Page 121 of Help Me Remember
“You won’t lose me, Brielle. Even if you walk away, I will always be here. I’m warning you now, I am going to marry you. You are going to be mine in every damn way.”
Yes! I want to scream. I want that more than anything, but I think I’ve always been his anyway. I have just been waiting for him to want to be mine.
Our lips touch in the sweetest, purest kiss that has ever happened. “I think maybe you’re right.”
“About what?” he asks, brushing my hair back.
“I think it’s time we talk about telling everyone. I don’t want to love you in the dark anymore.”
“Oh, sweetheart, that never happened with us. You are the light, I just held you in the shadow.”
I rest my forehead to his. “So, we make a plan to tell Isaac and Addy?”
“Yes, but not now. Right now, I want to make love”—he kisses me—“all. Night. Long.”
Tears leak from my eyes as my heart feels all of that moment again. I love him. I have always loved him and he loves me. Enough that he was willing to do anything to help me, even at his own pain.
And now he’s gone.
What have I done?
ChapterThirty
BRIELLE
After a night full of regrets, I came to the one place that has always been soothing to me—the beach.
It was a hike, but Quinn never complained. Now I’m walking along the shoreline, the water lapping over my toes before retreating back into the sea.
Sometimes I feel as though this is how my memory is. It comes ashore, ready to meet the land, and then runs back.
I called Dr. Girardo this morning and our session was very hard for me. I am grappling with fragments of reality mixing with dreams, and I keep having these flashbacks that feel so real. We discussed how to tell them apart. He helped me realize that when all my senses are engaged, then the memory is that—a memory. When I can only see from the outside or I can’t feel anything, then it’s most likely a mixture or fragment.
That means that what I remembered last night was real.
What I saw that day I was standing in Spencer’s bedroom was real.
I stop, tilt my face toward the sun, and close my eyes. It’s so peaceful here, and for a moment, I can believe that everything will work out. The sun will rise, the tides will ebb, and anything that I’ve broken can be repaired.
As I turn, a loud bang rings out, and I drop to the sand, my hands over my head as I struggle to breathe.
“I guess we’re getting coffee?” I ask my brother as he pulls into RosieBeans.
Isaac grins. “I thought you’d never offer.”
I didn’t offer, but I know my brother well enough not to push it. He did pick me up early to take me to work, so the least I can do is get him coffee. It’s so weird how, in the last few days, everything has changed.
I’m engaged.
I’m getting married to the most amazing man, and I haven’t told the best man I know.
Tomorrow is the big day. Spencer will pick me up, and we will go to dinner and tell them. Then we’ll let the rest of the rejects know. I really hope it goes well. I don’t want fists thrown, but I guess we would deserve it at this point.
Isaac is telling me about some new play he wants to run as we head to the front of the car when someone yells at us.
“I’m going to fucking kill you!” Bill Waugh yells as he storms toward us.
Oh, God. He looks pissed off, which means his wife told him about my visit yesterday.
