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1171 Words
“I don’t remember you.”
His Adam’s apple rose and fell as he studied me. “I’m going to call James. He needs…”
“You can’t.” I grabbed his arm and took a deep breath. “Please, you can’t. I don’t want to go back to New York. I can’t go back there.”
“Penny…”
“I don’t love him. I’m not…I can’t. Please don’t make me go back to him.”
He studied me for a moment, like he was trying to determine if I was telling the truth. “Okay.”
I locked eyes with him. “Okay? You’ll give me the money?”
“No, I’m not giving you money to flee to California. You can stay with me.”
I stared at him. He had light brown hair. Not dirty blonde, but close. Age changed people. And he wasn’t really looking at me like just a friend. He was looking at me like he truly cared. Like maybe at one point we were something more than just friends. Tyler. This had to be him. I breathed a sigh of relief. I could trust him. I knew it. I could feel it in my bones.
Sometimes fate had a funny way of working out. It made me get back onto I-95. It made me come to Newark. It made me walk around campus for just the right amount of time, because then I ran into him. Maybe this was my second chance at doing things right. Tyler had clearly been the right choice for me all along. Melissa had even said so. Now I got to fix everything.
“Do you promise you won’t call James?” I asked.
“We can discuss that once you get settled in.”
“I’m not coming with you unless you promise.” I knew I was being juvenile. But I had bit back the pinky swear promise line from coming out of my mouth.
“Fine. I promise I won’t call your husband. If that’s really what you want, Penny. But you have to tell me what’s going on. Are you in some sort of trouble? After everything that happened, I never imagined you’d run off by yourself. Isn’t the man that hurt you still out there?”
I don’t know. My stomach growled. I hadn’t eaten since I had picked at my dinner with James. “I’ll tell you everything if you buy me lunch.”
He laughed. “I’ll do you one better. I’ll cook us something.”
He was handsome and could cook? Why had I not chosen him all those years ago? I was clearly messed up in the head. Who knew that losing my memory was the only way to set me straight?
Saturday
“So you really don’t remember anything?” he asked.
I took another bite of steak and shrugged. “Nope. Nothing. And honestly, I think it’s for the best. That whole life seemed…stifling. I couldn’t bear to be there for another second. That’s why I left.”
“And you came here. It’s where you and James met. Do you think you were drawn here because of that?”
“No, not at all. I came here because being on campus was the last thing I remembered. I think a small part of me thought everything would go back to normal if I came here. But obviously I was wrong. There was also the issue of not having any money. And of course I stole a car with less than half a tank of gas. It’s pretty much empty right now. Which is why I asked to borrow money from you.”
“But you can’t seriously be willing to leave your family. Let me take you back home.”
“God, they might technically be my family, but they don’t feel like my family. What if I made a mistake all those years ago? What if I was never supposed to marry James? I feel like I’ve been given a second chance at the life I want.”
“And what kind of life is it that you want?”
“I don’t know…” I let my voice trail off as I looked around the apartment. “This is nice.”
He laughed. “This is the life you gave up to move to New York.”
“And I think I made a mistake.”
“Then just tell James that. I’m sure he’d be willing to move back here. He never sold his apartment.”
“He didn’t?” Maybe I could stay there. It wasn’t the independent life I wanted, but it would give me some time to get back on my feet. And there was no reason for him to look there for me. He didn’t know where I was. “Well, I could stay there instead of here then. Where is it?”
“Top floor.”
“Of this apartment building?”
“Yup.”
“Interesting.”
He smiled. “And why is that?”
“You just don’t look like the type of person that would like the same kind of apartment as James Hunter.”
“I do alright for myself, Penny.”
“That’s not what I meant. I mean, obviously you do.” I gestured around the apartment. When I lived on campus, these apartments were being sold for millions. They were most certainly not intended for students. “I just mean you look more…real.”
“I don’t know whether that’s a compliment or an insult.” He leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on the table. It was just further proof that I was right. James would probably never get caught dead with his elbows on the table.
“It’s definitely a compliment.”
He shook his head. “James is probably worried sick about you. I think I should give him a call.”
“You promised you wouldn’t.”
“Well…I didn’t pinky promise.”
I laughed. “You know, I thought about asking you to do that, but stopped myself because it seemed so childish. But that’s the problem. I don’t feel like a grown up.” Besides for the fact that I get tired more easily. It must have been a symptom of old age that I wasn’t used to. I touched my stomach. It was significantly less bloated than it had been in the hospital, but it definitely wasn’t back to normal. And then there were the unexplained scars. I wanted to know what had happened to me. “You do pretty well for yourself, right?”
He looked taken aback by the change of topic. “I do.”
“Okay, here’s the new agreement. I’ll let you call James and tell him I was here. If you take me to see a doctor. And if you give me…$500 and a 12 hour head start before you call him.” I stuck out my hand.
- Writer
