered pages full of neatly printed quotations, arranged in tabbed sections by category. “Oh, wow. Jackpot.” I flipped through, eagerness making my fingers catch on the pages.

I found myself laughing out loud at a two-sign set reading “dat beard” and “dat ass.” There were those I recognized as standards. “It is well with my soul.” “Home Sweet Home.” “This is Us.” Then there were those that weren’t familiar, and yet sent a flush of feeling through me. “Live by the Sun. Love by the Moon.” C.S. Lewis and Jane Austen quotes. And then I found it.

“I do not know

if I

will ever be

complete,

but I know

whatever I am,

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