Page 186 of Rewind It Back

“Thank you.” The words come out like a breath of relief because that’s exactly how I feel. “Thank you for coming to talk to her, Hallie. You have no idea how much that means to me.”

Or rather she does know and that’s why she did it.

Hallie’s expression softens as she puts a hand on either side of my face, thumbs running gentle strokes against my skin. “I’d do anything for you, Rio.” Her eyes bounce between mine. “Anything.”

“I think you meant to say, ‘I’d do anything for you,baby.’”

She playfully rolls her eyes as I take the last two steps to meet her. Picking her up, I carry her the rest of the way to my childhood bedroom where I don’t put her back on her feet until we’re inside, with the door closed behind us.

Hallie immediately takes herself on a tour, as if she hasn’t been in here a million times before. It hasn’t changed since I last lived here in high school. My walls are still covered in Boston Bobcats memorabilia. My closet is still filled with clothes I haven’t fit into since I was a teenager.

She rifles through the closet before finding one of my old team hoodies, slipping it off the hanger and pulling it over her body.

Leaning back on my door, I watch her.

It feels like déjà vu without one specific memory to tie it to. Her in my childhood room, wearing my high school team sweatshirt. Shit, just her being in Boston again feels nostalgic.

Where it all started.

I spent six years missing a huge piece of who I am because that’s how integral she is in my life. That’s how embedded she is in the fabric that makes meme. I’ve heard the claim that you don’t know what you’ve got until you’ve lost it, but I knew what I had. It made losing us that much more unbearable.

Those six years were their own kind of torture, and it would’ve made it a hell of a lot easier to go through if I knew this was the outcome. Me and her, for good.

I’d rewind and relive every goddamn moment.

Hallie continues her tour of my childhood bedroom while I cross to the window to check the roof. As I had hoped, it’s clear.

“It’s almost midnight,” I remind her, sliding it open.

She looks at me over her shoulder. “Are you trying to say it’s almost my birthday?”

“Meet me on the roof?”

Her smile is tender as she crosses the room to me, carefully climbing out the window. Once I’m sure she’s steady on her feet, I grab a blanket off my old bed and follow her out.

It’s a crescent moon tonight, but it’s big and bright, and feels impossibly close. It always had a way of showing off on these nights, lighting the roof enough that we could see one another. It does the same tonight as we move to the center point of the roof on instinct, regardless that Hallie no longer lives in the house that connects to this one.

I follow her gaze when her attention snags on the window of her old bedroom.

“Does it feel strange to be back here?” I ask her gently.

She shakes her head. “It feels good. A little sad because I miss that time in my life, but these nights were always my favorite memories.”

“Want to make another one?”

With my hand that’s not holding the blanket, I offer to help her sit, but when she slips her hand into mine, she takes a step closer to me, staying on her feet.

Looking up, her eyes bounce between mine before she exhales the words as if desperately needing to get them off her chest. “I told your mom that I love you.”

I can’t help the smile that slowly slides across my lips, or the way the skin around my eyes creases at the corners.

Fuck, that feels good to hear.

Of course, I already knew that Hallie loved me, but the words sound like music to my ears after not having the privilege of hearing them for six years. Like a form of music that I wish actuallywasa song, just so I could add it to our playlist.

I slide my hand along her lower back, pulling her into me. “You don’t think you should’ve told me before you told my mom?”

Hallie chuckles, picking up on the connection to the first time we said those words to each other, when I told Luke that I loved his sister before I told her.

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