Page 63 of The Do-Over
ROB
“Are you up for a walk tonight?” Thea asked.
“Through the snow?”
“I’ve got some boots you can wear.”
Rob laughed. “I’m not going to fit in your boots.”
“They’re not mine,” she said, grinning. “Carlo keeps a pair here. You can wear his.”
Rob hesitated. “If we go out for a walk, though,” he said, “people are going to recognize me. Aren’t they? You said people knew who I was.”
“They might,” Thea admitted.
“Well, then they’ll try to talk to me,” Rob said. “They’ll ask me about things I don’t remember. I don’t want that.”
Thea nodded thoughtfully. “That’s reasonable. What if we disguise you?”
“Disguise me?” He frowned. “What did you have in mind?”
“Nothing drastic. It’s cold out anyway, so it makes sense for you to bundle up. We’ll wear ski caps and scarves. Nobody will know it’s you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, and honestly, we’re not even likely to see anyone. Who’s going to be out in this weather?”
Rob nodded. “I guess you’re probably right about that.”
“Come on,” Thea said. “I’ll get you the boots.”
“Why are we going for a walk, anyway?” he asked, following Thea to the closet. “I thought you said we were going to do more work on my memory tonight.”
“That’s what this is,” she said. “Your memories of senior year are intact up to a point, but they’re spotty. You don’t remember leaving for college, right?”
“No.”
“So I thought that maybe seeing some familiar sights would help with that. Kind of like when we looked at the basketball pictures and you had that breakthrough about your coach in college. Maybe you’ll see something that will bring back an old memory.”
Rob nodded. “It’s worth a shot,” he said.
They bundled up. Thea wound the scarf around Rob’s neck for him, and he noticed that there was something different in her touch. When she’d taken him out of the car, she had been distant and clinical. But now as she adjusted the scarf it felt familiar. It felt the way it had when they had been together.
But it isn’t that way, he told himself firmly. She’s a nurse. That’s all this is. She’s compassionate by nature and she always has been, and now it’s her job. It doesn’t mean she loves me. It just means she’s good at what she does.
He stepped away from her. It was too difficult to be close to her. Whatever had happened between them, Rob had no memory of it, and so it felt right to touch her. It felt natural to pull her close and kiss her.
And he couldn’t.
He saw something pass across her face, something he couldn’t identify. Regret?
Then she turned away from him. “Let’s go,” she said.
I wonder what made her end things with me.He knew it must have happened that way. He had loved Thea. She’d been the one bright spot in his life. He wouldn’t have ended things with her.
He couldn’t ask that, though, so he just followed her out the door.
The snow was deep. It was a good thing the boots Thea had loaned him reached almost to his knees, because if they had been any shorter, his feet would have been getting wet. “It’s going to be hard to walk in this,” he said.
