Page 34 of Never Forget
"Okay." She stepped closer, her hand finding my arm. "What is it?"
I took a breath. This was it. Three months of putting it off, and I was finally going to say it.
A horn honked outside.
"That's them!" Amber's head turned toward the window. "Can we talk about this when I get back?"
Every damn time.
She rose on her toes and kissed my cheek, then wrapped her arms around me in a quick hug. "I'll call you when I land."
And then she was gone. The door closed behind her, and I stood there in the silence of my own apartment, listening to the car pull away.
I walked to the couch and dropped onto it. Leaned my head back against the cushion and stared at the ceiling.
A week. Amber was going to be back in a week. We could have the conversation then.
CHAPTER 8
Jamie
Megan's kitchen smelled like garlic bread and something tomato-based simmering on the stove. The boys were at school, Danny was off-shift, and for the first time since the funeral, I felt like I could breathe.
Megan had grown up with three brothers. She used to tell me she'd prayed for a little sister every night until the day my mother brought me home from the hospital. Then she marched next door and offered to babysit.
She was seven. Our mothers laughed about it for years.
But my mom was happy for the help, and Megan's mother and Loretta were happy to supervise. Megan held me while my mother showered. Helped with diapers and bottles. Sat beside my crib and read picture books out loud to an infant who couldn't understand a word. By the time I was old enough to walk, she'd already decided I was hers.
I was more than happy to fill the role. My mother was wonderful, but there's something different about an older girl who lets you sit on her bed while she does her makeup, who paints your nails and tells you about boys and treats your problems like they matter. Megan was fourteen when I wasseven. By the time I was old enough to understand what love looked like, she and Danny had already been together for years.
I used to watch them together. At neighborhood cookouts, across the fence, through my bedroom window when he'd pull up in his truck to pick her up for a date. The way he looked at her. The way she pretended to be annoyed by him and couldn't hide her smile. I remember thinkingthat's what I want. Someday, I want someone to look at me like that.
All these years later, nothing had changed. Danny still looked at her that way. And Megan still pretended to be annoyed by it, rolling her eyes when he refilled her water glass without being asked, swatting his arm when he kissed her temple on his way to the fridge.
"Stop it," she said. "We have company."
"She's not company. She's Jamie."
I laughed. It felt strange in my throat, rusty from disuse. "He's got a point."
Megan pointed her fork at me. "Don't encourage him."
The pasta was good. The conversation was easy. We talked about her boys, about how the older one was turning into a teenager overnight and the younger one had discovered a passion for building elaborate Lego structures and then refusing to let anyone touch them. We talked about my job, about the series that had just been syndicated, about the life I'd built in New York.
Megan nodded. Then her expression softened. "How are you holding up? Really?"
"I'm okay."
"I know you are." She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. "But you don't have to be. Not here."
Something loosened in my chest. I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.
"I miss him," I said. "Every day. I wake up and for a second I forget, and then I remember, and it's like losing him all over again."
Megan nodded. She didn't try to fix it or soften it. She just held my hand and let the words exist.
"You could always count on him," Danny said quietly.
