Say You'll Remember Me(82)

I started digging in my purse for makeup wipes. I would be glad when all this was over. It made me remember how much my extended family annoyed me.

Xavier looked at his phone. “My Uber’s almost here.”

I froze with my hands in my bag. “I thought I was driving you.”

“You should stay with your family. You’d only get an extra half an hour with me.”

“But I wanted the half an hour.”

He sat down and scooted in to put his lips to my ear. “I don’t think your sister is doing well. I think your family needs you to stay and get them home.”

I looked over at Jeneva. She was staring at a wall with red eyes while my uncle Roman on Dad’s side was talking to the side of her face. She looked mentally checked out. As checked out as Dad was. And probably a little drunk too.

Xavier was right. I should stay with them. But I hated losing even thirty minutes.

“I already said goodbye to everyone.” Xavier nodded to the door. “Walk me out front?”

I took a steadying breath. Then I handed my purse to my brother. “Here. Find the wipes, save our mother.”

I slipped my heels back on and walked with Xavier through the restaurant. I felt like I was walking him to the plank. Neither of us wanted him to go.

It was dark outside. The freeway hummed somewhere off in the distance.

While we stood in front of the entrance he dug in his pocket. “Here.”

“What’s this?”

“New earbuds.”

I gave him a look. “Xavier…”

“You need them. I already programmed them to your phone. Please don’t eat them.”

I snorted. “Thank you.”

“Of course. I made you a playlist.”

I smiled. “You did?”

“Yeah. I’ll text you the link.”

“How many times is ‘Come On Eileen’ on there?” I asked.

“Not even once.”

I laughed tiredly and wrapped my arms around him and let him hold me.

“I’ll do everything I can to get here in February,” he whispered. “I’ll work overnights every weekend if I have to.”

I pulled away to look at him. “Xavier, no. Please take care of yourself.”

“Me getting back here is me taking care of myself.”

We peered at each other. Me, begging him with my eyes not to leave and him giving me his contemplative gaze.

“What are you thinking about when you look at me like that?” I asked.

“Lots of things,” he said quietly.

“Like?”

He regarded me with those crystal-blue eyes. “I’m thinking that I’m in love with you.”

The words were so unexpected, I lost my breath.

“Xavier…”

“You don’t have to say it back. I just didn’t want to lie.”

“But… but you’ve always looked at me like that,” I said.

“I know. I’ve always loved you,” he said simply. “I think I couldn’t forget you because I remember you from a different lifetime. And I loved you then too.”

I had to clutch a hand over my heart.

His Uber drove up behind him. He leaned down and gave me a kiss. When he pulled away I peered up at him. “I love you too.”

He held my gaze for a long moment, something pained on his face. Then he let me go and left me. Again.

Love or no, it was still just my name on that list.





37





XAVIER


LEAVING WAS DIFFERENT today. Standing on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant kissing her goodbye felt like having a panic attack.

My soul took root every time I came there. It dug down and anchored me and I’d stayed so long this time I’d had to tear myself in half to leave. Being two thousand miles away was unnatural. It went against every instinct I had.

She needed me. I loved her and she needed me.

But I couldn’t take another day away. Hank had already covered for me so I could stay for the funeral. He couldn’t do two days in a row. I hadn’t even given him a walk-through of the clinic before I left. I’d just run out of there when Samantha called about her grandmother. We’d been closed the week after Christmas—I’d planned to go to the cabin, but I ended up in California instead. Now I had to get back. So I picked the latest flight I could find to give me as much time with Samantha and I left.

I had no choice but to go home.

Correction. To go to Minnesota.

Because home was where she was. Minnesota was just where I worked now. Even with the guys there, it felt like a place I was tethered to by obligation.

For all the effort it took to get to where I was in life, to have the things I had—my own clinic, a staff, people who relied on me, the giant middle finger all this sent to my parents—a very real part of me wished I’d never done any of it because the things I owned now owned me. I could never walk away from it now without it ruining my life.

Even though going back to it without her felt like the same thing.





38





SAMANTHA


WE CAME INTO the house in our black suits and black dresses in black moods. No color today for anyone. Not even gray.