Page 26 of If You Stayed

I nodded. “I do miss the friendship.”

“And if you didn’t connect with him, would you regret it?”

“I think so, yes. For the rest of my life.”

“Then, if I were in your shoes…” He paused and sipped his coffee. “I’d be saying hello again to my old best friend.”

A wave of chills raced over me as the words left his mouth, because that was exactly what I thought, too. I thought if I didn’t take the chance to connect with Gabriel and see if he really didn’t recall everything that went down between us, I’d regret it for the rest of my life. Because if I had the chance to see him, to see the old version of him that I’d missed for so long, I’d take it.

“Thanks, Joseph,” I said, hopping off the countertop.

“Mm-hmm, but you know what I’d also do?” he asked.

“What’s that?”

“I’d tell my husband all about the situation and make sure you both were on the same page.”

I grumbled. “Yeah. I figured you’d say that.”

Good advice—I just wasn’t certain I was ready to talk to Henry about it.

During my lunch break, just to make sure I had all sides covered, I called my best friend, Rosie, to update her on the situation. Getting her point of view would be very helpful, since she’d known both Gabriel and me since high school. Plus, Rosie seemed to live in a state of delusion that I sometimes needed instead of Joseph’s realistic mind.

Rosie and I met at a restaurant between both of our jobs.Unlike Joseph’s, Rosie’s reaction was a bit more animated.

“Oh my gosh, you’re kidding me!” she gasped as I sat across from her in our booth. She slammed her hands down on the wooden table and her blue eyes all but bugged out of her head. Her strawberry-blond hair danced across her shoulder blades as she remained in complete and utter shock.

She’d changed her hair since I’d last seen her. Which was only last Tuesday. We’d been meeting up each week for the past two months to plan her upcoming wedding to her fiancé, Wesley—the one individual who made my fiercely independent friend who didn’t believe in relationships believe in love and marriage.

The older Rosie grew, the more she looked like her mother, a very beautiful Asian woman who had straight black hair. Ever since Rosie had been a kid, she’d liked to dye her hair to look less like her parents. It drove them wild.

“Like,yourGabriel?” she questioned.

“He’s not exactly mine, but yes. Him.”

“Oh my goodness.” She sat back in the booth, flabbergasted. “And he still doesn’t have his memories?”

“Nope.”

“So…he doesn’t recall you two falling in love?”

“Nope.”

“He doesn’t recall you atall?”

“Not at all.”

“But…everything you shared together…” Her hands fell to her chest, over her heart. “You were everything to him, Kierra. You and Elijah.”

Just hearing Elijah’s name out loud made my eyes fill withtears.

I glanced down at the tattoo sitting on my wrist. A trail of penguin, toad, and bear footprints trailing up my arm. A daily reminder of my past with Gabriel and little Elijah. A daily reminder of what used to be, and what would never return again.

I blinked and my mind took me back there. I blinked and I could feel the chill of that cold December night.

“Don’t worry, boys,” I shouted. “I’ll drive.”

“Kierra…” Rosie reached across the table and placed a hand against my forearm, bringing me back to reality. “This is a lot.” She was teary-eyed as she held my arm. If anyone knew how deep the cuts of the accident were, it was Rosie. She was the one who was there for me throughout that whole period. She was the one who held me as I wailed into the night. She was the one who told me everything would be okay, even when I knew for a fact that that would never be true again.

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