I hung my head. “For me. That’s what everyone keeps saying.”
“We love you, Remi. We all lost you in one way or another. Some of us more than once. We just wanted you back, and when you lost your memory, it was our shot. I have to say, it’s been hard since the crash. I struggle a lot. But having you here again… It doesn’t feel like I’m suffocating.”
My eyes popped open as a thought struck me. “Why were you on the plane? I mean…if we weren’t on good terms. Bowen told me he’d gone to get Sally—I mean, me—from a treatment facility. But why were you there? And why was I sitting next to Bowen when the flight log said you were in the seat beside me?”
“You called me. It was totally out of the blue. You hadn’t spoken to me in over a month, but you wanted to come home. And you asked me to come get you.” His lips curled in a sad smile. “Thirty minutes later, I had two plane tickets and Bowen pounding on my front door. He was pissed. I didn’t know he’d already told you that you had to stay, and quite honestly, I didn’t care.” Copying my gesture, he rocked into me, bumping me with his shoulder. “If you needed me, I was on my way. Bowen bought a ticket on the same flight. Fought me every step of the way. The minute he laid eyes on you, he caved too. Hated himself for it, but love is a real bitch like that.”
“So you guys switched seats,” I filled in for him.
“Yep. Three of the twenty-seven luckiest seats on that aircraft.”
With a sigh, I leaned into his side. “I’m just so confused.”
“That’s fair.” He tossed his arm around my shoulders and pulled me in tightly. “Everything we did. Every lie we told. It was because we wanted you back. Things were beyond awful. I’m talking I’d prepared a dozen times for a phone call telling me you were gone.” His voice broke as he trailed off.
“I read my medical records.”
He sucked in a sharp breath. “Did they…ya know…bring back any memories or anything?”
“No. But it made me realize I lost far more than eleven months of my life. I don’t even know who I am anymore. Life is measured in experiences. Good and bad. And while, yes, I can see now how you guys thought you were helping me, it doesn’t excuse what you did. You stole time from a person who had already lost so much. Instead of eleven months, now there’s almost two years of my life where I can’t sort fiction from reality.”
It hurt. All of it.
The fact that I’d dealt with something so traumatic.
The fact that I’d sunk into a pit of grief and self-destruction.
The fact that I’d dragged the people I loved most down with me.
The fact that they’d felt they’d had to lie to save me.
The fact that I’d believed them so completely I’d never allowed there to be a moment of doubt in what they told me.
But most of all, the fact that I had no idea how to go about trusting them ever again.
After rising from the bed, I walked to my hotel room door. “You should go.”
“Remi, come on. Please don’t do this.”
I shook my head and opened the door. “I have to do this on my own. Whatever that entails.”
He started to object again, but I lifted a hand to silence him.
“It’s not up for debate. You owe me that much.”
Aaron winced, but we both knew I was right. He stood up, found his phone on the floor, and slowly meandered to the door. He paused before stepping into the hall. “If you need anything…and I mean anything, Remi. I’m here.”
“Thanks. Now, get out of here. Oh, and stop tracking my phone. Pass that along to Mark too.”
He smiled, sad and hopeless.
And I returned it, broken and lost.
Where I went from there, I had no idea. There was still so much to process. But if I’d learned anything, I was the only person I could truly count on from here on out.
Bowen
“I’m going to lose my mind if you don’t stop cleaning,” I mumbled from the couch. With my eyes closed, I pinched the bridge of my nose, wishing like hell I could stop my head from pounding.
Cassidy continued to swirl around my kitchen, sing-songing, “A house can never be too clean.”
In the three days since Remi had taken off, my insane family had once again taken up residence inside my ass. Tyson had spent each night on my couch, Cassidy took to babysitting me during the days, and my parents were in charge of bringing dinner every afternoon. It was the tag team trifecta from hell. There was no point in trying to get rid of them though. I could rage against them all I wanted, but there was no denying I was a fucking wreck.
