Page 52 of Meet Me on Christmas Eve

“Good,” he said, squeezing my hands gently. “I think … it sounds like you were as desperate to get in touch as I was. And I can’t—” he croaked and then cleared his throat. “I don’t know what to do with that info. What could’ve happened? A tech failure?”

I shook my head slowly. “That would only make sense if it were just one medium, but I swear, I was trying everything. Calls, SMS, email, social media. How unlikely is it that tech failures occurred with all of those technologies?”

“Andwe were connecting just fine before I left you,” he said thoughtfully. “We texted all the time when I stayed here.”

It was dim enough that he probably couldn’t see me blush, thankfully. “I remember. It made the laundry shifts less tedious.”

He didn’t smile, but for the first time since we came out here, I saw a hint of lightness in his expression. But then it disappeared. “OK, then … what could have happened?”

I shook my head, at a total loss. I wasn’t that tech savvy, but I was reasonably proficient with communication tools.

We were silent for a long time, both lost in thought. I didn’t even notice at first when his thumb started rubbing the back of my hands oh so gently. But then I did notice, and oh … I couldn’t think anymore.

Abruptly, he stood up and pulled me up with him and then led me over to where we’d sat before. “I have an idea. Let’s check our phones.”

I nodded. “Oh, good idea. Why don’t you try to call or text me? And I’ll try to email you.”

“Sure.”

“Oh, I suppose you need my number. I haven’t changed it, but you probably didn’t keep it—”

“I never deleted it,” he said, pinning me with a look that was hard to look away from.

“Oh.” I looked down at my phone. “I think I have your email too.” Suddenly feeling nervous, I wasn’t sure what to say in the email.I love you and I always have?Um, no.Get a hold of yourself, Mariana!I can just keep it simple. I sent an email with just the word “test” and then waited for him to write me a text.

We both looked up and waited … and waited. No notifications.

He frowned, as did I. I opened my phone to try to find the blocklist. When I did, I handed my phone to him. “Are any of these your numbers?”

He scanned over the short list. “Nope.” He showed his blocklist, which was considerably longer, but I didn’t see my number on it.

I leaned back in frustration and crossed my arms. “What the hell? How can this be?” Has my whole life been ruined by a freak technology fail? Well,whole lifesounds pretty dramatic. Surely that’s not—and the denial evaporated as my eyes landed on this man beside me, trying to figure out what had been keeping us apart. My heart soared just a bit, even as I tried to breathe steadily and remind myself we were just clearing things up from the past, not planning a future.

His brows were furrowed as he played with his phone some more. Then he looked up with a pensive expression. “I just remembered, around the time the resort vacation was ending, I was having some trouble with my phone. I can’t remember if it was the memory or storage or what. I think my dad and my sister helped me fix it.”

“That’s … interesting,” I said, feeling a pang of something that felt like a warning. Of what, I wasn’t sure. “What made you think of that?”

He leaned back and crossed his legs. “Oh, I was just thinking about how I’d lost our original text history, from when I stayed at the resort. I think they had to clear some space on my phone or something, I can’t remember. They were the more tech-savvy ones in the family.”

I felt like I was slowly waking up to something, but I wasn’t sure what. “You lost our original text history. Well, guess what? So did I. Poof, gone, same timing. I have no idea why. Nobody was using my phone or helping me fix anything. I was actually really heartbroken about it. How … how could this have happened to both of us?”

Oh my god, what if …

“Mariana, tell me this,” he said, sitting up abruptly and swiping on his phone to his Contacts list again. He handed it to me. “Is that your phone number?”

My eyes traveled downward from his face to the phone with something like reluctance because I suddenly knew what I’d find.

My voice was barely a whisper. “No.”

I was shaking as I found his contact info in my phone and presented it to him.

“Goddammit!” he thundered, suddenly jumping to his feet. “Not my number. This is no accident. Someone has screwed with us. Who the hell would—” The blood rained from his face then.

I didn’t even have to say anything.

“It couldn’t be her,” he said weakly. “She would never …”

“Then who else?” I asked.

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