Was one fucking day to catch our breaths too much to ask for?
Tyson patted my leg. “Listen, she’s young and strong. She’ll be okay.”
Okay was such a relative term. Only weeks earlier, we’d been in the hospital after she’d tried to kill herself for the third time. Did that constitute as okay too just because she’d survived? What about all the months before that when the woman I’d fallen in love with was barely recognizable, so filled with fear and pain? Was that the goal? To go back to that? Because quite honestly, it wasn’t the world I wanted her to wake up in.
Though, as long as she woke up, I’d take whatever version of Remi I could get. No matter what the universe threw at us, I would never give up on that woman. We were a team. Through and through. We hadn’t gotten married yet, but I’d already vowed for better or worse a hundred times over.
I didn’t need perfection in our lives. I just needed her.
I sighed, scrubbing a hand over my face to dry the tears. Now was not the time to be defeated or wallow in the injustices of a cruel world.
People had died—a lot of innocent people had died.
But Sally was alive, and so was I. We could figure out the rest later.
The knots in my stomach tightened when a thought struck me. “Aaron?”
“He’s fine, honey,” my mom answered immediately. “He was very lucky and walked away with nothing more than a few stitches.”
“Oh, thank God,” I groaned.
Aaron was a good guy who had become a good friend, but as awful as it was, my relief was purely selfish. No matter how bad things had gotten between Remi and Aaron, losing him would have been another hurdle she couldn’t handle.
“I have to see her,” I declared.
Tyson tossed me a warm smile. “You will. As soon as we can get you out of here, I’ll take you there myself. But until then, you have to concentrate on healing yourself. She’s going to need you, Bowen.”
Who knew whether he was right or not. I’d attempted to help her for over nine months, failing at every turn. The hits just kept coming.
But the only thing I knew for sure was that I’d never stop trying.
Not for my Sally.
Not for Remi.
Not for us.
Bowen
As I stood in my living room, pissed off beyond all reason, my cheekbone throbbed from the fist Mark had landed on my face. I was going to end up with a nice bruise and plenty of swelling, but I was all out of fucks to give from the entire interaction. He could be mad and call me every insult in the book, but there was no changing my mind.
“I’m not leaving her. We’re done here.”
Aaron’s eyes nervously flashed between us.
“The fuck we are!” Mark boomed, his hulking body flexing beneath his Rusty Nail T-shirt. “What the hell is wrong with you? She’ll remember. Have you even stopped to think what that will mean for her? You’re essentially sentencing her to a life of darkness and misery all over again. Move the fuck on! She isn’t the only woman in the world, Bowen.”
“She is to me,” I shot right back.
“Oh, fuck you. Don’t feed me that shit.”
I took long strides toward him, my rage igniting all over again. “I don’t have to feed you anything. This is none of your Goddamn business. You want to tell her the truth? Fine, I can’t stop you. But you know good and damn well I would never do anything to hurt her. She came to me. She’s falling in love with me. She doesn’t remember, but maybe she doesn’t have to.” I stabbed a hand into the top of my hair, my heart pounding in my chest as the memories of the past ravaged me. “What if we can have it all? I told her about everything that happened to Sally and—”
“You what!” Aaron exploded.
“Jesus Christ.” Mark dropped his head back and stared at the ceiling.
“She’s fine,” I declared. “She doesn’t have the emotional trauma to connect to the experience anymore. I told her about it, she thought it was sad and cried, and then we moved on. If we play our cards right, we can give her back the memories slowly so, when she does remember, her mind will have had time to process them without the trauma of it all overtaking her.”
“I’m sorry,” Aaron smarted. “I seem to have missed the part where you earned a medical degree.”
“This isn’t about medicine or doctors. All the therapists and prescriptions in the world weren’t enough to save her. This is about Remi. Come on. Think about it. Nobody on this Earth knows her better than the three of us. When she came back after she was kidnapped, we weren’t prepared for the fallout. She faked smiles and told us she was fine, all the while spiraling down into her own private hell. By the time we really figured out how bad she was, it was too late. But this time, it could be different. We know what to look for, and God willing, we can stop it before it consumes her. This is our second chance.”
“You’ve lost your damn mind,” Mark whispered.
“Maybe, but that happened a long fucking time ago. The first time I’d thought I’d lost her. The second time. The third. The fourth. Not even to count the morning I woke up, knowing the love of my life was only a few miles away but gone all the same.” I stabbed a finger in his direction. “I always said if she remembered me, there was nothing that could keep me away. She’s in there, Mark. She doesn’t realize it yet, but she’s in there. We aren’t talking about if she remembers anymore, it’s all about when. And I don’t know about you, but I can’t just sit around and wait to see how it shakes out. I’m going to be here for her. The way it always should have been.”
“I agree,” Aaron interjected, stealing my attention.
Mark turned a murderous gaze onto his friend. “The fuck you do!”
“Trust me. Nobody wants her to remember less than I do.” He shook his head, shame filling his face. “We’re all trying to protect her. But that’s where our role ends. She wanted him before she was kidnapped. She wanted him after. For fuck’s sake, she was going to marry him. And with absolutely no memory of the life she had with him, she’s trying to build a new one. We don’t get a say in this.”
A victorious grin split my face.
Mark stared at him as if he’d suddenly grown two heads, but deep down, he knew, with Aaron on board, his argument no longer held any weight.
He could hate me for the rest of my life, but as long as I had Remi, I wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep over it.
Clearing my throat, I walked past them to the door, which was still wide open. “Good. Now that it’s settled, you have to get the fuck out of here. Remi should be here soon, and I need to start dinner. Heads up, it’s safe to assume she won’t be home tonight—or any night in the foreseeable future.” I was finished putting other people’s feelings ahead of my own when it came to the woman I loved—the only woman I’d ever loved. If that came across as curt or selfish, I didn’t care.
“Are you gonna ask her to move in?” Aaron asked cautiously.
I filled my lungs with oxygen, waiting for them to burn before exhaling. Moving in was where it had all started falling off the tracks before. If anything was going to trigger her memories, it would be that. But despite our relationship moving at lightning speed, we weren’t there yet. Not this time.