Page 74 of The Do-Over
He looked at her, surprised. Since the accident, he had initiated physical contact with her without thinking about it too many times. It felt like something he was still allowed to do, so it came naturally. But only rarely had she reached out to him.
Maybe last night had changed things.
He had to admit, he hoped it had.
One of the worst parts of all of this had been the discovery that he and Thea had fallen apart. He hadn’t wanted to manipulate the situation, but he very much wanted her back in his life.
But now that the roads were cleared, he was a little afraid she might be on the verge of kicking him out of her house. That she might tell him to call a friend to come pick him up and take him back to Chicago.
He didn’t want that, for several reasons.
First of all, there was comfort in the fact that Thea was the only one who knew about his accident. No one else knew that he had lost his memory, and that was a good thing, as far as Rob was concerned. Even if he called a friend to take him home, it would mean confessing to that friend that he had no memory of them.
It would be frightening, too, to be in an unfamiliar city surrounded by people he didn’t know, trying to piece his life back together. Doing it here with Thea, who had some familiarity about her—that was different. He wanted to stay with her if he could.
But it wasn’t just because of his lack of memory.
He also didn’t want to be away from her because he loved her.
He had no idea whether or not she felt the same way. But last night had made things abundantly clear to him. Being with Thea again had returned all his memories of what it felt like to be close with her, and now he couldn’t understand how he had ever convinced himself to walk away from her.
I should have come up with a different solution. No matter how bad things were with Dad, it wasn’t worth losing her.
What would he do if she told him she was ready for him to go home? He couldn’t stand to lose her again. It would break his heart.
But she had reached out to him.
He turned his hand beneath hers and held it. He felt her stiffen slightly, as if she was questioning the impulse to take his hand in the first place, but he held on.
“I don’t think I can do it,” he admitted, looking her in the eyes.
She relaxed a little. “Of course you can,” she said. “Of course you can do it. I know you can.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“You’re Rob Honeycutt.” She grinned. “You’ve always been able to do everything you tried. I don’t think I ever saw you struggle with something in all the time we knew each other.”
“I’m struggling now.” It was strange how hard that was to admit.
Her attempt at a smile turned into a sympathetic expression. “I know,” she said. “But Rob, just look at the things you’ve done.”
“It’s like they happened to someone else. I’m going to feel like a fake standing up there and being honored for this stuff.”
“It wasn’t someone else, though,” she said. “It was you. I know you can’t remember these things happening, but they did happen.”
She reached out and took his other hand. Then she held both of his hands up between the two of them.
“You’ve saved lives with these hands,” she said softly. “I know you don’t remember it. I know you couldn’t do it again right now, that you feel like you’ve lost those skills.”
“I have lost them.”
“Maybe you have. But that doesn’t change the fact that it was you, Rob. You saved the lives of the airmen under your care. And you should be honored for that. Do you think those men—those men who are alive today because of you—do you think they care that you don’t remember how you did it?”
“They probably don’t,” Rob admitted.
“Of course they don’t,” Thea said. “They care that they had a wonderful doctor by their side when they needed you most. They care that they get to go on living their lives because of the things you were able to do. That’s why you’re being honored. Not for anything you might do in the future, but for the things you’ve done in the past. And even though you’re dealing with this memory loss, those things are still real. They’re still a part of your story.”
“You don’t think I have an obligation to tell the truth about my memory loss?”
