Page 28 of Until You Found Me

He does leave, snagging another cookie on his way out, and then she’s alone once more, watching his retreating form and cursing herself for making everything weird with the only person who gives a shit about her.

* * *

‘Tessa?’

She grabs the radio off the side table with the swiftness of a snake catching its prey. “I’m here. What’s up?”

‘Just…I dunno, checking in before I hit the bed. Thanks for those cookies today.’

“Thanks for encouraging me to make them. You were right. I’m glad I did. My stomach isn’t so glad I ate a half dozen, though.”

‘Good. Not about the stomach ache but the rest of it. That’s good.’ He pauses and the line crackles. ‘You, ah, you looked likeyou wanted to say something before I left.’

She sighs, wishing he hadn’t read her so well. “I can’t stop thinking about her. Worrying about her. Wondering where she is right now. It feels different now that I know she’s a she, it feels like I know her even though I still don’t. I can’t…”

‘Can’t what?’

“I know that I love her, but I can’t feel it yet. I feel guilty about that. I shouldn’t have forgotten at all that I love her. It’s such a strange thing, Logan. I dunno what to do with that.”

On the radio, her thoughts flow like a river, overcoming the struggle she faces in person.

‘You know you love her because even amnesia can’t erase it. It only proves how strong it is. You’ll feel it again when we find her. When you remember.’

“You keep saying we,” she half whispers.

‘I can stop.’

“No. No, don’t stop. I like it. When I woke up from that nightmare, the first thing I wanted to do was pick up the radio.”

‘You could have.’

“And wake you at the crack of dawn? That would be rude.”

‘You can wake me.’

“It’s not just for emergencies?”

‘Think we left that rule in the dust already.’

“Maybe I will next time then. If there is a next time. Good night, Logan.”

‘Night.’

She puts the radio down and lifts her shirt to reveal the scar running lengthwise across her belly. Her touch lingers there as if trying to resurrect the person she can’t remember.

“Who are you?” she whispers. “Where are you?”

Chapter 7

‘Logan?’

Startled awake, his attention darts around the darkened room, looking for someone who isn’t there. For a moment, he assumes it’s Lydia coming back to haunt him like a ghost of bad boyfriend’s past. It isn’t her, though. She’s long gone, and he breathes a sigh of relief until the source of the voice makes itself known and he realizes that it’s Tessa on the radio.

‘Are you there? I know it’s late, I’m sorry.’

“I’m here. What wrong? You okay?”

‘Yes. No. I don’t know. I had another nightmare, and I pushed the button on this thing before thinking, but I shouldn’t have.’

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