“You trimmed his beard?” Rory laughed, locking the door to the deck.
“Yes. Another secret you have to keep. I did it once before too, but he wanted everyone else to think he’d done it so he didn’t look incapable of doing it. You know how he can be.”
“Yeah, but he got his cast off. Why did he need you to do it again?” Rose’s eyebrows peaked with too much curiosity.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. He asked. I had nothing else to do, so I did it. You know, some guys get their beards trimmed professionally. Maybe it’s easier for him to let someone else do it. Maybe the cast is off but his arm has lost some muscle and it needs to build up strength again. Maybe he was just using me because he’s too lazy to do it himself.”
“That was nice of you, sweetie.” Rory kissed my head and shuffled down the hallway. “I’m going to bed, ladies. Shut off the lights.”
Rose slowly closed her computer.
“Night.” I tried to make the same quick escape that Rory made.
“Reese,” Rose said.
No escape for me.
“Yes?” I turned slowly, already deflated from the speech she hadn’t yet given me but knew it was coming.
“Is there something to tell?”
I promised I would tell Rory if the day came that there was something to tell.
“Not yet.”
Her head tilted to the side. “Are you sure?”
After several seconds, I nodded slowly, but I couldn’t hide what she saw on my face—worry and fear.
“Night.” I sulked to my bedroom and shut the door. As I sat on the end of my bed, my door opened slowly. Rose squeezed through the partially opened door and softly closed it behind her.
I blinked and the tears escaped. “I love him,” I whispered as Rose kneeled in front of me, resting her hands on my legs.
“Does he love you?”
I nodded.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Rose didn’t ask me how I knew; she simply gave me several slow nods, tiny crevices of concern etched into her forehead.
“Do you think he loves Angie?”
I wiped my face and sniffled. “I don’t know. I think he cares about her. But he doesn’t love her like he loves me.”
“And if he gets his memory back, will he love her the way he loves you?”
A billion … times infinity.
“No,” I whispered like it wasn’t my brain answering her. It was my soul whispering its truth.
That seemed to bring out an additional dose of worry. Rose looked at me like I was in love with a movie star. An infatuation that had gone too far. “How can you say that?” she whispered.
“Because what we have is effortless. It just … happens. What we have doesn’t care if it’s right or wrong. It doesn’t care about timing. It doesn’t care about age. And it doesn’t need memories to live or survive. Fisher doesn’t have to remember that he loves me. It’s simply that he does, whether he makes a conscious choice to do it or not. I think he loved Angie because he’d convinced himself it made sense. And if his memory comes back, I think he’s going to realize that, and then he’s going to realize it no longer makes sense.”
Rose shook her head, gaze pointed at the floor, at my feet.
“I know you’re Team Angie. It’s fine. She’s great. If I wasn’t heart and soul in love with Fisher, I’d be Team Angie too,” I said with a little defeat to my voice.