“What? Why?”
“I didn’t understand how you could just cut us out like that. It was so easy. Like we were nothing to you.” I take her left hand in mine, and my throat goes thick as I study her bare ring finger. “I never expected you to pick me. I never assumed you would. But I also never thought I’d lose you completely. Then I almost did.” My chest is tight when I add, “Twice. Once when you were in the hospital, and again when you shut us out.”
“I didn’t remember Jackson Harbor at all until I talked to you yesterday. Now, I only remember a little. And even that . . . just pieces I don’t really understand.”
“And you don’t think that would have been nice to tell me?”
“My mom told me I was mixed up with bad people. She believes the worst about my life there, so I believed the worst too. I was scared.”
“Of me?”
“No. Not you specifically. Of the life I can’t remember.” She drops her gaze to the ground. “We were . . . having an affair? Was I cheating on my fiancé?”
“Hell no.” Shit. I just kissed her, and she doesn’t remember enough to understand why I’d do that. So why the hell did she let me? “You two were broken up when you and I . . . You don’t remember me?”
“Only enough to know you were important.” She glances toward the house where Ava disappeared before meeting my eyes again. She presses her hand to her chest. “It’s not a memory so much as something I feel. Does that make sense?”
I swallow hard. “Yeah. It does.” The draw I’ve felt toward Ellie has been there since the night we met. It’s elemental. But before this moment, I never had a reason to suspect it might be the same for her, but I can’t even enjoy the revelation that it was because it doesn’t change that she doesn’t want anything to do with us. With me.
“What was I to you?” she asks.
“We were friends.” I draw in a ragged breath. “And then, for a few days, we were something more. It was over pretty quickly.”
“But yesterday you said you never stopped loving me.”
“Also true,” I whisper. “Come home. I’ll answer any questions you have. I’ll help you remember. If you’re scared, I’ll protect you.”
She shakes her head. “I only came to say goodbye.”
The words are a blade coming right at my heart, but I dodge them. “You’re out of luck.”
“Why?”
“I can’t say goodbye to you. I won’t do it.”
“Levi . . .”
I pull her into my arms and hold her tightly. Everything’s so fucked up. I’m not sure it would be fair to ask anything of her even if she did remember. She’s been through too much. But amnesia? That complicates things even more. “I’ll give you anything else you want. But you can’t have my goodbye.”
Ellie
Tuesday, October 23rd
“Aunt Ellie, put your phone down and color with me,” Phoebe says. She’s spread out on the middle of my bedroom floor with a giant box of crayons and half a dozen coloring books. She plopped down here when she got home from school an hour ago and hasn’t shown any interest in leaving—not that I mind. The kid is awesome, from her skinned knees to the pink tips of her blond hair. She begged her mom to dye the ends last weekend. I may have done my part to convince my reluctant sister.
I toss my phone to the side and join her on the floor. Levi and Ava haven’t contacted me since they left town on Sunday morning, and while that’s what I asked of them, I keep checking my phone anyway. I didn’t realize how lonely I was in Dyer until I saw evidence of the friends I had in Jackson Harbor. I didn’t realize my life there was worth missing until I felt it when I looked at Levi.
“Color this one,” Phoebe says, sliding a Disney princess coloring book in front of me. “But make sure you only use pink and purple for their dresses. Last time, you used green on a dress, and I hate green. It’s a boy color.”
I roll my eyes but obediently grab a pink crayon. “There’s no such thing as boy colors and girl colors. Just colors girls statistically like better, and colors boys statistically like better.”
She scowls at me. “Yeah, but that’s harder to say, and it pretty much means the same thing.”
I laugh. “Can’t argue with you there, kid.”
I start coloring. Phoebe is the cutest six-year-old I’ve ever met in my life, and she’s hands-down the best part of living at my mom’s house. She’s happy all the time, adores her family, and is so smart it blows my mind. I’m positive I wasn’t reading when I started kindergarten, but I’ve listened to this kid tackle literary classics like Junie B. Jones: Toothless Wonder. She makes me proud.
“Ellie, Detective Huxley is here. He’s from Jackson Harbor Police Department,” Mom calls up the stairs. “He wants to talk to you for a bit.”
Has something happened? Have they found Colton?
“Is he your boyfriend?” Phoebe asks.
“Nope. Just a nice man who’s looking out for me.” I grin at her, hoping she doesn’t see through my smile to my nerves. Taking my time to gather my courage, I return my crayon to the box, kiss my niece, and head for the stairs.
When I reach the landing by the front door, Mom is leading the Jackson Harbor detective into the house. Another detective took a report before I left the hospital in Chicago—not that I was much help—so I’m not sure why this guy is here now. Maybe they’ve found Colton and need to take my statement so they can prosecute him.
“Hello, Ellie.” The detective extends a hand, and I shake it. “Good to see you.” He has dark hair, intense eyes, and the kind of stiff posture I associate with law enforcement officers and military men.
“Nice to meet you.”
He blinks at me, then shakes his head. “I read the doctor’s reports, but . . . You don’t remember me at all?”
I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I don’t.”
He shifts awkwardly, then pulls his badge from his back pocket and flashes it for me. “I’m Detective Ben Huxley, Jackson Harbor PD.”
“Welcome,” Mom says. “Please, come in.” She waves into the house and leads us to the dining room, where we all sit and share the awkward silence of strangers.
“I’ll be recording this conversation.” He positions a small black device in the center of the old table.
“Sure,” I say.
“Anything to help,” Mom adds.
“I bet you’re glad to be home,” the detective says to me.
I nod. “No one likes to be in the hospital.”
“It’s good to see you doing so well,” he says. “We were all so worried.”
I study his face, wondering if he means that or if it’s just a nice thing to say. He seems so sincere. “Were we . . . friends?” Engaged to an addict and friends with a cop? That doesn’t add up.
He grimaces. “You helped me buy my house.”
“Right. I worked in real estate in Jackson Harbor.” I nod. “Mom told me that. Do you like it? The house, I mean? Did I do a good job?”
He smiles, but I can see the worry in his eyes. It’s the same look on my sister’s face when she mentions some current event from the past few years, and I don’t get the reference. “Yeah, it’s great. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?”
“Like I told the other detective at the hospital,” Mom says, “her memory isn’t—”
“I know. I just need to go through these questions anyway. We never know when something will shake loose.”
Mom nods, and the detective turns his attention to me. “Ellie, tell me about your relationship with Colton McKinley.”
I blink at him. “Wasn’t he my fiancé?”
The detective arches a brow, waiting.
“I’m told he was my fiancé and the father of my child. The child I . . . lost.”
“How did you meet Colton?”
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“When was the last time you talked to him?”