Page 123 of Inception

That wasn’t the answer I was expecting. I looked up at him and found him studying me curiously. “Remember what?”

“The first time we met.”

“In History class?” I remembered it vividly but what did that have to do with anything?

“That wasn’t the first time.” He licked his lips, still watching me with that guarded expression. “I was the one who took Tessa to see you...at the hospital.”

“Oh.”Oh. My. God. I pulled my hand away.

He saw me while I was in the hospital? While I was sedated and blitzed out of my mind, ranting and raving about vampire attacks and who knows what else? How could I not remember this? How could I not rememberhim?

I felt naked, overexposed. “How many times did you...?”

“A few.”

“Can you be a little more specific?” I could feel my ears buzzing with heat though I wasn’t sure if it was from embarrassment or my mounting anger. “Did I speak to you? I mean, did I even know you were there or were you just observing me from a distance like some kind of caged animal at the zoo?”

“Jemma.” My name passed softly through his lips as he tried to reach for my hand again, but I pulled it away. “It isn’t what you think.”

“You don’tknowwhat I think.” I jumped up to my feet, overcome by the urge to move around. To jog. To run away. “How could you not tell me about this?”

“Because I thought you knew.” He was in front of me before I could blink, rerouting all my attention back to him. “Look, I’m sorry you don’t remember but it’s not like any of this was a secret. I took Tess to see you because she asked me to. And yeah, I saw you a couple of times, because I was there with her,” he added, his voice calm and sensible. “I wasn’t peeping through your window or hiding under your bed.”

Okay, fine, so he kind of had a point. I suppose it wasn’t his fault I didn’t remember or was too drugged to know the difference. And here I was thinking I’d gotten a fresh start in a new town where no one knew anything about me. He knew me. He knew from the moment I laid eyes on him that day in History class. He knew me even before then.

Maybe that was the pull I felt for him. Maybe my subconscious self remembered him all along and was just waiting for the rest of me to catch up.

And then something painful occurred to me. “Is that the reason you wanted to stay away from me?” I sat down on the edge of his bed and looked up at him, petrified to my core of what he would say next.

“Jemma.” He shook his head, a silent plea for me not to go there. The fear in his eyes alone made it impossible for me to refrain. I had to pry deeper. I needed to know the truth.

“That’s it, isn’t it? That’s the reason you wanted to stay away from me, isn’t it? Because I’m a total head case, right? Whatever, it’s totally fine, Trace. I just wish you would have told me the truth from the beginning. I would have understood. I would have accepted it.” While my words were full of certainty and courage, my eyes were stinging with tears I knew he could see. How idiotic I must have looked.

He let out an angry curse as he pushed both hands through his hair and sat down beside me. “I neverwantedto stay away from you,” he said, closing his eyes as though the weight of his words—of his secrets—were too much for him to bear. His thick dark lashes fanned over his eyes like a shield, distracting me with their splendor. “You don’t know what you’ve done to me, Jemma. What youdoto me.”

My insides knotted as his weary eyes met mine.

“From the first time I saw you, all I wanted to do was be near you. To get as close to you as I possibly could.”

Suddenly, I was very aware of our proximity—of how close we were sitting. And the bed we were sitting on. And the way his knee was pressed up next to mine. And my breathing. Oh God, my breathing.

“I’ve always wanted you, Jemma.” His deep voice thrummed through my body and sent a delicious tingle down my arms. “In spite of everything, I wanted you.”

“Well you had a funny way of showing it,” I murmured, breathless and dizzy from his confession. A confession that I had secretly longed to hear since the day I met him.

“I don’t want to stay away from you anymore. I'm tired of fighting it.” His fingers brushed against my cheek softly, feeling my skin, testing my response. “I don’t want to live in the past anymore, and I’m sick of worrying about the future. None of it is worth it if I can’t have this.” There was something hidden in his words. Something he wasn’t saying, or was saying, but I couldn’t concentrate when he looked at my lips that way. Like he wanted to taste them.

He leaned in closer—close enough that I could feel his warm breath feather across my lips. “And you want to know something else?”

I nodded, barely able to focus through the haze that had infiltrated my mind.

His mouth moved to my ear, drowning me in his heat. “I know you feel the same way about me.”

My breath hitched.

“I know you’re going toloveme someday.”

My inclination was to deny it and pull away from him but my body wasn’t having any part of it. I swayed towards him like a wanderer to its Northern Star, feeling lost and found all in the same breath. Every cell in my being was electrified under his touch, craving him like the analeptic I never knew I needed.

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