Of course she did. My family was amazing. It still felt like there was a sinkhole under my house, swallowing me inch by inch. But it was nice to know I wouldn’t be devoured by the Earth alone.
“Tyson threw scissors first, didn’t he?”
“Yep. Scissors, then rock, then scissors again. He has no idea he does it, but it’s how I’ve gone undefeated for fifteen straight years. Just like Mom always puts the short straw in the center. And Dad will forever pick his old football number, twenty-seven. At this point, the only person I haven’t managed to predict is you. Luckily, we haven’t had to face off in a while. So my streak continues.”
I smiled, and because she wasn’t wrong about any of it, it gave me a solid ten-second reprieve that felt like a gasp of air to a drowning man.
Tossing my arm around her shoulder, I pulled her against my side. “Thanks for being here.”
“Anytime. My only two jobs as your big sister are to give you hell relentlessly and to kick the living shit out of anyone else who tries to do the same. I’m not sure where today falls into those categories, but after Tyson told me about the shit they pulled on you in your hospital room, I’ve got my eye set on Mark and Aaron.”
I chuckled. “Aaron’s been through a lot, so he gets a pass. Though you’re welcome to take a swing at Mark anytime.”
She gave me a curt nod. “I’ll see what I can do.”
My attention snapped up when the hospital doors slid open. As if they’d heard us talking, Mark and Aaron walked out pushing a cart nearly toppling over with plants. I’d sent her flowers three separate times. First, red tulips, her favorite. Then, a few days later, roses—the yellow ones like I’d given her on our first official date. Then, not even two days earlier, I’d sent her a massive bouquet of hydrangeas, blue like the ones she’d planted in my backyard the day I’d installed the swinging bed she’d begged for on the porch. For obvious reasons, I hadn’t put a card on any of them, but I’d been so damn confident she’d know they were from me all the same.
Given our current situation, she hadn’t, and from what I could tell, none of my subtle reminders were anywhere in sight on the cart of greenery.
I didn’t have much time to harp on it before Jack came walking out the doors, a giant smile stretching his face.
And then there she was.
Same blond hair I’d had to wash and dry for her after her multiple suicide attempts.
Same blue eyes I’d seen filled with tears too many times.
Same mouth that wept almost continuously and would forever haunt my dreams.
But as a nurse pushed her out in a wheelchair, every part of her was different.
She was a different person.
Her hair was pulled back in a braid, wild and playful just like my Sally.
Her eyes were bright and filled with life.
And that mouth, the one I’d thought I would spend a lifetime kissing, was spread wide and carefree.
One glance and I understood exactly why Jack had been on cloud nine for the last few weeks. She wasn’t just back to her old self. She was her old self, as if nothing had ever happened.
It was the miracle I’d prayed for on a damn near daily basis when we had been in the thick of her darkness.
My heart leapt into my throat as I stared. She was still bruised, her arms in casts, but that smile… That fucking smile owned me in ways time could never change, beamed like the brightest ray of the sunshine.
She stumbled as she stood up from the wheelchair, and I had to fight the urge to lurch toward her so I could catch her before she ever had the chance to fall. It was what I did for Sally. What I had always done.
Nevertheless, I stood frozen, in awe as the beautiful ghost before me laughed melodically. The sound glided across my skin, dredging up my favorite memories.
Watching When Harry Met Sally together for the very first time.
Her burning my grilled cheese after lying to me about how she could cook.
The night she told me she loved me, a whole week after we’d met.
“Sorry. I’ve always been a klutz,” she told the nurse as Jack hooked his arm around his daughter’s hips.
That wasn’t completely true. It was hard to be called a klutz when she’d gone entire weeks without getting out of bed. That was the woman she’d become after the kidnapping. So broken and filled with pain. That version of her was nothing more than a whisper of the woman I’d fallen in love with—the woman who had now somehow reemerged from the dead. And I was standing there like a Goddamn emotional terrorist hoping for her to see me. Hoping the sight of me would trigger her memories just so I could stop hurting.
What the fucking fuck was wrong with me?
Her gaze lifted my way, and I almost trampled Cassidy in my frenzy to duck behind the column.
“What are you doing?” Cassidy hissed.
“Damn it, I don’t know,” I groaned, sinking to my ass. A tsunami of agony washed over me, but fucking hell, how many times had I sworn to her the exact words, “I would take this all away from you if I could, babe”? And now, at the first chance to make that impossibility a reality, I was fighting with her friends and family to give all the misery back to her.
Fuck. That.
She’d been through enough.
She’d been through enough ten times over.
It would kill me. It would be the hardest thing I ever had to do. But I loved that woman so damn much that somehow, someway, I was going to have to figure out how to let her go.
I could hear her talking to Mark and Aaron. Jealousy blistered my skin as the three of them laughed. Cassidy sat down on the ground beside me as I buried my face in my hands and wished I could block out the sounds of happiness on the other side of the column as much as I wished I could absorb them.
Both were impossible. Just like moving on with my life without her would be.
After what felt like a lifetime, I heard a car door shut, slicing their voices into silence.
And then she was gone.
Again.
Pain seared through me, as if every single bone in my body had been crushed, because I was certain, this time, Sally—Remi, my soulmate—was never coming back.
Bowen
“Bowen?” Remi called, not bothering to knock and pleasing me to no end that we’d reached that level of casual comfort.
My head snapped up from the red pepper I was slicing, my brows drawn as I looked at my watch. She was fifteen minutes early, which for Remi was actually half an hour ahead of schedule, which also meant there was a good chance the Earth had fallen off its axis.
Regardless, I called out, “In here, babe. Dogs are outside.”
I smiled as she walked through the living room, her blond hair adorably disheveled and her teal fitted dress wrinkled in the front.
“Rough day? What happened?” I asked.
“Half a bottle of wine, an orgasm, and a credit card.”
She’d been there three seconds and my eyebrows were getting a full workout as they shot up my forehead. “I’m sorry. What?”
“Less talking and more helping me hide the evidence.”
I dropped the knife onto the cutting board and made my way around the counter to her. “You do know the whole bank heist thing before our first date was a joke, right?”
“Of course. Nerds never fare well in prison.”