Page 68 of Forget Me Not

“You represent something, something Cooper needs and Gun thinks he can’t give her, and they both wanted her to have it.” She taps her index finger thoughtfully on the rim on her mug. “The question is, of course, what does Cooper represent for you?”

“Really? My turn to be psycho-analyzed now?” I tease. “I thought we established I was normal.”

“You’ve got amnesia and weird habits of lurking outside doors with your fists swinging in the air.” The corner of her mouth twitches with amusement. “You can hardly claim to be normal.”

“Guess it’s a good thing you’re not into normal then.”

“Guess so.”

Her eyes positively sparkle and I’m certain she’s doing more than psycho-analyzing me. She’s seeing straight past all my attempts at reclaiming the person I’ve been told I used to be to who I am. The person I think I’m finally ready to be.

Cooper

“I really don’t think this is necessary,” I continue to argue as the nurse straps the sleeve of her sphygmomanometer around my arm preparing to measure my blood pressure.

“You fainted. In my kitchen.” Mags is standing against the flimsy curtain separating us from the next poor soul stuck here in the ER alongside me.

“So, what?! I faint when I get overwhelmed. Used to happen all the time,” I reason.

“You used to faint to punish yourself, not from stress. God, kid. A bit of therapy would do you a world of good.” Mags comes to stand beside me as soon as the nurse steps away. “And even if you were hit with a surge of self-loathing this morning, it still doesn’t explain the puking.”

“Um, the bowl of chocolate you force-fed me for dinner might.” I watch the nurse out of the corner of my eye for any signs I’m winning her over with my rational self-diagnosis. She seems disinterested however. “And what do you mean, I faint to punish myself?”

“Really? You never put that together?” Mags seems genuinely perplexed. “Gun had to remove all your closet doors for years to keep you from sitting in the dark anytime you felt like you did something bad. Kind of just makes sense you sought out a ‘closet’ Gun couldn’t keep you from.”

“Ugh. No more Gun talk,” I groan. I can’t. I don’t want to talk about him anymore. I want to talktohim. And I will. Just as soon as I figure out what to say.

“The doctor will be in to see you as soon as he can,” the nurse announces abruptly. She’s not much for chit chat that one.

Mags wastes no time in pulling the nurse’s stool over to sit down next to me. “So, is that it? You still beating yourself up over the mess with Reed and Gun?”

I shrug. “Not as much as I was. Mostly, I’m just trying not to think anything for the time being. Figured if I just let it all simmer for a bit, the important shit would float to the top, you know?”

“Anything surface yet?”

I screw up my face to let her know just how annoying I find her constant need to press the issue. And then I answer anyway. “Yeah. Gun. He always surfaces.” I drop my head sideways and glare at her satisfied smirk. “But you knew that already.”

“Duh.” She claps both hands onto her knees. “What I don’t know is what you’re going to do about it.”

“What can I do?” I can hear the exasperation in my own voice. “Even if he was willing to try one more time, what would stop us from ending up in the same damn place again?”

“Because you have more long lost boyfriend’s struggling with a bout of amnesia who are likely to show up on your doorstep and want you back?”

I scowl, glowering at her. “You’re a real jackass.”

“Says the girl who can’t get out of her own damn way long enough to reach the only guy she’s ever wanted.”

I could scream. Instead, I make a subdued screechy sound only Mags can hear, but which can definitely be interpreted as having the same purpose as a scream. “I’m not the problem. I thought I was. All this time, I thought it was me. But it’s not. I can run after him all I want. I’m never going to catch up with him unless he stops to be caught. And he won’t. For whatever reason, that’s not what he wants from me. Never has been.”

“Wrong.” Mags shakes her head. “That’s not what he wantsforyou. There’s a difference.”

I take a deep breath. I feel nauseous again.

The curtain pulls back revealing a balding man with glasses wearing teal scrubs. “Miss Cooper? Good news. We’ve determined the cause of your fainting.” He glances at the chart in his hand then back at me, smiling. “Congratulations. You’re pregnant.”

Chapter Twenty

Gun

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